Israel’s Unfaithfulness

¹¹ Then the Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals,^{(A) 12} and they abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; they followed other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were all around them and bowed down to them, and they provoked the Lord to anger.^{(B) 13} They abandoned the Lord and served Baal and the Astartes.^{(C) 14} So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers who plundered them, and he sold them into the power of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies.^{(D) 15} Whenever they marched out, the hand of the Lord was against them to bring misfortune, as the Lord had warned them and sworn to them, and they were in great distress.

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.^{(A) 9} He burned the house of the Lord, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down.^{(B) 10} All the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down the walls around Jerusalem.^{(C) 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.^(D)