< 2 Kings 25 >
1 And it comes to pass, in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has come, he and all his force, against Jerusalem, and encamps against it, and builds a surrounding fortification against it.
2 And the city enters into siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.
3 On the ninth of the month, when the famine is severe in the city, then there has not been bread for the people of the land.
4 And the city is broken up, and all the men of war [go] by night the way of the gate, between the two walls that [are] by the garden of the king, and the Chaldeans [are] against the city all around, and [the king] goes the way of the plain.
5 And the force of the Chaldeans pursue after the king, and overtake him in the plains of Jericho, and all his force have been scattered from him;
6 and they seize the king, and bring him up to the king of Babylon, to Riblah, and they speak judgment with him.
7 And they have slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and he has blinded the eyes of Zedekiah, and binds him with bronze chains, and they bring him to Babylon.
8 And in the fifth month, on the seventh of the month (it [is] the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon), Nebuzaradan chief of the executioners, servant of the king of Babylon, has come to Jerusalem,
9 and he burns the house of YHWH, and the house of the king, and all the houses of Jerusalem, indeed, he has burned every great house with fire;
10 and all the forces of the Chaldeans, who [are] with the chief of the executioners, have broken down the walls of Jerusalem all around.
11 And the rest of the people, those left in the city, and those falling who have fallen to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the multitude, Nebuzaradan chief of the executioners has removed;
12 and of the poor of the land the chief of the executioners has left for vinedressers and for farmers.
13 And the pillars of bronze that [are] in the house of YHWH, and the bases, and the sea of bronze, that [is] in the house of YHWH, the Chaldeans have broken in pieces, and carry away their bronze to Babylon.
14 And the pots, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the spoons, and all the vessels of bronze with which they minister, they have taken;
15 and the fire-pans, and the bowls that [are] wholly of silver, the chief of the executioners has taken.
16 The two pillars, the one sea, and the bases that Solomon made for the house of YHWH, there was no weighing of the bronze of all these vessels;
17 eighteen cubits [is] the height of the one pillar, and the capital on it [is] of bronze, and the height of the capital [is] three cubits, and the net and the pomegranates [are] on the capital all around—the whole [is] of bronze; and the second pillar has like these, with the net.
18 And the chief of the executioners takes Seraiah the head priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and the three keepers of the threshold;
19 and he has taken out of the city a certain eunuch who is appointed over the men of war, and five men of those seeing the king’s face who have been found in the city, and the head scribe of the host who musters the people of the land, and sixty men of the people of the land who are found in the city;
20 and Nebuzaradan chief of the executioners takes them, and causes them to go to the king of Babylon, to Libnah,
21 and the king of Babylon strikes them, and puts them to death in Riblah, in the land of Hamath, and he removes Judah from off its land.
22 And the people that are left in the land of Judah whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has left—he appoints Gedaliah son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan, over them.
23 And all the heads of the forces hear—they and the men—that the king of Babylon has appointed Gedaliah, and they come to Gedaliah, to Mizpah, even Ishmael son of Nethaniah, and Johanan son of Kareah, and Seraiah son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah son of the Maachathite—they and their men;
24 and Gedaliah swears to them and to their men, and says to them, “Do not be afraid of the servants of the Chaldeans, dwell in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it is good for you.”
25 And it comes to pass, in the seventh month, Ishmael son of Nathaniah has come, son of Elishama of the seed of the kingdom, and ten men with him, and they strike Gedaliah, and he dies, and the Jews and the Chaldeans who have been with him in Mizpah.
26 And all the people rise, from small even to great, and the heads of the forces, and come to Egypt, for they have been afraid of the presence of the Chaldeans.
27 And it comes to pass, in the thirty-seventh year of the expulsion of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh of the month, Evil-Merodach king of Babylon has lifted up, in the year of his reigning, the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah, out of the house of restraint,
28 and speaks good things with him and puts his throne above the throne of the kings who [are] with him in Babylon,
29 and has changed the garments of his restraint, and he has eaten bread continually before him all [the] days of his life,
30 and his allowance—a continual allowance—has been given to him from the king, the matter of a day in its day, all [the] days of his life.
