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<div class="version vid111 iso6393eng" data-vid="111" data-iso6393="eng">
 <div class="book bkJER">
 <div class="chapter ch37" data-usfm="JER.37">
 <div class="label">37</div><div class="s1">Jeremiah in Prison</div><div class="p"> 1Zedekiah son of Josiah was made king of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; he reigned in place of Jehoiachin#37:1 Hebrew Koniah, a variant of Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim. 2Neither he nor his attendants nor the people of the land paid any attention to the words the Lord had spoken through Jeremiah the prophet.</div><div class="p"> 3King Zedekiah, however, sent Jehukal son of Shelemiah with the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah to Jeremiah the prophet with this message: &#8220;Please pray to the Lord our God for us.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 4Now Jeremiah was free to come and go among the people, for he had not yet been put in prison. 5Pharaoh&#8217;s army had marched out of Egypt, and when the Babylonians#37:5 Or Chaldeans; also in verses 8, 9, 13 and 14 who were besieging Jerusalem heard the report about them, they withdrew from Jerusalem.</div><div class="p"> 6Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet: 7&#8220;This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of me, &#8216;Pharaoh&#8217;s army, which has marched out to support you, will go back to its own land, to Egypt. 8Then the Babylonians will return and attack this city; they will capture it and burn it down.&#8217;</div><div class="p"> 9&#8220;This is what the Lord says: Do not deceive yourselves, thinking, &#8216;The Babylonians will surely leave us.&#8217; They will not! 10Even if you were to defeat the entire Babylonian#37:10 Or Chaldean; also in verse 11 army that is attacking you and only wounded men were left in their tents, they would come out and burn this city down.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 11After the Babylonian army had withdrawn from Jerusalem because of Pharaoh&#8217;s army, 12Jeremiah started to leave the city to go to the territory of Benjamin to get his share of the property among the people there. 13But when he reached the Benjamin Gate, the captain of the guard, whose name was Irijah son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah, arrested him and said, &#8220;You are deserting to the Babylonians!&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 14&#8220;That&#8217;s not true!&#8221; Jeremiah said. &#8220;I am not deserting to the Babylonians.&#8221; But Irijah would not listen to him; instead, he arrested Jeremiah and brought him to the officials. 15They were angry with Jeremiah and had him beaten and imprisoned in the house of Jonathan the secretary, which they had made into a prison.</div><div class="p"> 16Jeremiah was put into a vaulted cell in a dungeon, where he remained a long time. 17Then King Zedekiah sent for him and had him brought to the palace, where he asked him privately, &#8220;Is there any word from the Lord?&#8221;</div><div class="p">&#8220;Yes,&#8221; Jeremiah replied, &#8220;you will be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 18Then Jeremiah said to King Zedekiah, &#8220;What crime have I committed against you or your attendants or this people, that you have put me in prison? 19Where are your prophets who prophesied to you, &#8216;The king of Babylon will not attack you or this land&#8217;? 20But now, my lord the king, please listen. Let me bring my petition before you: Do not send me back to the house of Jonathan the secretary, or I will die there.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 21King Zedekiah then gave orders for Jeremiah to be placed in the courtyard of the guard and given a loaf of bread from the street of the bakers each day until all the bread in the city was gone. So Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard.</div>
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<div class="version vid111 iso6393eng" data-vid="111" data-iso6393="eng">
 <div class="book bkJER">
 <div class="chapter ch38" data-usfm="JER.38">
 <div class="label">38</div><div class="s1">Jeremiah Thrown Into a Cistern</div><div class="p"> 1Shephatiah son of Mattan, Gedaliah son of Pashhur, Jehukal#38:1 Hebrew Jukal, a variant of Jehukal son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur son of Malkijah heard what Jeremiah was telling all the people when he said, 2&#8220;This is what the Lord says: &#8216;Whoever stays in this city will die by the sword, famine or plague, but whoever goes over to the Babylonians#38:2 Or Chaldeans; also in verses 18, 19 and 23 will live. They will escape with their lives; they will live.&#8217; 3And this is what the Lord says: &#8216;This city will certainly be given into the hands of the army of the king of Babylon, who will capture it.&#8217;&#8198;&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 4Then the officials said to the king, &#8220;This man should be put to death. He is discouraging the soldiers who are left in this city, as well as all the people, by the things he is saying to them. This man is not seeking the good of these people but their ruin.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 5&#8220;He is in your hands,&#8221; King Zedekiah answered. &#8220;The king can do nothing to oppose you.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 6So they took Jeremiah and put him into the cistern of Malkijah, the king&#8217;s son, which was in the courtyard of the guard. They lowered Jeremiah by ropes into the cistern; it had no water in it, only mud, and Jeremiah sank down into the mud.</div><div class="p"> 7But Ebed-Melek, a Cushite,#38:7 Probably from the upper Nile region an official#38:7 Or a eunuch in the royal palace, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern. While the king was sitting in the Benjamin Gate, 8Ebed-Melek went out of the palace and said to him, 9&#8220;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, where he will starve to death when there is no longer any bread in the city.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 10Then the king commanded Ebed-Melek the Cushite, &#8220;Take thirty men from here with you and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 11So Ebed-Melek took the men with him and went to a room under the treasury in the palace. He took some old rags and worn-out clothes from there and let them down with ropes to Jeremiah in the cistern. 12Ebed-Melek the Cushite said to Jeremiah, &#8220;Put these old rags and worn-out clothes under your arms to pad the ropes.&#8221; Jeremiah did so, 13and they pulled him up with the ropes and lifted him out of the cistern. And Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard.</div><div class="s1">Zedekiah Questions Jeremiah Again</div><div class="p"> 14Then King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah the prophet and had him brought to the third entrance to the temple of the Lord. &#8220;I am going to ask you something,&#8221; the king said to Jeremiah. &#8220;Do not hide anything from me.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 15Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, &#8220;If I give you an answer, will you not kill me? Even if I did give you counsel, you would not listen to me.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 16But King Zedekiah swore this oath secretly to Jeremiah: &#8220;As surely as the Lord lives, who has given us breath, I will neither kill you nor hand you over to those who want to kill you.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 17Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, &#8220;This is what the Lord God Almighty, the God of Israel, says: &#8216;If you surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, your life will be spared and this city will not be burned down; you and your family will live. 18But if you will not surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, this city will be given into the hands of the Babylonians and they will burn it down; you yourself will not escape from them.&#8217;&#8198;&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 19King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, &#8220;I am afraid of the Jews who have gone over to the Babylonians, for the Babylonians may hand me over to them and they will mistreat me.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 20&#8220;They will not hand you over,&#8221; Jeremiah replied. &#8220;Obey the Lord by doing what I tell you. Then it will go well with you, and your life will be spared. 21But if you refuse to surrender, this is what the Lord has revealed to me: 22All the women left in the palace of the king of Judah will be brought out to the officials of the king of Babylon. Those women will say to you:</div><div class="q1">&#8220;&#8198;&#8216;They misled you and overcame you&#8212;</div><div class="q2">those trusted friends of yours.</div><div class="q1">Your feet are sunk in the mud;</div><div class="q2">your friends have deserted you.&#8217;</div><div class="p"> 23&#8220;All your wives and children will be brought out to the Babylonians. You yourself will not escape from their hands but will be captured by the king of Babylon; and this city will#38:23 Or and you will cause this city to be burned down.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 24Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, &#8220;Do not let anyone know about this conversation, or you may die. 25If the officials hear that I talked with you, and they come to you and say, &#8216;Tell us what you said to the king and what the king said to you; do not hide it from us or we will kill you,&#8217; 26then tell them, &#8216;I was pleading with the king not to send me back to Jonathan&#8217;s house to die there.&#8217;&#8198;&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 27All the officials did come to Jeremiah and question him, and he told them everything the king had ordered him to say. So they said no more to him, for no one had heard his conversation with the king.</div><div class="p"> 28And Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard until the day Jerusalem was captured.</div><div class="s1">The Fall of Jerusalem</div><div class="p">This is how Jerusalem was taken:</div>
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