Jeremiah 52

Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah, from Libnah. He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, just as Jehoiakim had done. Because of the LORD’s anger, this happened to Jerusalem and Judah until he cast them out of his presence. Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. In the ninth year of his reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came with his entire army against Jerusalem. They encamped against it and built siege works all around it. The city remained under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. On the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine had become severe in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land. The city was breached, and all the soldiers fled. They left the city by night through the gate between the two walls beside the king’s garden, though the Chaldeans surrounded the city. They went toward the Arabah. The Chaldean army pursued the king and overtook Zedekiah on the plains of Jericho, and his entire army scattered away from him. They captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he pronounced judgment on him. The king of Babylon slaughtered Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes. He also slaughtered all the officials of Judah at Riblah. He put out Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him with bronze shackles. The king of Babylon brought him to Babylon and put him in prison until the day of his death. On the tenth day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, who served the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He burned the house of the LORD, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem. Every great house he burned with fire. The entire Chaldean army with the captain of the guard tore down all the walls around Jerusalem. Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took into exile some of the poor people, the rest of the people remaining in the city, the deserters who had deserted to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the craftsmen. But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left some of the poor of the land to be vinedressers and farmers. The Chaldeans broke up the bronze pillars of the house of the LORD, the stands, and the bronze Sea in the house of the LORD, and carried all their bronze to Babylon. They also took the pots, shovels, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, ladles, and all the bronze utensils used in the service. The captain of the guard took the basins, firepans, sprinkling bowls, pots, lampstands, ladles, and cups for drink offerings—whatever was made of gold and whatever was made of silver. The two pillars, the one Sea, and the twelve bronze bulls beneath the stands, which King Solomon had made for the house of the LORD—the bronze of all these vessels was beyond weighing. Each pillar was about twenty-seven feet high, and a cord about eighteen feet long went around it. It was hollow, with walls about three inches thick. A bronze capital was on top of it, about seven and a half feet high. Latticework and pomegranates surrounded the capital, all of bronze. The second pillar and its pomegranates were like these. There were ninety-six pomegranates facing outward. All the pomegranates around the latticework numbered one hundred. The captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the second priest, and the three keepers of the threshold. From the city he took one eunuch who was in charge of the soldiers, seven men with access to the king’s presence who were found in the city, the army commander’s scribe who mustered the people of the land, and sixty men of the people of the land who were found in the city. Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. The king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was taken into exile from his land. These are the people Nebuchadnezzar took into exile: in the seventh year, 3,023 Jews; in Nebuchadnezzar’s eighteenth year, 832 persons from Jerusalem; in Nebuchadnezzar’s twenty-third year, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took into exile 745 Jews. The total was 4,600 persons. In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month, Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the year he began to reign, lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah and brought him out of prison. He spoke kindly to him and set his throne above the throne of the kings who were with him in Babylon. Jehoiachin changed out of his prison clothes and ate bread regularly in the king’s presence all the days of his life. For his provision, a regular allowance was given him by the king of Babylon, a daily portion day by day, until the day of his death, all the days of his life.

Rights and attribution