609 BC—In the thirty-first regnal year of Josiah, when Jeremiah was thirty-one years of age, the last King of Assyria, Ashur-uballit II, deprived of his heartland and all its major cities, made a final stand at Harran in Syria. The Egyptians were still allied to Assyria and the army of Pharaoh Necho II set forth to help the Assyrians repulse the Babylonian attackers. Around the first of July the armies of King Josiah went out to the plain of Megiddo and tried to prevent the Egyptians from passing