1 Esdras 1:35–58

³⁵And he reigned three months in Judah and Jerusalem. Then the king of Egypt deposed him from reigning in Jerusalem, ³⁶and fined the nation a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. ³⁷And the king of Egypt made Jehoiakim his brother king of Judea and Jerusalem. ³⁸Jehoiakim put the nobles in prison, and seized his brother Zarius and brought him up out of Egypt.

³⁹Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign in Judea and Jerusalem, and he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. ⁴⁰And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against him, and bound him with a chain of brass and took him away to Babylon. ⁴¹Nebuchadnezzar also took some holy vessels of the Lord, and carried them away, and stored them in his temple in Babylon. ⁴²But the things that are reported about Jehoiakim and his uncleanness and impiety are written in the chronicles of the kings.

⁴³Jehoiachin his son became king in his stead; when he was made king he was eighteen years old, ⁴⁴and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. ⁴⁵So after a year Nebuchadnezzar sent and removed him to Babylon, with the holy vessels of the Lord, ⁴⁶and made Zedekiah king of Judea and Jerusalem.

Zedekiah was twenty-one years old, and he reigned eleven years. ⁴⁷He also did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not heed the words that were spoken by Jeremiah the prophet from the mouth of the Lord. ⁴⁸And though King Nebuchadnezzar had made him swear by the name of the Lord, he broke his oath and rebelled; and he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart and transgressed the laws of the Lord, the God of Israel. ⁴⁹Even 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 which had been hallowed in Jerusalem. ⁵⁰So the God of their fathers sent by his messenger to call them back, because he would have spared them and his dwelling place. ⁵¹But they mocked his messengers, and whenever the Lord spoke, they scoffed at his prophets, ⁵²until in his anger against his people because of their ungodly acts he gave command to bring against them the kings of the Chaldeans. ⁵³These slew their young men with the sword around their holy temple, and did not spare young man or virgin, old man or child, for he gave them all into their hands. ⁵⁴And all the holy vessels of the Lord, great and small, and the treasure chests of the Lord, and the royal stores, they took and carried away to Babylon. ⁵⁵And they burned the house of the Lord and broke down the walls of Jerusalem and burned their towers with fire, ⁵⁶and utterly destroyed all its glorious things. The survivors he led away to Babylon with the sword, ⁵⁷and they were servants to him and to his sons until the Persians began to reign, in fulfilment of the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah: ⁵⁸“Until the land has enjoyed its sabbaths, it shall keep sabbath all the time of its desolation until the completion of seventy years.”