1Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he was appointed king of Judah, and he ruled from Jerusalem for eleven years. His mother Hamutal was the daughter of Jeremiah from the town of Libnah.
2Zedekiah disobeyed the LORD, just as Jehoiakim had done,
3and it was Zedekiah who finally rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar.
The people of Judah and Jerusalem had made the LORD so angry that he finally turned his back on them. That's why horrible things were happening.
4In Zedekiah's ninth year as king, on the tenth day of the tenth month, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia led his entire army to attack Jerusalem. The troops set up camp outside the city and built ramps up to the city walls.
5-6After a year and a half, all the food in Jerusalem was gone. Then on the ninth day of the fourth month,
7the Babylonian troops broke through the city wall. That same night, Zedekiah and his soldiers tried to escape through the gate near the royal garden, even though they knew the enemy had the city surrounded. They headed towards the Jordan valley,
12Jerusalem was captured during Nebuchadnezzar's nineteenth year as king of Babylonia.
About a month later, Nebuchadnezzar's officer in charge of the guards arrived in Jerusalem. His name was Nebuzaradan,
13and he burnt down the LORD's temple, the king's palace, and every important building in the city, as well as all the houses. and even some of the poor people of Judah.
16Only the very poorest were left behind to work the vineyards and the fields.
17-20Nebuzaradan ordered his soldiers to go to the temple and take everything made of gold or silver, including bowls, fire pans, sprinkling bowls, pans, lampstands, dishes for incense, and the cups for wine offerings. The Babylonian soldiers took all the bronze things used for worship at the temple, including the pans for hot ashes, and the shovels, lamp snuffers, sprinkling bowls, and dishes for incense. The soldiers also took everything else made of bronze, including the two columns that stood in front of the temple, the large bowl called the Sea, the twelve bulls that held it up, and the moveable stands. The soldiers broke these things into pieces so they could take them to Babylonia. There was so much bronze that it could not be weighed.
23There were ninety-six pomegranates evenly spaced around each column, and a total of one hundred pomegranates were above the chains.
24Next, Nebuzaradan arrested Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah his assistant, and three temple officials.
25Then he arrested one of the army commanders, seven of King Zedekiah's personal advisers, and the officer in charge of gathering the troops for battle. He also found sixty more soldiers who were still in Jerusalem.
26-27Nebuzaradan led them to Riblah in the land of Hamath, where Nebuchadnezzar had them killed.
The people of Judah no longer lived in their own country.
People of Judah taken prisoner28-30Here is a list of the number of the people of Judah that Nebuchadnezzar took to Babylonia as prisoners:
In his seventh year as king, he took 3,023 people.
In his eighteenth year as king, he took 832 from Jerusalem.
In his twenty-third year as king, his officer Nebuzaradan took 745 people.
So, Nebuchadnezzar took a total of 4,600 people from Judah to Babylonia.
Jehoiachin is set free(2 Kings 25.27-30)31Jehoiachin was a prisoner in Babylon for thirty-seven years. Then Evil-Merodach became king of Babylonia, and in the first year of his rule, on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month, he let Jehoiachin out of prison.
32Evil-Merodach was kind to Jehoiachin and honoured him more than any of the other kings held prisoner there.
33Jehoiachin was allowed to wear ordinary clothes instead of a prison uniform, and he even ate at the king's table every day.
34As long as Jehoiachin lived, he was paid a daily allowance to buy whatever he needed.
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