2 Kings 25:2–11

²The city was under siege until King Zedekiah’s eleventh year.

³By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that the common people had no food.^{s 4}Then the city was broken into,^t and all the warriors fled^u at night by way of the city gate between the two walls near the king’s garden,^v even though the Chaldeans surrounded the city. As the king made his way along the route to the Arabah,^{w 5}the Chaldean army pursued him and overtook him in the plains of Jericho. Zedekiah’s entire army left him and scattered.^{x 6}The Chaldeans seized the king^y and brought him up to the king of Babylon^z at Riblah,^aa and they passed sentence on him. ⁷They slaughtered Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes. Finally, the king of Babylon blinded Zedekiah, bound him in bronze chains, and took him to Babylon.^ab

JERUSALEM DESTROYED

⁸On^ac the seventh day of the fifth month—which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon—Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guards, a servant of the king of Babylon, entered Jerusalem.^{ad 9}He burned the Lord’s temple,^ae the king’s palace,^af and all the houses of Jerusalem; he burned down^ag all the great houses. ¹⁰The whole Chaldean army with the captain of the guards tore down the walls^ah surrounding Jerusalem. ¹¹Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guards, deported the rest of the people who remained in the city, the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the population.^ai