Second Book of Kings 25

¹ In the ninth year of his reign,[*a] in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came with his whole army to attack Jerusalem; he pitched camp in front of the city and threw up earthworks round it.

² The city lay under siege till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

³ In the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, when famine was raging in the city and there was no food for the populace,

⁴ a breach was made in the city wall. At once, the king made his escape under cover of dark, with all the fighting men, by way of the gate between the two walls, which is near the king’s garden – the Chaldaeans had surrounded the city – and made his way towards the Arabah[*b]

⁵ The Chaldaean troops pursued the king and caught up with him in the plains of Jericho, where all his troops deserted.

⁶ The Chaldaeans captured the king and took him to the king of Babylon at Riblah, who passed sentence on him.

⁷ He had the sons of Zedekiah slaughtered before his eyes, then put out Zedekiah’s eyes and, loading him with chains, carried him off to Babylon.

⁸ In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month – it was in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon – Nebuzaradan, commander of the guard, an officer of the king of Babylon, entered Jerusalem.

⁹ He burned down the Temple of Yahweh, the royal palace and all the houses in Jerusalem.

¹⁰ The Chaldaean troops who accompanied the commander of the guard demolished the walls surrounding Jerusalem.

¹¹ Nebuzaradan, commander of the guard, deported the remainder of the population left behind in the city, the deserters who had gone over to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the common people.

¹² The commander of the guard left some of the humbler country people as vineyard workers and ploughmen.

¹³ The Chaldaeans broke up the bronze pillars from the Temple of Yahweh, the wheeled stands and the bronze Sea that were in the Temple of Yahweh, and took the bronze away to Babylon.

¹⁴ They also took the ash containers, the scoops, the knives, the incense boats, and all the bronze furnishings used in worship.

¹⁵ The commander of the guard took the censers and the sprinkling bowls, everything that was made of gold and everything made of silver.

¹⁶ As regards the two pillars, the one Sea and the wheeled stands, which Solomon had made for the Temple of Yahweh, there was no reckoning the weight of bronze in all these objects.

¹⁷ The height of one pillar was eighteen cubits, and on it stood a capital of bronze, the height of the capital being five cubits; round the capital were filigree and pomegranates, all in bronze. So also for the second pillar…

¹⁸ The commander of the guard took prisoner Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest next in rank, and the three guardians of the threshold.

¹⁹ In the city he took prisoner a eunuch who was in command of the fighting men, five of the king’s personal friends who were discovered in the city, the secretary to the army commander, responsible for military conscription, and sixty men of distinction discovered in the city.

²⁰ Nebuzaradan, commander of the guard, took these men and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah,

²¹ and at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, the king of Babylon had them put to death. Thus Judah was deported from its land.

²² As regards the people who remained in the land of Judah whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had left behind, he appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam son of Shaphan as their governor.

²³ When the commanders of the troops and their men all heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah as governor, they went to him at Mizpah: Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth, the Netophathite, Jaazaniah the Maacathite, they and their men.

²⁴ To them and to their men Gedaliah swore an oath. ‘Do not be afraid of the Chaldaeans,’ he said ‘live in the country, obey the king of Babylon, and all will go well with you.’

²⁵ But in the seventh month, Ishmael son of Nethaniah son of Elishama, who was of royal descent, and ten men with him, came and murdered Gedaliah, as well as the Judaeans and Chaldaeans who were with him at Mizpah.

²⁶ Then the people, of high and low degree, with the commanders of the troops, all set out and made for Egypt, in fear of the Chaldaeans.

²⁷ In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the year he came to the throne, pardoned Jehoiachin king of Judah and released him from prison.

²⁸ He treated him kindly and allotted him a seat above those of the other kings who were with him in Babylon.

²⁹ So Jehoiachin laid aside his prisoner’s garb, and for the rest of his life always ate at the king’s table.

³⁰ And his upkeep was permanently ensured by the king, day after day, for the rest of his life.