2 Kings 25

1In the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem. He camped against it and built siege works all around it.

2The city was under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

3By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine in the city had become so severe that there was no food for the people of the land.

4Then the city wall was broken through, and all the soldiers fled by night through the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden, though the Chaldeans were all around the city. The king went in the direction of the Arabah,

5but the Chaldean army pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho. All his army was scattered and deserted him.

6They captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, and they passed sentence on him.

7They slaughtered Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes. Then he put out Zedekiah’s eyes, bound him in bronze shackles, and brought him to Babylon.

8On the seventh day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.

9He burned the house of Yahweh, the king’s palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem; every important building he burned down.

10The whole Chaldean army that was with the captain of the guard tore down the walls around Jerusalem.

11Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took into exile the rest of the people who were left in the city, those who had deserted to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the population.

12But the captain of the guard left some of the poorest people of the land to work the vineyards and the fields.

13The Chaldeans broke up the bronze pillars that were in the house of Yahweh, the stands, and the bronze Sea that was in the house of Yahweh, and they carried the bronze to Babylon.

14They also took away the pots, the shovels, the wick trimmers, the dishes, and all the bronze articles used in the temple service.

15The captain of the guard took away the firepans and the basins, everything made of pure gold or pure silver.

16As for the two pillars, the one Sea, and the stands that Solomon had made for the house of Yahweh, the bronze of all these articles was more than could be weighed.

17Each pillar was eighteen cubits high. The bronze capital on top of it was three cubits high, with a network and pomegranates all around the capital, all of bronze. The second pillar, with its network, was just like it.

18The captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest next in rank, and the three doorkeepers.

19From the city he took one official who was in charge of the soldiers, and five of the king’s personal advisers who were found in the city. He also took the secretary of the army commander, who mustered the people of the land for war, and sixty men of the people of the land who were found in the city.

20Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah.

21The king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah went into exile, away from its land.

22Over the people who remained in the land of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had left behind, he appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan.

23When all the army commanders and their men heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah, they came to Gedaliah at Mizpah: Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah son of the Maacathite, they and their men.

24Gedaliah swore an oath to them and their men and said to them, “Do not be afraid of the Chaldean officials. Settle in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it will go well with you.”

25But in the seventh month Ishmael son of Nethaniah, son of Elishama, who was of royal descent, came with ten men and struck down Gedaliah, and he died. They also killed the Judeans and the Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah.

26Then all the people, from the least to the greatest, together with the army commanders, set out and went to Egypt, for they were afraid of the Chaldeans.

27In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month, Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the year he became king, released Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison.

28He spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat of honor above the seats of the kings who were with him in Babylon.

29So Jehoiachin took off his prison clothes, and for the rest of his life he ate regularly at the king’s table.

30The king gave him a regular allowance, a portion for each day, for the rest of his life.