And say, thus saith the king, put this fellow in prison,.... In the common prison of the city, where he had been before, as it seems; and might be now ordered into a more confined place in it, and what might be called "little ease":
and feed him with bread of affliction, and with water of affliction; with bad bread and foul water, and but little of either; just enough to keep alive, and to continue starving:
until I come in peace; which he seemed confident of, and intimates that then he would punish him more severely, even with death, as a false prophet.