2 Kings 25

1 And in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem; and he camped against it and built a siege wall all around it. [a] 2 And the city was held under siege until the eleventh year of king Zedekiah. 3 On the ninth day of the month the famine grew strong in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land. [b]

4 And the city was broken open, and all the fighting men went out by night by way of the gate between the two walls, which is the gate of the king’s garden — and the Chaldeans were all around the city. And the king went by the road toward the plain, [c] 5 and the army of the Chaldeans chased after the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho, and his whole army was scattered from around him. 6 And they seized the king and brought him to the king of Babylon at Riblah, and he spoke judgment against him. [d] 7 And he killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and he blinded the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him in shackles, and brought him to Babylon.

8 And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month — this was the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon — Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, who stood before the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. [e] 9 And he burned the house of the Lord, and the house of the king, and all the houses of Jerusalem; and every house he burned — † 10 the captain of the guard. [f]

11 And Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away the rest of the people who were left in the city, and those who had gone over to the king of Babylon, and the rest of what had held the city up. [g] 12 But the captain of the guard left some of the poor of the land behind, to tend the vines and work the fields. [h]

13 And the Chaldeans broke in pieces the bronze pillars that were in the house of the Lord, and the stands, and the bronze sea that was in the house of the Lord, and they carried their bronze off to Babylon. [i] 14 And the pots, and the shovels, and the bowls, and the incense dishes, and all the bronze vessels they served with, he took. [j] 15 And the captain of the guard took the fire pans and the bowls of gold and of silver — 16 two pillars, the one sea, and the stands that Solomon had made for the house of the Lord. There was no weighing the bronze of all these vessels. 17 The height of the one pillar was twenty-seven feet, and the capital on it was bronze, and the height of the capital was four and a half feet; and there was lattice-work and pomegranates on the capital all around, all of it bronze. And the second pillar was the same, with its lattice-work. [k]

18 And the captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and the three who guarded the doorway; [l] 19 and out of the city he took one eunuch who was in charge of the fighting men, and five men from among those who saw the king’s face, who were found in the city, and the scribe of the commander of the army, who mustered the people of the land, and sixty men of the people of the land who were found in the city. 20 And Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. 21 And the king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death at Riblah, in the land of Hamath. So Judah was carried away from its own land. [m] †

22 And over the people who were left in the land of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon left behind, he set Gedaliah son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan. [n] 23 And all the commanders of the army, they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah, and they came to Gedaliah at Mizpah: Ishmael son of Nethaniah, and Johanan son of Kareah, and Seraiah son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah son of the Maacathite, they and their men. [o] 24 And Gedaliah swore to them and to their men, and said to them, “Do not be afraid of the Chaldeans passing through. Settle in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it will go well with you.”

25 And in the seventh month Ishmael son of Nethaniah, son of Elishama, of the royal line, came, and ten men with him, and he struck Gedaliah down, and he died — and the Jews and the Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah. 26 And all the people rose up, from the least to the greatest, and the commanders of the armies with them, and they went into Egypt, because they were afraid of the Chaldeans.

27 And in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the year he became king, lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah and brought him out of his prison house. [p] 28 And he spoke kindly with him, and he set his throne above the thrones of the kings who were with him in Babylon. 29 And he changed his prison clothes, and he ate bread in his presence continually, all the days of his life. 30 And his food allowance, a steady allowance, was given him from the king’s house, a portion for each day, all the days of his life.