¹³ Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father,^(A) if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!”

²¹ When the king of Israel saw them, he asked Elisha, “Shall I kill them, my father?^(A) Shall I kill them?”

¹⁴ Now Elisha had been suffering from the illness from which he died. Jehoash king of Israel went down to see him and wept over him. “My father! My father!” he cried. “The chariots^(A) and horsemen of Israel!”

¹² Elisha saw this and cried out, “My father! My father! The chariots^(A) and horsemen of Israel!” And Elisha saw him no more. Then he took hold of his garment and tore^(B) it in two.

¹⁴ I answered, “Sir, you know.”

And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes^(A) and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.^(B)

²¹ and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you^(A) also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience^(B) toward God.^[a] It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,^(C)

⁷ But Ebed-Melek,^(A) a Cushite,^[a] an official^[b](B) in the royal palace, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern. While the king was sitting in the Benjamin Gate,^{(C) 8} Ebed-Melek went out of the palace and said to him, ⁹ “My lord the king, these men have acted wickedly in all they have done to Jeremiah the prophet. They have thrown him into a cistern,^(D) where he will starve to death when there is no longer any bread^(E) in the city.”

¹⁰ Then the king commanded Ebed-Melek the Cushite, “Take thirty men from here with you and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies.”

²² let us draw near to God^(A) with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings,^(B) having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience^(C) and having our bodies washed with pure water.^(D)