Jeremiah Brought Up from the Cistern

38 And Shephatiah the son of Mattan, and Gedaliah the son of Pashhur, and Jucal the ^(A)son of Shelemiah, and ^(B)Pashhur the son of Malchijah heard the words that Jeremiah was speaking to all the people, saying, ² “Thus says Yahweh, ‘He who ^(C)stays in this city will die by the ^(D)sword and by the famine and by the pestilence, but he who goes out to the Chaldeans will live and have his own ^(E)life as spoil and stay alive.’ ³ Thus says Yahweh, ‘This city will certainly be ^(F)given into the hand of the military force of the king of Babylon, and he will capture it.’” ⁴ Then the ^(G)officials said to the king, “Now let this man be put to death, inasmuch as he is ^(H)making the hands of the men of war who remain in this city as well as the hands of all the people limp, by speaking such words to them; for this man ^(I)is not seeking peace for this people but rather calamity.” ⁵ So King Zedekiah said, “Behold, he is in your ^[a]hands; for the king ^(J)can do nothing against you.” ⁶ Then they took Jeremiah and cast him into the ^[b](K)cistern of Malchijah the king’s son, which was in the court of the guard; and they let Jeremiah down with ropes. Now in the cistern there was no water but only ^(L)mire, and Jeremiah sank into the mire. ⁷ But ^(M)Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, ^[c]a ^(N)eunuch, while he was in the king’s palace, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern. Now the king was sitting in the ^(O)Gate of Benjamin; ⁸ and Ebed-melech went out from the king’s house and spoke to the king, saying, ⁹ “My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet whom they have cast into the cistern; and he ^[d]will die right where he is because of the famine, for there is ^(P)no more bread in the city.” ¹⁰ Then the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, “Take in your hand thirty men from here and bring up Jeremiah the prophet from the cistern before he dies.” ¹¹ So Ebed-melech took the men in his hand 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. ¹² Then 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. ¹³ So they pulled Jeremiah up with the ropes and brought him up from the cistern, and Jeremiah stayed in the ^(Q)court of the guard.