2 Kings 24:17–25:7

¹⁷Then he made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s uncle, king in Jehoiachin’s place. He also changed Mattaniah’s name to Zedekiah.

Zedekiah King of Judah

¹⁸Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he was king in Jerusalem for eleven years. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah ⁿ from Libnah. ¹⁹Zedekiah did what the Lord said was wrong, just as Jehoiakim had done. ²⁰All this happened in Jerusalem and Judah because the Lord was angry with them. Finally, he threw them out of his presence.

The Fall of Jerusalem

Zedekiah turned against the king of Babylon.

25Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his whole army during Zedekiah’s ninth year as king, on the tenth day of the tenth month. He made a camp around the city and piled dirt against the city walls to attack it. ²The city was under attack until Zedekiah’s eleventh year as king. ³By the ninth day of the fourth month, the hunger was terrible in the city. There was no food for the people to eat. ⁴Then the city was broken into, and the whole army ran away at night through the gate between the two walls by the king’s garden. While the Babylonians were still surrounding the city, Zedekiah and his men ran away toward the Jordan Valley. ⁵But the Babylonian army chased King Zedekiah and caught up with him in the plains of Jericho. All of his army was scattered from him, ⁶so they captured Zedekiah and took him to the king of Babylon at Riblah. There he passed sentence on Zedekiah. ⁷They killed Zedekiah’s sons as he watched. Then they put out his eyes and put bronze chains on him and took him to Babylon.