2 Chronicles, 36

1. The people of the land then took Jehoahaz son of Josiah and proclaimed him king of Jerusalem in succession to his father.

2. Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he came to the throne, and he reigned for three months in Jerusalem.

3. The king of Egypt deposed him in Jerusalem and imposed a levy of a hundred talents of silver and one talent of gold on the country.

4. The king of Egypt then made his brother Eliakim king of Judah and Jerusalem, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. Carrying off his brother Jehoahaz, Necho took him to Egypt.

5. Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he came to the throne, and he reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem. He did what is displeasing to Yahweh his God.

6. Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon attacked him, loaded him with chains and took him to Babylon.

7. To Babylon Nebuchadnezzar also took some of the objects belonging to the Temple of Yahweh and put them in his palace in Babylon.

8. The rest of the history of Jehoiakim, the shameful things that he did and what happened to him in consequence, these are recorded in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah. His son Jehoiachin succeeded him.

9. Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he came to the throne, and he reigned for three months and ten days in Jerusalem. He did what is displeasing to Yahweh.

10. At the turn of the year, King Nebuchadnezzar sent for him and had him taken to Babylon, with the valuables belonging to the Temple of Yahweh, and made his brother Zedekiah king of Judah and Jerusalem.

11. Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he came to the throne, and he reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem.

12. He did what is displeasing to Yahweh his God. He did not listen humbly to the prophet Jeremiah who spoke for Yahweh.

13. Furthermore, he rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar who had made him swear allegiance to him by God. He became stubborn, and obstinately refused to return to Yahweh, God of Israel.

14. Furthermore, all the leaders of Judah, the priests and the people too, added infidelity to infidelity, copying all the shameful practices of the nations and defiling the Temple of Yahweh which he himself had consecrated in Jerusalem.

15. Yahweh, God of their ancestors, continuously sent them word through his messengers because he felt sorry for his people and his dwelling,

16. but they ridiculed the messengers of God, they despised his words, they laughed at his prophets, until Yahweh's wrath with his people became so fierce that there was no further remedy.

17. So against them he summoned the king of the Chaldaeans and he put their young men to the sword within the very building of their Temple, not sparing young man or girl, or the old and infirm; he put them all at his mercy.

18. All the things belonging to the Temple of God, whether large or small, the treasures of the Temple of Yahweh, the treasures of the king and his officials, everything he took to Babylon.

19. He burned down the temple of God, demolished the walls of Jerusalem, burned all its palaces to the ground and destroyed everything of value in it.

20. And those who had escaped the sword he deported to Babylon, where they were enslaved by him and his descendants until the rise of the kingdom of Persia,

21. to fulfil Yahweh's prophecy through Jeremiah: Until the country has paid off its Sabbaths, it will lie fallow for all the days of its desolation -- until the seventy years are complete.

22. In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia -- to fulfil the word of Yahweh through Jeremiah -- Yahweh roused the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia to issue a proclamation and to have it publicly displayed throughout his kingdom:

23. 'Cyrus king of Persia says this, "Yahweh, the God of Heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and has appointed me to build him a Temple in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all his people, may his God be with him! Let him go up."'