¹King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon appointed Zedekiah, son of Josiah, to be king of Judah. Zedekiah succeeded Jehoiakin, son of Jehoiakim. ²But Zedekiah, his administrators, and the common people didn’t listen to what the Lord had spoken through the prophet Jeremiah.

³King Zedekiah sent Jehucal (son of Shelemiah) and the priest Zephaniah (son of Maaseiah) to the prophet Jeremiah. They asked him, “Please pray to the Lord our God for us.”

⁴Jeremiah was still free to come and go among the people. The people of Jerusalem hadn’t put him in prison yet. ⁵Pharaoh’s army had come from Egypt, and when the Babylonians who were blockading Jerusalem heard this news, they retreated from Jerusalem.

⁶The Lord spoke his word to the prophet Jeremiah. He said, ⁷“This is what the Lord God of Israel says: Say this to the king of Judah, who sent you to get advice from me: ‘Pharaoh’s army has come out to help you. But it will go back to Egypt, its own land. ⁸Then the Babylonians will return. They will attack the city, capture it, and burn it down.

⁹“ ‘This is what the Lord says: Don’t deceive yourselves by thinking that the Babylonians will leave you. They will not leave you. ¹⁰Even if you would defeat the entire Babylonian army so that they had only a few badly wounded men left in their tents, they would get up and burn down this city.’ ”

¹¹The Babylonian army had retreated from Jerusalem because Pharaoh’s army was coming. ¹²So Jeremiah wanted to leave Jerusalem and go to the territory of Benjamin to take possession of his property there among the people. ¹³But when he came to Benjamin Gate, the captain of the guard there, whose name was Irijah, son of Shelemiah and grandson of Hananiah, arrested the prophet Jeremiah. He said, “You’re deserting to the Babylonians!”

¹⁴Jeremiah answered, “That’s a lie! I’m not deserting to the Babylonians.” But Irijah wouldn’t listen to him. Irijah arrested Jeremiah and took him to the officials. ¹⁵The officials were so angry with Jeremiah that they beat him and put him in prison in the scribe Jonathan’s house, which had been turned into a prison. ¹⁶Jeremiah went into a prison cell, and he stayed there a long time.

¹⁷Then King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah, and the king asked him privately in the palace, “Is there any message from the Lord?”

Jeremiah answered, “Yes! There is a message from the Lord. You will be handed over to the king of Babylon.” ¹⁸Then Jeremiah asked King Zedekiah, “What crime have I committed against you, your administrators, or these people? Why have you put me in prison? ¹⁹Where are the prophets who told you that the king of Babylon wouldn’t attack you and this land? ²⁰But now, Your Majesty, please listen, and accept my plea for mercy. Don’t return me to the scribe Jonathan’s house, or I will die there.”

²¹King Zedekiah gave the command to have Jeremiah put in the courtyard of the prison. He gave him a loaf of bread every day from the bakers’ street until all the bread in the city was gone. So Jeremiah stayed in the courtyard of the prison.

38TH CHAPTER

Jeremiah Is Thrown into a Muddy Cistern

¹Shephatiah (son of Mattan), Gedaliah (son of Pashhur), Jucal (son of Shelemiah), and Pashhur (son of Malchiah) heard that Jeremiah was speaking to all the people. ²They heard Jeremiah say, “This is what the Lord says: Those who stay in this city will die in wars, famines, or plagues. But those who surrender to the Babylonians will live. They will escape with their lives.

³“This is what the Lord says: This city will certainly be handed over to the army of the king of Babylon, and it will capture the city.”

⁴Then the officials said to the king, “Have this man put to death. He discourages the soldiers who are left in this city and all the people by telling them such things. This man is not trying to help these people; he’s trying to hurt them.”

⁵King Zedekiah answered, “He’s in your hands. I won’t do anything to stop you.”

⁶So they took Jeremiah and threw him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son. It was in the courtyard of the prison. They used ropes to lower Jeremiah into the cistern. There was no water in the cistern, only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud.

⁷But an official in the royal palace, Ebed Melech from Sudan, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the cistern. The king happened to be sitting at Benjamin Gate. ⁸Ebed Melech left the royal palace and spoke to the king at Benjamin Gate. ⁹“Your Majesty, everything that these men have done to the prophet Jeremiah is wrong. They have thrown him into the cistern, where he’ll starve to death, because there’s no more bread in the city.”

¹⁰Then the king gave Ebed Melech from Sudan this command: “Take 30 men from here, and lift the prophet Jeremiah out of the cistern before he dies.”

¹¹So Ebed Melech took the men with him and went to the royal palace, to a room under the treasury. He took rags and torn clothes from there and lowered them with ropes to Jeremiah in the cistern. ¹²Ebed Melech from Sudan said to Jeremiah, “Put these rags and torn clothes under your arms to protect you from the ropes.” Jeremiah did. ¹³They used the ropes to pull Jeremiah up and lift him out of the cistern. Then Jeremiah stayed in the courtyard of the prison.

¹⁴King Zedekiah sent for the prophet Jeremiah and brought him to the third entrance in the Lord’s temple. “I’m going to ask you a question,” the king said to Jeremiah. “Don’t hide anything from me.”

¹⁵Jeremiah answered Zedekiah, “If I answer you, you’ll kill me. If I give you advice, you won’t listen to me.”

¹⁶So King Zedekiah secretly swore an oath to Jeremiah, “The Lord gave us life. As the Lord lives, I will not kill you or hand you over to these men who want to kill you.”

¹⁷Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “This is what the Lord God of Armies, the God of Israel, says: If you surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, you will live, and this city will not be burned. You and your household will live. ¹⁸But if you don’t surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, this city will be handed over to the Babylonians. They will burn it down, and you will not escape from them.”

¹⁹King Zedekiah answered Jeremiah, “I’m afraid of the Jews who have deserted to the Babylonians. The Babylonians may hand me over to them, and they will torture me.”

²⁰Jeremiah said, “You will not be handed over to them. Obey the Lord by doing what I’m telling you. Then everything will go well for you, and you will live. ²¹But if you refuse to surrender, this is what the Lord has shown me. ²²All the women who are left in the palace of Judah’s king will be brought out to the officers of the king of Babylon. These women will say:

‘Your trusted friends have misled you and used you.

Your feet are stuck in the mud, and your friends have deserted you.’

²³“All your wives and children will be brought to the Babylonians. You will not escape from them. You will be captured by the king of Babylon, and this city will be burned down.”

Jeremiah and Zedekiah Make an Agreement

²⁴Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “Don’t let anyone know about this conversation, or you will die. ²⁵The officials may find out that I’ve been talking with you. They may come to you and say, ‘Tell us what you said to the king and what the king said to you. Don’t hide anything from us, or we’ll kill you.’ ²⁶If they come to you, say to them, ‘I asked the king not to send me back to Jonathan’s house to die there.’ ”

²⁷All the officials came to Jeremiah and questioned him. He told them exactly what the king had told him to say. So they stopped questioning him, because they hadn’t heard his conversation with the king. ²⁸Jeremiah stayed in the courtyard of the prison until the day Jerusalem was captured.

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