⁸ Ebed Melek left the palace and said to the king, ⁹ “My lord the king, everything that these men have done to Jeremiah the prophet is evil. They have thrown him into a cistern, where he is likely to die because of the famine, for there is no more bread in the city.”

¹⁰ Then the king gave orders to Ebed Melek the Cushite: “Take thirty men from here under your command and lift Jeremiah the prophet up out of the cistern before he dies.”