For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed themselves out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

And their nobles have sent their little ones for water: they came to the cisterns, and found no water; they returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed and confounded, and covered their heads.

Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the cistern of Malchiah the son of Hammelech, that was in the court of the prison: and they let down Jeremiah with ropes. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire: so Jeremiah sank in the mire.

Now when Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, one of the eunuchs who was in the king's house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the cistern; the king then sitting in the gate of Benjamin;

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 is likely to die from hunger in the place where he is: for there is no more bread in the city.

Then the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, Take from here thirty men with you, and take up Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern, before he dies.

So Ebed-melech took the men with him, and went into the house of the king under the treasury, and took there old clothes and old rags, and let them down by ropes into the cistern to Jeremiah.

So they drew up Jeremiah with cords, and took him up out of the cistern: and Jeremiah remained in the court of the prison.