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The day after Gedaliah was murdered, before anyone knew about it, eighty men came to Mizpah bringing grain offerings and incense to the Temple of the Lord. Those men from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria had shaved off their beards, torn their clothes, and cut themselves.[a] Ishmael son of Nethaniah went out from Mizpah to meet them, crying as he walked. When he met them, he said, “Come with me to meet Gedaliah son of Ahikam.” So they went into Mizpah. Then Ishmael son of Nethaniah and his men killed seventy of them and threw the bodies into a deep well. But the ten men who were left alive said to Ishmael, “Don’t kill us! We have wheat and barley and oil and honey that we have hidden in a field.” So Ishmael let them live and did not kill them with the others. Now the well where he had thrown all the bodies had been made by King Asa as a part of his defenses against Baasha king of Israel. But Ishmael son of Nethaniah put dead bodies in it until it was full.

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Footnotes

  1. 41:5 shaved . . . themselves The men did this to show they were sad about the Temple in Jerusalem being destroyed.

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