³ On the ninth day of the fourth month^[a] of that same year, when the famine was so bad that the people had nothing left to eat, ^4 (A)the city walls were broken through. Although the Babylonians were surrounding the city, all the soldiers escaped during the night. They left by way of the royal garden, went through the gateway connecting the two walls, and fled in the direction of the Jordan Valley. ⁵ But the Babylonian army pursued King Zedekiah, captured him in the plains near Jericho, and all his soldiers deserted him.