Jeremiah 38:1–13

Jeremiah Thrown into the Cistern

¹Now Shephatiah the son of Mattan, and Gedaliah the son of Pashhur, and Jucal the ^ason of Shelemiah, and ^bPashhur the son of Malchijah heard the words that Jeremiah was speaking to all the people, saying,

²“Thus says the Lord, ‘He who ^astays in this city will die by the ^bsword and by famine and by pestilence, but he who goes out to the Chaldeans will live and have his own ^clife as booty and stay alive.’

³“Thus says the Lord, ‘This city will certainly be ^agiven into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon and he will capture it.’ ”

⁴Then the ^aofficials said to the king, “Now let this man be put to death, inasmuch as he is ^1bdiscouraging the men of war who are left in this city and ²all the people, by speaking such words to them; for this man ^cis not seeking the well-being of this people but rather their harm.”

⁵So King Zedekiah said, “Behold, he is in your ¹hands; for the king ^acan do nothing against you.”

⁶Then they took Jeremiah and cast him into the ^acistern of Malchijah the king’s son, which was in the court of the guardhouse; and they let Jeremiah down with ropes. Now in the cistern there was no water but only ^bmud, and Jeremiah sank into the mud.

⁷But ^aEbed-melech the Ethiopian, ¹a ^beunuch, while he was in the king’s palace, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern. Now the king was sitting in the ^cGate of Benjamin;

⁸and Ebed-melech went out from the king’s palace and spoke to the king, saying,

⁹“My lord the king, these men have acted wickedly in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet whom they have cast into the cistern; and he ¹will die right where he is because of the famine, for there is ^ano more bread in the city.”

¹⁰Then the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, “Take thirty men from here ¹under your authority and bring up Jeremiah the prophet from the cistern before he dies.”

¹¹So Ebed-melech took the men under his ¹authority and went into the king’s palace to a place beneath the storeroom and took from there worn-out clothes and worn-out rags and let them down by ropes into the cistern to Jeremiah.

¹²Then Ebed-melech the Ethiopian said to Jeremiah, “Now put these worn-out clothes and rags under your armpits under the ropes”; and Jeremiah did so.

¹³So they pulled Jeremiah up with the ropes and lifted him out of the cistern, and Jeremiah stayed in the ^acourt of the guardhouse.