2 Kings 24; 2 Kings 25; 2 Chronicles 36

1 In Jehoiakim's days, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked. Jehoiakim had submitted to him for three years, but then Jehoiakim changed his mind and rebelled against him.

2 The LORD sent Chaldean, Aramean, Moabite, and Ammonite raiding parties against Jehoiakim, sending them against Judah in order to destroy it. This was in agreement with the word that the LORD had spoken through his servants the prophets.

3 Indeed, this happened to Judah because the LORD commanded them to be removed from his presence on account of all the sins that Manasseh had committed

4 and because of the innocent blood that he had spilled. Manasseh had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the LORD didn't want to forgive that.

5 The rest of Jehoiakim's deeds and all that he accomplished, aren't they written in the official records of Judah's kings?

6 Jehoiakim lay down with his ancestors. His son Jehoiachin succeeded him as king.

7 The Egyptian king never left his country again because the Babylonian king had taken over all the territory that had previously belonged to him—from the border of Egypt to the Euphrates River.

8 Jehoiachin was 18 years old when he became king, and he ruled for three months in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Nehushta; she was Elnathan's daughter and was from Jerusalem.

9 He did what was evil in the LORD's eyes, just as all his ancestors had done.

10 At that time, the officers of Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem and laid siege to the city.

11 Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar himself arrived at the city while his officers were blockading it.

12 Judah's King Jehoiachin, along with his mother, his servants, his officers, and his officials, came out to surrender to the Babylonian king. The Babylonian king took Jehoiachin prisoner in the eighth year of Jehoiachin's rule.

13 Nebuchadnezzar also took away all the treasures of the LORD's temple and of the royal palace. He cut into pieces all the gold objects that Israel's King Solomon had made for the LORD's temple, which is exactly what the LORD said would happen.

14 Then Nebuchadnezzar exiled all of Jerusalem: all the officials, all the military leaders—ten thousand exiles—as well as all the skilled workers and metalworkers. No one was left behind except the poorest of the land's people.

15 Nebuchadnezzar exiled Jehoiachin to Babylon; he also exiled the queen mother, the king's wives, the officials, and the land's elite leaders from Jerusalem to Babylon.

16 The Babylonian king also exiled seven thousand warriors—each one a hero trained for battle—as well as a thousand skilled workers and metalworkers to Babylon.

17 Then the Babylonian king made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin's uncle, succeed Jehoiachin as king. Nebuchadnezzar changed Mattaniah's name to Zedekiah.

18 Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king, and he ruled for eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hamutal; she was Jeremiah's daughter and was from Libnah.

19 He did what was evil in the LORD's eyes, just as Jehoiakim had done.

20 It was precisely because the LORD was angry with Jerusalem and Judah that he thrust them out of his presence. Now Zedekiah rebelled against the Babylonian king.

1 So in the ninth year of Zedekiah's rule, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem with his entire army. He camped beside the city and built a siege wall all around it.

2 The city was under attack until King Zedekiah's eleventh year.

3 On the ninth day of the month, the famine in the city got so bad that no food remained for the common people.

4 Then the enemy broke into the city. All the soldiers fled by night using the gate between the two walls near the King's Garden. The Chaldeans were surrounding the city, so the soldiers ran toward the desert plain.

5 But the Chaldean army chased King Zedekiah and caught up with him in the Jericho plains. His entire army deserted him.

6 So the Chaldeans captured the king and brought him back to the Babylonian king, who was at Riblah. There his punishment was determined.

7 Zedekiah's sons were slaughtered right before his eyes. Then he was blinded, put in bronze chains, and taken off to Babylon.

8 On the seventh day of the fifth month in the nineteenth year of Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan arrived at Jerusalem. He was the commander of the guard and an official of the Babylonian king.

9 He burned down the LORD's temple, the royal palace, and all of Jerusalem's houses. He burned down every important building.

10 The whole Chaldean army under the commander of the guard tore down the walls surrounding Jerusalem.

11 Then Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard exiled the people who were left in the city, those who had already surrendered to Babylon's king, and the rest of the population.

12 The commander of the guard left some of the land's poor people behind to work the vineyards and be farmers.

13 The Chaldeans shattered the bronze columns, the stands, and the bronze Sea that were in the LORD's temple. They carried the bronze off to Babylon.

14 They also took the pots, the shovels, the wick trimmers, the dishes, and all the bronze items that had been used in the temple.

15 The commander of the guard took the fire pans and the sprinkling bowls, which were made of pure gold and pure silver.

16 The bronze in all these objects—the two pillars, the Sea, and the stands that Solomon had made for the LORD's temple—was too heavy to weigh.

17 Each pillar was twenty-seven feet high. The bronze capital on top of the first pillar was four and a half feet high. Decorative lattices and pomegranates, all made from bronze, were around the capital. And the second pillar was decorated with lattices just like the first.

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

19 Of those still left in the city, Nebuzaradan took away an officer who was in charge of the army and five royal advisors who were discovered in the city. He also took away the secretary of the officer responsible for drafting the land's people to fight, as well as sixty people who were discovered in the city.

20 Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard took all of these people and brought them to the Babylonian king at Riblah.

21 The king of Babylon struck them down, killing them in Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was exiled from its land.

22 Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar put Gedaliah, Ahikam's son and Shaphan's grandson, in charge of the people he had left behind in the land of Judah.

23 All the army officers and their soldiers heard that the Babylonian king had appointed Gedaliah as governor, so they came with their men to Gedaliah at Mizpah. The officers were Ishmael, Nethaniah's son; Johanan, Kareah's son; Seraiah, Tanhumeth's son who was a Netophathite; and Jaazaniah, Maacathite's son.

24 Gedaliah made a solemn pledge to them and their soldiers, telling them, "Don't be afraid of the Chaldean officials. Stay in the land and serve the Babylonian king, and things will go well for you."

25 But in the seventh month, Ishmael, Nethaniah's son and Elishama's grandson, who was from the royal family, came with ten soldiers, and they struck Gedaliah, and he died. They also killed the Judeans and the Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah.

26 Then all the people, young and old, along with the army officers, departed for Egypt because they were afraid of the Chaldeans.

27 In the year that Awil-merodach became king of Babylon, he released Judah's King Jehoiachin from prison. This happened in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin, on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month.

28 Awil-merodach spoke kindly to Jehoiachin and seated him above the other kings who were with him in Babylon.

29 So Jehoiachin took off his prisoner clothes and ate regularly in the king's presence for the rest of his life.

30 At the king's command, a regular food allowance was given to him every day for the rest of his life.

1 The people of the land took Jehoahaz, Josiah's son, and made him the next king in Jerusalem.

2 Jehoahaz was 23 years old when he became king, and he ruled for three months in Jerusalem.

3 The king of Egypt removed him from office in Jerusalem. The Egyptian king imposed a fine on the land totaling one hundred kikkars of silver and one kikkar of gold.

4 Then the king of Egypt made Jehoahaz's brother Eliakim king of Judah and Jerusalem, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. Neco took his brother Jehoahaz prisoner and carried him off to Egypt.

5 Jehoiakim was 25 years old when he became king, and he ruled for eleven years in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the LORD's eyes.

6 Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar attacked him, bound him with bronze chains, and took him to Babylon.

7 Nebuchadnezzar also took some equipment from the LORD's temple to Babylon and placed them in his own temple there.

8 The rest of Jehoiakim's deeds, including his detestable practices and all that was charged against him, are written in the official records of Israel's and Judah's kings. His son Jehoiachin succeeded him as king.

9 Jehoiachin was 18 years old when he became king, and he ruled for three months in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the LORD's eyes.

10 In the springtime, King Nebuchadnezzar sent for him to be brought to Babylon, along with valuable equipment from the LORD's temple. Then he made Zedekiah his uncle the next king of Judah and Jerusalem.

11 Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king, and he ruled for eleven years in Jerusalem.

12 He did what was evil in the LORD his God's eyes and didn't submit before the prophet Jeremiah, who spoke for the LORD.

13 Moreover, he rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, despite the solemn pledge Nebuchadnezzar had forced him to swear in God's name. He became stubborn and refused to turn back to the LORD, Israel's God.

14 All the leaders of the priests and the people also grew increasingly unfaithful, following all the detestable practices of the nations. They polluted the LORD's temple that God had dedicated in Jerusalem.

15 Time and time again, the LORD, the God of their ancestors, sent word to them through his messengers because he had compassion on his people and his dwelling.

16 But they made fun of God's messengers, treating God's words with contempt and ridiculing God's prophets to such an extent that there was no hope of warding off the LORD's rising anger against his people.

17 So God brought the Babylonian king against them. The king killed their young men with the sword in their temple's sanctuary, and showed no pity for young men or for virgins, for the old or for the feeble. God handed all of them over to him.

18 Then the king hauled everything off to Babylon, every item from God's temple, both large and small, including the treasures of the LORD's temple and those of the king and his officials.

19 Next the Babylonians burned God's temple down, demolished the walls of Jerusalem, and set fire to all its palaces, destroying everything of value.

20 Finally, he exiled to Babylon anyone who survived the killing so that they could be his slaves and the slaves of his children until Persia came to power.

21 This is how the LORD's word spoken by Jeremiah was carried out. The land finally enjoyed its sabbath rest. For as long as it lay empty, it rested, until seventy years were completed.

22 In the first year of Persia's King Cyrus, to carry out the LORD's promise spoken through Jeremiah, the LORD moved Persia's King Cyrus to issue the following proclamation throughout his kingdom, along with a written decree:

23 This is what Persia's King Cyrus says: The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the earth's kingdoms and has instructed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Whoever among you belong to God's people, let them go up, and may the LORD their God be with them!