He had not seen Ebed-melech or Baruch for several days. He did not know what progress the siege was making. No one had time to stop and speak with him. Even food was no longer brought to him. In his loneliness and helplessness, he turned to God: "There is none like unto Thee, O Lord! Thou art great and Thy name is great in might. Who should not fear Thee, O King of the nations? The Lord is the true God. He is the living God and an everlasting King. He hath made the earth by His power; He hath established the world by His wisdom; By His understanding hath He stretched out the heavens. O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself; It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. O Lord God, correct me, but in judgment, Not in Thine anger, lest Thou bring me to nothing." Finally came the seventh day, and then the ninth day of Ab! He heard the shouts and the clang of hand-to-hand fighting. The thick prison walls could not shut out the curses of hating, contending men, the shrieks of the wounded, the prayers and moans of the dying. On the night of the seventh day of Ab he knew that the Babylonian had entered Jerusalem. The red sky told him that the city was burning. On the next day, he judged from the noises and commands within the garrison that preparations were being made for the last stand. All that day and all that night long he heard the fighting on the Temple Mount. He pictured to himself every step of the retreating, beaten Judeans and the oncoming, victorious Babylonians. On the morning of the next day, the fatal ninth of Ab, the oppressive heat told him that the Temple was on fire. Through the day, the shouting and the fighting died slowly away. Jeremiah knew that the end had come for his beloved fatherland--and for himself. His presence in the guard house had been accidentally or purposely forgotten! At sunrise the next day, he was suddenly aroused from his aimless, mental wanderings by the noisy marching of troops. They passed his prison without stopping. He shouted, but they did not hear him. He could not see who they were, but surmised that they must be Babylonians. Several hours passed and once more he heard the heavy steps of troops. This time he shouted at the top of his feeble voice and pounded the iron bars. They halted. Several were dispatched to the guard house. They broke open the door and brought forth a gray-headed, gray-bearded, unkempt little man, whose face and bearing showed the horrors he had been through. The soldiers made sport of him, but the commander did not permit them to kill a helpless old man. Instead, he sent Jeremiah, through the ruins of the Temple and the city, with hundreds of others, to the prisoners' camp at Ramah, five miles north of Jerusalem. CHAPTER XXI. _Lamentations and a Vain Hope._