2 Kings 25:1-21 ▼

1 And it comes to pass, in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has come, he and all his force, against Jerusalem, and encamps against it, and builds a surrounding fortification against it.

2 And the city enters into siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

3 On the ninth of the month, when the famine is severe in the city, then there has not been bread for the people of the land.

4 And the city is broken up, and all the men of war [go] by night the way of the gate, between the two walls that [are] by the garden of the king, and the Chaldeans [are] against the city all around, and [the king] goes the way of the plain.

5 And the force of the Chaldeans pursue after the king, and overtake him in the plains of Jericho, and all his force have been scattered from him;

6 and they seize the king, and bring him up to the king of Babylon, to Riblah, and they speak judgment with him.

7 And they have slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and he has blinded the eyes of Zedekiah, and binds him with bronze chains, and they bring him to Babylon.

8 And in the fifth month, on the seventh of the month (it [is] the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon), Nebuzaradan chief of the executioners, servant of the king of Babylon, has come to Jerusalem,

9 and he burns the house of YHWH, and the house of the king, and all the houses of Jerusalem, indeed, he has burned every great house with fire;

10 and all the forces of the Chaldeans, who [are] with the chief of the executioners, have broken down the walls of Jerusalem all around.

11 And the rest of the people, those left in the city, and those falling who have fallen to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the multitude, Nebuzaradan chief of the executioners has removed;

12 and of the poor of the land the chief of the executioners has left for vinedressers and for farmers.

13 And the pillars of bronze that [are] in the house of YHWH, and the bases, and the sea of bronze, that [is] in the house of YHWH, the Chaldeans have broken in pieces, and carry away their bronze to Babylon.

14 And the pots, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the spoons, and all the vessels of bronze with which they minister, they have taken;

15 and the fire-pans, and the bowls that [are] wholly of silver, the chief of the executioners has taken.

16 The two pillars, the one sea, and the bases that Solomon made for the house of YHWH, there was no weighing of the bronze of all these vessels;

17 eighteen cubits [is] the height of the one pillar, and the capital on it [is] of bronze, and the height of the capital [is] three cubits, and the net and the pomegranates [are] on the capital all around—the whole [is] of bronze; and the second pillar has like these, with the net.

18 And the chief of the executioners takes Seraiah the head priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and the three keepers of the threshold;

19 and he has taken out of the city a certain eunuch who is appointed over the men of war, and five men of those seeing the king’s face who have been found in the city, and the head scribe of the host who musters the people of the land, and sixty men of the people of the land who are found in the city;

20 and Nebuzaradan chief of the executioners takes them, and causes them to go to the king of Babylon, to Libnah,

21 and the king of Babylon strikes them, and puts them to death in Riblah, in the land of Hamath, and he removes Judah from off its land.