and he said, “This is what the Lord says, ‘Make many cisterns in this valley,’ ¹ 

“Do so because my people have committed a double wrong: they have rejected me, the fountain of life-giving water, ¹  and they have dug cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns which cannot even hold water.”

The men of Israel realized they had a problem because their army was hard pressed. So the army hid in caves, thickets, cliffs, strongholds, ¹  and cisterns.

Come now, let’s kill him, throw him into one of the cisterns, and then say that a wild ¹  animal ate him. Then we’ll see how his dreams turn out!” ² 

houses filled with choice things you did not accumulate, hewn out cisterns you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant – and you eat your fill,

He built towers in the desert and dug many cisterns, for he owned many herds in the lowlands ¹  and on the plain. He had workers in the fields and vineyards in the hills and in Carmel, ²  for he loved agriculture. ³ 

The leading men of the cities send their servants for water. They go to the cisterns, ¹  but they do not find any water there. They return with their containers ²  empty. Disappointed and dismayed, they bury their faces in their hands. ³