Jeremiah 52:1-7 ▼

1 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah.

2 Zedekiah did what was evil in the LORD’s sight just as Jehoiakim had done.

3 Because of the LORD’s anger, it came to the point in Jerusalem and Judah that he finally banished them from his presence. Then Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

4 In the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon advanced against Jerusalem with his entire army. They laid siege to the city and built a siege wall against it all around.

5 The city was under siege until King Zedekiah’s eleventh year.

6 By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that the common people had no food.

7 Then the city was broken into, and all the warriors fled. They left the city at night by way of the city gate between the two walls near the king’s garden, though the Chaldeans surrounded the city. They made their way along the route to the Arabah.