25 1 In Zedekiah's ninth year, the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched on Jerusalem with his whole army, camped outside, and built a siege wall around it. 2 So the city remained under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. 3 By the fourth month's ninth day the city's famine was so severe the people of the land had no food. 4 The city wall was broken through, and though the Babylonians surrounded it, all the soldiers fled by night through the gate between the two walls by the king's garden, toward the Arabah. 5 Babylonian army chased the king, caught him on Jericho's plains, and all his troops scattered from him. 6 They seized the king, brought him up to Babylon's king at Riblah, and sentenced him. 7 They killed Zedekiah's sons before his eyes, blinded him, bound him in bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon.
8 In the fifth month, on the seventh day — the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon — Nebuzaradan, commander of the guard, servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. 9 He burned the house of our Father, the king's palace, and all Jerusalem's houses; every great house he burned. 10 And the whole Babylonian army under the commander of the guard broke down the walls surrounding Jerusalem. 11 Nebuzaradan, commander of the guard, exiled the rest of the people left in the city, the deserters who had gone over to Babylon's king, and the rest of the crowd. 12 But the guard commander left some of the land's poorest to tend the vineyards and fields.
13 The Babylonians broke the bronze pillars, stands, and bronze Sea of our Father's house to pieces, and carried the bronze to Babylon. 14 They also took the pots, shovels, wick trimmers, dishes, and all the bronze temple service articles. 15 The guard commander took the firepans and bowls, all of pure gold or pure silver. 16 The two pillars, the Sea, and the stands Solomon made for our Father's house — the bronze of all these was beyond weighing. 17 Each pillar stood twenty-seven feet high, topped by a bronze capital four and a half feet high, ringed with a bronze network of pomegranates. The second pillar matched, with its network.
18 The guard commander took Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the second priest, and the three doorkeepers. 19 From the city he took the officer over the fighting men, five royal advisers found there, the army commander's secretary who conscripted the land's people, and sixty commoners found in the city. 20 Nebuzaradan, commander of the guard, took them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. 21 There at Riblah in Hamath, Babylon's king struck and killed them. So Judah was exiled from its land.
Gedaliah Set Over the Land
22 Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made Gedaliah son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan, governor over the people left in Judah. 23 When army officers and their men heard Babylon's king had made Gedaliah governor, they came to him at Mizpah: Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah the Maacathite's son, with their men. 24 Gedaliah swore to them and their men, "Don't fear the Babylonian officials. Live in the land, serve the king of Babylon, and it will go well for you."
25 In the seventh month Ishmael son of Nethaniah, son of Elishama, of royal descent, came with ten men, struck down Gedaliah, and killed the Judeans and Babylonians with him at Mizpah. 26 So all the people, small to great, and army officers fled to Egypt, fearing the Babylonians.
Hope for the Exiled King
27 In Jehoiachin of Judah's thirty-seventh year of exile, the year Evil-merodach became king of Babylon, he favored Jehoiachin and freed him from prison on the twelfth month's twenty-seventh day. 28 He spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat above the other kings with him in Babylon. 29 Jehoiachin took off his prison clothes and ate at the king's table regularly the rest of his life. 30 Day by day the king gave him a regular allowance for as long as he lived.
