| [an error occurred while processing this directive] | New Living Translation |
| 1[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 1Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. His mother was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah from Libnah. |
| 2[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 2But Zedekiah did what was evil in the LORD’s sight, just as Jehoiakim had done. |
| 3[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 3These things happened because of the LORD’s anger against the people of Jerusalem and Judah, until he finally banished them from his presence and sent them into exile. Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. |
| 4[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 4So on January 15, during the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon led his entire army against Jerusalem. They surrounded the city and built siege ramps against its walls. |
| 5[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 5Jerusalem was kept under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah’s reign. |
| 6[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 6By July 18 in the eleventh year of Zedekiah’s reign, the famine in the city had become very severe, and the last of the food was entirely gone. |
| 7[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 7Then a section of the city wall was broken down, and all the soldiers fled. Since the city was surrounded by the Babylonians, they waited for nightfall. Then they slipped through the gate between the two walls behind the king’s garden and headed toward the Jordan Valley. |
| 8[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 8But the Babylonian troops chased King Zedekiah and overtook him on the plains of Jericho, for his men had all deserted him and scattered. |
| 9[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 9They captured the king and took him to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath. There the king of Babylon pronounced judgment upon Zedekiah. |
| 10[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 10The king of Babylon made Zedekiah watch as he slaughtered his sons. He also slaughtered all the officials of Judah at Riblah. |
| 11[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 11Then he gouged out Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him in bronze chains, and the king of Babylon led him away to Babylon. Zedekiah remained there in prison until the day of his death. The Temple Destroyed |
| 12[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 12On August 17 of that year, which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard and an official of the Babylonian king, arrived in Jerusalem. |
| 13[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 13He burned down the Temple of the LORD, the royal palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem. He destroyed all the important buildings in the city. |
| 14[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 14Then he supervised the entire Babylonian army as they tore down the walls of Jerusalem on every side. |
| 15[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 15Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, took as exiles some of the poorest of the people, the rest of the people who remained in the city, the defectors who had declared their allegiance to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the craftsmen. |
| 16[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 16But Nebuzaradan allowed some of the poorest people to stay behind to care for the vineyards and fields. |
| 17[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 17The Babylonians broke up the bronze pillars in front of the LORD’s Temple, the bronze water carts, and the great bronze basin called the Sea, and they carried all the bronze away to Babylon. |
| 18[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 18They also took all the ash buckets, shovels, lamp snuffers, basins, dishes, and all the other bronze articles used for making sacrifices at the Temple. |
| 19[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 19The captain of the guard also took the small bowls, incense burners, basins, pots, lampstands, ladles, bowls used for liquid offerings, and all the other articles made of pure gold or silver. |
| 20[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 20The weight of the bronze from the two pillars, the Sea with the twelve bronze oxen beneath it, and the water carts was too great to be measured. These things had been made for the LORD’s Temple in the days of King Solomon. |
| 21[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 21Each of the pillars was 27 feet tall and 18 feet in circumference. They were hollow, with walls 3 inches thick. |
| 22[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 22The bronze capital on top of each pillar was 7 1/2 feet high and was decorated with a network of bronze pomegranates all the way around. |
| 23[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 23There were 96 pomegranates on the sides, and a total of 100 pomegranates on the network around the top. |
| 24[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 24Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, took with him as prisoners Seraiah the high priest, Zephaniah the priest of the second rank, and the three chief gatekeepers. |
| 25[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 25And from among the people still hiding in the city, he took an officer who had been in charge of the Judean army; seven of the king’s personal advisers; the army commander’s chief secretary, who was in charge of recruitment; and sixty other citizens. |
| 26[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 26Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, took them all to the king of Babylon at Riblah. |
| 27[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 27And there at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, the king of Babylon had them all put to death. So the people of Judah were sent into exile from their land. |
| 28[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 28The number of captives taken to Babylon in the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign was 3,023. |
| 29[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 29Then in Nebuchadnezzar’s eighteenth year he took 832 more. |
| 30[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 30In Nebuchadnezzar’s twenty-third year he sent Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, who took 745 more—a total of 4,600 captives in all. Hope for Israel’s Royal Line |
| 31[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 31In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, Evil-merodach ascended to the Babylonian throne. He was kind to Jehoiachin and released him from prison on March 31 of that year. |
| 32[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 32He spoke kindly to Jehoiachin and gave him a higher place than all the other exiled kings in Babylon. |
| 33[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 33He supplied Jehoiachin with new clothes to replace his prison garb and allowed him to dine in the king’s presence for the rest of his life. |
| 34[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 34So the Babylonian king gave him a regular food allowance as long as he lived. This continued until the day of his death. |
| [an error occurred while processing this directive] | Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. |
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