⁸Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign; and he reigned three months in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Nehushta, daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem. ⁹And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah, according to all that his father had done. ¹⁰At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against Jerusalem, and the city was besieged. ¹¹And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came against the city, while his servants were besieging it. ¹²And Jehoiachin king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and his princes, and his chamberlains; and the king of Babylon took him in the eighth year of his reign. ¹³And he brought out thence all the treasures of the house of Jehovah, and the treasures of the king’s house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold that Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of Jehovah, as Jehovah had said. ¹⁴And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valour, ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths: none remained but the poorest sort of the people of the land. ¹⁵And he carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, and the king’s mother, and the king’s wives, and his chamberlains, and the mighty of the land, he led into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon; ¹⁶and all the men of valour, seven thousand, and the craftsmen and smiths a thousand, all strong men apt for war, and the king of Babylon brought them captive to Babylon. ¹⁷And the king of Babylon made Mattaniah his uncle king in his stead, and changed his name to Zedekiah. ¹⁸Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Hamutal, daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. ¹⁹And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah, according to all that Jehoiakim had done. ²⁰For, because the anger of Jehovah was against Jerusalem and against Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence, Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

Chapter 25

¹And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and encamped against it; and they built turrets against it round about. ²And the city was besieged until the eleventh year of king Zedekiah. ³On the ninth of the fourth month the famine prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land. ⁴And the city was broken into; and all the men of war fled by night, by the way of the gate between the two walls, which leads to the king’s garden (now the Chaldeans were by the city round about); and they went the way toward the plain. ⁵And the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him. ⁶And they took the king, and brought him up to the king of Babylon unto Riblah; and they pronounced judgment upon him, ⁷and slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him with chains of brass, and carried him to Babylon.

⁸And in the fifth month, on the seventh of the month, which was in the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzar-adan, captain of the body-guard, servant of the king of Babylon, came unto Jerusalem; ⁹and he burned the house of Jehovah, and the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; and every great man’s house he burned with fire. ¹⁰And all the army of the Chaldeans that were with the captain of the body-guard broke down the walls of Jerusalem round about. ¹¹And Nebuzar-adan the captain of the body-guard carried away captive the rest of the people that were left in the city, and the deserters that had deserted to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the multitude. ¹²But the captain of the body-guard left of the poor of the land for vinedressers and husbandmen. ¹³And the brazen pillars that were in the house of Jehovah, and the bases, and the brazen sea that was in the house of Jehovah, the Chaldeans broke in pieces, and carried the brass thereof to Babylon. ¹⁴The cauldrons also and the shovels and the knives and the cups, and all the vessels of copper wherewith they ministered, they took away. ¹⁵And the censers and the bowls, that which was of gold in gold, and that which was of silver in silver, the captain of the body-guard took away. ¹⁶The two pillars, the one sea, and the bases which Solomon had made for the house of Jehovah: for the brass of all these vessels there was no weight. ¹⁷The height of one pillar was eighteen cubits, and the capital upon it was brass, and the height of the capital three cubits; and the network and the pomegranates, upon the capital round about, all of brass: and similarly for the second pillar with the network. ¹⁸And the captain of the body-guard took Seraiah the high priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and the three doorkeepers. ¹⁹And out of the city he took a chamberlain that was set over the men of war, and five men of them that were in the king’s presence, who were found in the city, and the scribe of the captain of the host, who enrolled the people of the land; and sixty men of the people of the land that were found in the city. ²⁰And Nebuzar-adan the captain of the body-guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon to Riblah; ²¹and the king of Babylon smote them and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. Thus Judah was carried away captive out of his land.

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