⁶ 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. ⁷ Then a breach was made in the city wall;^[a] and all the soldiers fled and went out from the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, by the king’s garden, though the Chaldeans were all round the city. They went in the direction of the Arabah. ⁸ But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered, deserting him.