2 Chronicles 36:11-21

New Catholic Bible

¹¹ Zedekiah. Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem. ¹² He did evil in the sight of the Lord his God, and he did not humble himself before the prophet Jeremiah, who revealed the word of the Lord.

¹³ Zedekiah also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had compelled him to take an oath in God’s name. He became stubborn and obstinate, and he refused to return to the Lord, the God of Israel. ¹⁴ Furthermore, all the leaders of Judah, the priests, and the people became ever more unfaithful, imitating all the shameful practices of the nations and defiling the temple of the Lord which he himself had consecrated in Jerusalem.

¹⁵ The Lord, the God of their ancestors, unceasingly sent them word through his messengers because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. ¹⁶ However, they continued to ridicule the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord against his people became so fierce that there was no remedy.

¹⁷ Therefore, the Lord God brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who slew their young men with the sword in the sanctuary and spared neither young man nor maiden, neither the aged nor the feeble. God gave them all into his power.

¹⁸ All the vessels of the house of God, both large and small and all the treasures of the Lord’s house and of the king and his princes—all these Nebuchadnezzar brought to Babylon. ¹⁹ They set fire to the house of God, demolished the walls of Jerusalem, and burned all its palaces to the ground along with its cherished possessions until everything there of value was destroyed.

²⁰ In addition, Nebuchadnezzar deported to Babylon all those who had escaped the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the Persians came to power. ²¹ During the time that the land lay desolate, it enjoyed its Sabbath rests to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah: “Until the land has atoned for its lost Sabbaths, it will lie fallow until seventy years are fulfilled.”