So King Zedekiah gave orders to confine me to the palace guardhouse. Each day a loaf of bread from the bakery was given to me until all the bread of the city was gone. So I remained there in the palace courtyard.
So they took me and put me into the muddy cistern of the king’s son Malchiah in the palace courtyard. There was little water in the cistern, only mud. They lowered me down with ropes, and I sank down deep into the mud.
And it happened just as Yahweh had said. My cousin Hanamel came to me in the palace guardhouse and said, “Buy my field at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. As my nearest relative, you have the right of possession and redemption, so buy it.” Then I knew that this was Yahweh’s plan.
King Zedekiah had imprisoned me because I had prophesied Yahweh’s message: “I am Yahweh, and I am about to let the king of Babylonia conquer Jerusalem.
Why did you turn all my friends against me? You’ve made me like a cursed man in their eyes. No one wants to be with me now. You’ve caught me in a trap with no way out.
Yahweh spoke to me when Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, was at war against Jerusalem and the cities of Judah. He had all his army with him, including soldiers from all the kingdoms of his empire.
The officials were furious with me, and they beat me and locked me up in the house of Jonathan, the court secretary, which they had made into a prison.