Jerusalem is under siege and has been for more than a year.  The Babylonians sit outside, patiently waiting for us to starve, and that’s exactly what is happening.  Of course, they don’t sit still all the time; their catapults keeping slinging rocks at us every day, and from time to time they come with battering rams to attack the gates and the parts of the wall they think are weakest.  In some parts of the city, we have had to knock down buildings beside the wall ourselves, and use the rubble to strengthen the wall.

But it’s not worrying about the walls or gates that keeps you awake at night.  No, it’s the hunger that gnaws at your stomach and wakes you from dreams of succulent steaks and fabulous feasts.  And it’s hunger that prompts people to desert to the Babylonians.

Now Jeremiah has been telling people for years that Jerusalem will be defeated by Babylon.  And ever since the Babylonian army came, he has been telling the leaders to surrender, but the big, brave leaders don’t want that to happen.  They have a strange certainty that God will protect Jerusalem because of the temple – the very temple that they despise and treat with contempt.  So they blame Jeremiah for people deserting to the Babylonians.

It was after one of Jeremiah’s speeches to the people, that they got all upset.  Of course, they weren’t there listening – they never do listen to God’s word – but they heard reports of it afterwards, and when they did, they almost went crazy.  Off to Zedekiah they marched and told him just how bad Jeremiah was and that he should be killed because he was a traitor and making everyone give up, etc., etc., etc.  Well, they’ve tried that before and it hasn’t worked, so this time they managed to drop a hint to Zedekiah that they wouldn’t actually kill Jeremiah even though they thought he deserved it, and Zedekiah gave them permission to do what they wanted.

But, you see, they really did intend to kill him, just slowly, not straight away.  So they dragged Jeremiah down into the bowels of the palace to the place called the court of the guard, where Prince Malchiah had his own private water supply cistern.  It was easily big enough to put someone into and deep enough that no-one would be able to climb out of it.  Now this was in the middle of summer, and all of the useable water from the cistern had been used.  All that was left was mud – you know how it collects in cisterns – and when they pushed poor Jeremiah in, well, of course, he sank in the mud.

Now Jeremiah is in pretty good condition, but he isn’t that young any more.  He’s been a prophet for about forty years and he’s in his late fifties, but these young guttersnipes just pushed him in and left him for dead!

When I heard about it, I was furious, but what could I do?  Logic told me I couldn’t do anything, but my mind kept insisting that I had to try.  I tried to get out of it, but after lots of arguing inside, I was finally convinced that I didn’t have any choice.  I was walking up towards King Zedekiah’s throne room when I met one of his guards.  He’s a bit of  a friend of mine, Jehonathan is, and I asked him if I could speak to King Zedekiah.  I confess that, by that time, I was starting to get cold feet.  After all, complaining to a king about his friends is a dangerous game to play, but my mind kept insisting.

You may be wondering whether it’s really that easy to get to see the king, and, to be honest, it normally isn’t.  But my friend was on his way to deliver a message to King Zedekiah and he told me to come along.  At the time, Zedekiah was actually in the area near the Benjamin Gate of the city, hearing some legal cases or something.  On the way there, I explained my mission to Jehonathan, and he stopped in mid-step and looked at me long and hard.

“Are you mad?” he asked, quietly.  “Being a champion of Jeremiah is not the way to fame at the moment.”

“I know,” I said, “but I can’t just let them get away with it, can I?  I like Jeremiah and he really does seem to tell the truth from Yahweh.  And I don’t like seeing these young upstarts picking on a man of God who’s twice their age.”

“Hmmm,” he mused, as he tapped the rolled-up message against the shaft of his spear.  “Hmmm.  If Zedekiah is letting his friends persecute Jeremiah, I don’t think he’s likely to listen to a servant like you.”

“I have to try – it’s just not fair.”

“Well, it’s your funeral, I suppose,” said Jehonathan, and we walked on.  I wished he had chosen a different idiom; hoped he wasn’t going to be right.

We walked on and joined the crowd, and I started to think exactly what I was going to say to the king.  After a few minutes, the case finished – I think it was an accusation of stealing food – and a man was dragged away in chains.

Then my friend, Jehonathan, moved towards the king, holding up his message, and I followed close at his heels.  He handed over the message to the king, who started to open it, but then paused and looked enquiringly at me.  My dark skin tends to attract attention here in Jerusalem – there aren’t many of us Ethiopians around.

“He wants to talk to you about Jeremiah,” said Jehonathan.

The king started and looked around him quickly.  A guard standing nearby had also reacted and was looking interested.

“Irijah,” said Zedekiah, beckoning, “go and make sure that the prisoner for the next case is ready.”

Irijah moved away towards the guard-room of the gate and Zedekiah seemed to relax a little.  “What do you want?” he asked me.

While standing in the crowd, I had worked out a fine-sounding speech that would convince King Zedekiah to free Jeremiah, but standing there before the king, I couldn’t remember any of those beautiful words at all.  “My lord, Shephatiah, Gedaliah, Jucal and Pashhur have done evil in throwing Jeremiah into Malchiah’s cistern.  He’ll die of hunger down there in the mud.  There’s no bread left in the city, and sure as eggs is eggs, they won’t be lowering down any bowls of soup for him.”