Jeremiah, 52

1. Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he came to the throne, and he reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hamital daughter of Jeremiah, of Libnah.

2. He did what is displeasing to Yahweh, just as Jehoiakim had done.

3. That this should happen to Jerusalem and Judah was due to Yahweh's anger, resulting in his casting them away from his presence. Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

4. In the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon advanced on Jerusalem with his entire army; he pitched camp in front of the city and threw up earthworks round it.

5. The city lay under siege till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

6. In the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, when famine was raging in the city and there was no food for the populace,

7. a breach was made in the city wall. The king and all the fighting men then fled, leaving the city under cover of dark, by way of the gate between the two walls, which is near the king's garden -- the Chaldaeans had surrounded the city -- and made his way towards the Arabah.

8. The Chaldaean troops pursued the king and caught up with Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, where all his troops deserted.

9. But the Chaldaeans captured the king and took him to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the territory of Hamath, where he passed sentence on him.

10. He had Zedekiah's sons slaughtered before his eyes; he also had all the chief men of Judah put to death at Riblah.

11. He then put out Zedekiah's eyes and, loading him with chains, the king of Babylon carried him off to Babylon where he kept him prisoner until his dying day.

12. In the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month -- it was in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon -- Nebuzaradan commander of the guard, a member of the king of Babylon's staff, entered Jerusalem.

13. He burnt down the Temple of Yahweh, the royal palace and all the houses in Jerusalem.

14. The Chaldaean troops who accompanied the commander of the guard demolished all the walls surrounding Jerusalem.

15. Nebuzaradan commander of the guard deported (some of the poor people and) the remainder of the population left in the city, the deserters who had gone over to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the artisans.

16. But Nebuzaradan commander of the guard left some of the poor country-people behind as vineyard workers and ploughmen.

17. The Chaldaeans broke up the bronze pillars from the Temple of Yahweh, the wheeled stands and the bronze Sea, which were in the Temple of Yahweh, and took all the bronze away to Babylon.

18. They also took the ash containers, the scoops, the knives, the sprinkling bowls, the incense bowls, and all the bronze furnishings used in worship.

19. The commander of the guard also took the bowls, the censers, the sprinkling bowls, the ash containers, the lamp-stands, the goblets and the saucers: everything that was made of gold and everything made of silver.

20. As regards the two pillars, the one Sea, the twelve bronze oxen supporting the Sea, and the wheeled stands, which King Solomon had made for the Temple of Yahweh, there was no reckoning the weight of bronze in all these objects.

21. As regards the pillars, the height of one pillar was eighteen cubits, its circumference was twelve cubits, it was four fingers thick, and hollow inside;

22. on it stood a capital of bronze, the height of the capital being five cubits; round the capital were filigree and pomegranates, all in bronze. So also for the second pillar.

23. There were ninety-six pomegranates round the sides, making a hundred pomegranates round the filigree in all.

24. The commander of the guard took prisoner Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest next in rank, and the three guardians of the threshold.

25. In the city he took prisoner an official who was in command of the fighting men, seven of the king's personal friends who were discovered in the city, the secretary to the army commander responsible for military conscription, and sixty men of distinction discovered in the city.

26. Nebuzaradan commander of the guard took these men and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah,

27. and at Riblah, in the territory of Hamath, the king of Babylon had them put to death. Thus Judah was deported from its country.

28. The number of people deported by Nebuchadnezzar was as follows. In the seventh year: three thousand and twenty-three Judaeans;

29. in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, eight hundred and thirty-two persons were deported from Jerusalem;

30. in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan commander of the guard deported seven hundred and forty-five Judaeans. In all: four thousand six hundred persons.

31. But in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth day of the month, Evil-Merodach king of Babylon, in the year he came to the throne, pardoned Jehoiachin king of Judah and released him from prison.

32. He treated him kindly and allotted him a seat above those of the other kings who were with him in Babylon.

33. So Jehoiachin laid aside his prisoner's garb and for the rest of his life always ate at the king's table.

34. And his upkeep was permanently ensured by the king, day after day, for the rest of his life until the day he died.