Immerse: Prophets - Flipbook - Page 288
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IMMERSE
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PROPHETS
38:12-27
So the king told Ebed-melech, “Take thirty of my men with you, and pull
Jeremiah out of the cistern before he dies.”
So Ebed-melech took the men with him and went to a room in the pal
ace beneath the treasury, where he found some old rags and discarded
clothing. He carried these to the cistern and lowered them to Jeremiah on
a rope. Ebed-melech called down to Jeremiah, “Put these rags under your
armpits to protect you from the ropes.” Then when Jeremiah was ready,
they pulled him out. So Jeremiah was returned to the courtyard of the
guard—the palace prison—where he remained.
One day King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah and had him brought to the
third entrance of the Lord’s Temple. “I want to ask you something,” the
king said. “And don’t try to hide the truth.”
Jeremiah said, “If I tell you the truth, you will kill me. And if I give you
advice, you won’t listen to me anyway.”
So King Zedekiah secretly promised him, “As surely as the Lord our
Creator lives, I will not kill you or hand you over to the men who want
you dead.”
Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “This is what the Lord God of Heav
en’s Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you surrender to the Babylonian of
ficers, you and your family will live, and the city will not be burned down.
But if you refuse to surrender, you will not escape! This city will be handed
over to the Babylonians, and they will burn it to the ground.’”
“But I am afraid to surrender,” the king said, “for the Babylonians may
hand me over to the Judeans who have defected to them. And who knows
what they will do to me!”
Jeremiah replied, “You won’t be handed over to them if you choose to
obey the Lord. Your life will be spared, and all will go well for you. But if
you refuse to surrender, this is what the Lord has revealed to me: All the
women left in your palace will be brought out and given to the officers of
the Babylonian army. Then the women will taunt you, saying,
‘What fine friends you have!
They have betrayed and misled you.
When your feet sank in the mud,
they left you to your fate!’
All your wives and children will be led out to the Babylonians, and you
will not escape. You will be seized by the king of Babylon, and this city
will be burned down.”
Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “Don’t tell anyone you told me this, or
you will die! My officials may hear that I spoke to you, and they may say,
‘Tell us what you and the king were talking about. If you don’t tell us, we
