Reign and Captivity of Jehoiachin

⁸ Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign; he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Nehushta daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem.^{(A) 9} He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, just as his father had done.

¹⁰ At that time the servants of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came up to Jerusalem, and the city was besieged.^{(B) 11} King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to the city while his servants were besieging it; ¹² King Jehoiachin of Judah gave himself up to the king of Babylon: himself, his mother, his servants, his officers, and his palace officials. The king of Babylon took him prisoner in the eighth year of his reign.^(C)

Capture of Jerusalem

¹³ He carried off all the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king’s house; he cut in pieces all the vessels of gold in the temple of the Lord that King Solomon of Israel had made, all this as the Lord had foretold.^{(D) 14} He carried away all Jerusalem, all the officials, all the warriors, ten thousand captives, all the artisans and the smiths; no one remained except the poorest people of the land.^{(E) 15} He carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon; the king’s mother, the king’s wives, his officials, and the elite of the land, he took into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon.^{(F) 16} The king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon all the men of valor, seven thousand, the artisans and the smiths, one thousand, all of them strong and fit for war.^{(G) 17} The king of Babylon made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s uncle, king in his place and changed his name to Zedekiah.^(H)

Zedekiah Reigns over Judah

¹⁸ Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign; he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.^{(I) 19} He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, just as Jehoiakim had done.^{(J) 20} Indeed, Jerusalem and Judah so angered the Lord that he expelled them from his presence.

The Fall and Captivity of Judah

Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.^(K) 25 ¹ And in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem and laid siege to it; they built siegeworks against it all around.^{(L) 2} So the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. ³ On the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine became so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.^{(M) 4} Then a breach was made in the city wall;^[a] the king with all the soldiers fled^[b] by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, by the King’s Garden, though the Chaldeans were all around the city. They went in the direction of the Arabah.^{(N) 5} But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho; all his army was scattered, deserting him. ⁶ Then they captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, who passed sentence on him.^{(O) 7} They slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, then put out the eyes of Zedekiah; they bound him in fetters and took him to Babylon.^(P)

⁸ In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month—which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon—Nebuzaradan, the captain of the bodyguard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.^{(Q) 9} He burned the house of the Lord, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down.^{(R) 10} All the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down the walls around Jerusalem.^{(S) 11} Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile the rest of the people who were left in the city and the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon—all the rest of the multitude.^{(T) 12} But the captain of the guard left some of the poorest people of the land to be vinedressers and tillers of the soil.^(U)

¹³ The bronze pillars that were in the house of the Lord, as well as the stands and the bronze sea that were in the house of the Lord, the Chaldeans broke in pieces and carried the bronze to Babylon.^{(V) 14} They took away the pots, the shovels, the snuffers, the dishes for incense, and all the bronze vessels used in the temple service,^{(W) 15} as well as the firepans and the basins. What was made of gold the captain of the guard took away for the gold and what was made of silver for the silver. ¹⁶ As for the two pillars, the one sea, and the stands that Solomon had made for the house of the Lord, the bronze of all these vessels was beyond weighing.^{(X) 17} The height of the one pillar was eighteen cubits, and on it was a bronze capital; the height of the capital was three cubits; latticework and pomegranates, all of bronze, were on the capital all around. The second pillar had the same, with the latticework.^(Y)

¹⁸ The captain of the guard took the chief priest Seraiah, the second priest Zephaniah, and the three guardians of the threshold;^{(Z) 19} from the city he took an officer who had been in command of the soldiers and five men of the king’s council who were found in the city; the secretary who was the commander of the army who mustered the people of the land; and sixty men of the people of the land who were found in the city. ²⁰ Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. ²¹ The king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah went into exile out of its land.^(AA)

Reign and Captivity of Jehoiachin

⁹ Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign; he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.^{(A) 10} In the spring of the year King Nebuchadnezzar sent and brought him to Babylon, along with the precious vessels of the house of the Lord, and made his brother Zedekiah king over Judah and Jerusalem.^(B)

Reign of Zedekiah

¹¹ Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign; he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem.^{(C) 12} He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord his God. He did not humble himself before the prophet Jeremiah who spoke from the mouth of the Lord.^{(D) 13} He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God; he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord, the God of Israel.^{(E) 14} All the leading priests and the people also were exceedingly unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations, and they polluted the house of the Lord that he had consecrated in Jerusalem.

The Fall of Jerusalem

¹⁵ The Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place,^{(F) 16} but they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord against his people became so great that there was no remedy.^(G)

¹⁷ Therefore he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their youths with the sword in the house of their sanctuary and had no compassion on young man or young woman, the aged or the feeble; he gave them all into his hand.^{(H) 18} All the vessels of the house of God, large and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and of his officials, all these he brought to Babylon.^{(I) 19} They burned the house of God, broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all its precious vessels.^{(J) 20} He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia,^{(K) 21} to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had made up for its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.^(L)