1 Esdras 1:33–55

³³He reigned three months in Judah^e and Jerusalem. Then the king of Egypt deposed him from reigning in Jerusalem ³⁴and fined the nation one hundred talents of silver and one talent of gold. ³⁵The king of Egypt made his brother Jehoiakim king of Judea and Jerusalem. ³⁶Jehoiakim put the nobles in prison and seized his brother Zarius and brought him back from Egypt.

³⁷Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign in Judea and Jerusalem; he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.^{* 38}King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came up against him; he bound him with a chain of bronze and took him away to Babylon. ³⁹Nebuchadnezzar also took some holy vessels of the Lord and carried them away and stored them in his temple in Babylon.^{* 40}But the things that are reported about Jehoiakim^f and his uncleanness and impiety are written in the annals of the kings.

⁴¹His son Jehoiachin became king in his place; when he was made king he was eighteen years old,^{* 42}and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. ⁴³A year later Nebuchadnezzar sent and removed him to Babylon, with the holy vessels of the Lord,^{* 44}and made Zedekiah king of Judea and Jerusalem.

The Fall of Jerusalem

Zedekiah was twenty-one years old, and he reigned eleven years.^{* 45}He also did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not heed the words spoken by the prophet Jeremiah from the mouth of the Lord.^{* 46}Although King Nebuchadnezzar had made him swear by the name of the Lord, he broke his oath and rebelled; he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart and transgressed the laws of the Lord, the God of Israel. ⁴⁷Even the leaders of the people and of the priests committed many acts of sacrilege and lawlessness beyond all the unclean deeds of all the nations and polluted the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem—the temple that God had made holy. ⁴⁸The God of their ancestors sent his messenger to call them back, because he would have spared them and his dwelling place. ⁴⁹But they mocked his messengers, and whenever the Lord spoke, they scoffed at his prophets, until God, in his anger against his nation because of their ungodly acts, gave the command to bring the kings of the Chaldeans against them.^{* 50}The Chaldeans killed their young men with the sword around their holy temple and did not spare young man or young woman,^g elder or child, for he gave them all into their hands. ⁵¹They took all the holy vessels of the Lord, great and small, the treasure chests of the Lord, and the royal stores and carried them away to Babylon.^{* 52}They burned the house of the Lord, broke down the walls of Jerusalem, burned its towers with fire,^{* 53}and utterly destroyed all its glorious things. Nebuchadnezzar^h led the survivors away to Babylon with the sword, ⁵⁴and they were servants to him and to his sons until the Persians began to reign, in fulfillment of the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah,^{* 55}saying, “Until the land has enjoyed its Sabbaths, it shall keep Sabbath all the time of its desolation until the completion of seventy years.”^*