As the Babylonians were besieging Jerusalem, there was a momentary respite when the Egyptian army marched north from Egypt. This caused the Babylonian army to withdraw from the siege to be ready to face this threat (Jeremiah 37:5). But this relief would only be temporary, Jeremiah declared; the judgment on the city would surely take place (37:8-10). During this lull, Jeremiah was arrested, beaten, and imprisoned (37:13-16). King Zedekiah ordered that he be given a daily loaf of bread, though this stopped when the siege was renewed and the city ran out of bread (37:21).

Then, when Jeremiah counseled surrender – those who surrendered would be deported to Babylon as slaves, but that was better than starving to death in the city – he was accused of treason and dumped into the mud at the bottom of an empty cistern (38:2-6). After some time Ebedmelech the Ethiopian arranged to draw him out of the pit to rescue him, bringing rags as padding to keep the rope from cutting into the greatly weakened Jeremiah (38:7-13).

The king consulted Jeremiah once again, clearly valuing his counsel, yet unable to follow it because he feared his own officers: they were determined to fight on against the Babylonians (38:14-28). In the end, the city was taken, and although the king and his officers fled into the wilderness, they were captured. The nobles of Judah and Zedekiah’s own children were slaughtered before his eyes, and then he was blinded, so that the death of his children would be the last thing he ever saw in his life. Finally Zedekiah was bound in fetters and taken to Babylon.

And all the city of Jerusalem was burned, and its walls broken down (39:1-8). Jeremiah was set free, by order of Nebuchadnezzar, who apparently had heard of Jeremiah as a great prophet (39:11-14). Jeremiah made sure that Ebedmelech was not harmed, in gratitude for Ebedmelech having saved his life. And Jeremiah was given permission to choose what he would do next: to go to Babylon and live a life of comfort in his old age, or remain in Judah with the impoverished people who remained in the land, and he chose to remain (40:2-6).

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What will we do, O Lord, when we have been left to die, sitting waist-deep in the mud in the bottom of a cistern? Will you send some unexpected friend to rescue us somehow? Or will we die, alone and frightened: and even in that despair will we still trust in you?