2 Kings 25:1-30
25 * And Sidkijah broke his allegiance to the king of Babylon. And in the year nine of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, King Nebucadnessar of Babylon came against Jerusalem, he and all his forces, and beleaguered it and built a wall of investment around it;
2 and the city was besieged till the year eleven of King Sidkijah in the fourth month, the ninth of the month.
3 And hunger was pressing hard in the city, and there was no bread for the populace;
4 and the city was breached. And the king and all the men of war went out in the night by way of the gate between the two walls along the king’s garden, the city being beset all round by the Chaldeans, and went in the direction of the Rift Valley.
5 And the Chaldean forces pursued the king and overtook him on the flats at Jericho, all his forces being scattered away from him,
6 * and they captured the king and took him up to Riblah to the king of Babylon, and he held a court and tried him.
7 ** And he cut the throats of Sidkijah’s sons before his eyes, and put out Sidkijah’s eyes, and put him in fetters and brought him to Babylon.
8 * And in the fifth month, on the seventh of the month, it being the year nineteen of King Nebucadnessar of Babylon, Chief Guardsman Nebuzaradan, the king of Babylon’s officer, came to Jerusalem
9 * and burned down Jehovah’s house and the royal palace and all the houses in Jerusalem;
10 and all the Chaldean forces that the Chief Guardsman had with him pulled down the walls of Jerusalem all around.
11 * And the rest of the people, those who were left of the people in the city, and the deserters who had deserted to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the craftsmen, Chief Guardsman Nebuzaradan deported;
12 but some of the proletariat the Chief Guardsman left for vineyardists and farmers.
13 And the bronze pillars at Jehovah’s house, and the stands and the bronze sea in Jehovah’s house, the Chaldeans broke up, and carried the bronze of them away to Babylon;
14 * and they took the pots and shovels and snuffers and pans, and all the bronze articles with which the priests officiated.
15 And the firepans and the bowls, gold what was gold and silver what was silver, the Chief Guardsman took.
16 * And the pillars two, and the sea one, and the stands ten, which Solomon had made for Jehovah’s house—there was no weighing the bronze of all these articles.
17 ** Twenty-seven feet was the height of one pillar, and it had on it a bronze capital, the height of the capital being seven and a half feet, and on the capital, surrounding it, a network and pomegranates, all bronze; and the second pillar had the like on the network.
18 And the Chief Guardsman took High Priest Seraiah and Second Priest Sephaniah and the three threshold-keepers,
19 * and out of the city he took a eunuch who had had the oversight of the fighting men, and five of such men having the right of seeing the king’s face as were to be found in the city, and the general’s secretary who had had the summoning of the militia, and sixty of the civilians who were found in the city;
20 Chief Guardsman Nebuzaradan took them and brought them to Riblah to the king of Babylon,
21 and the king of Babylon struck them dead at Riblah, in the country of Hamath; and Judah was deported off its soil.
22 And as for the people left in the country of Judah, those whom King Nebucadnessar of Babylon had left, he put Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan in charge of them;
23 and all the captains of partisan troops, they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had put Gedaliah in charge, and they came to Mispah to Gedaliah—Ishmaʽel the son of Nethaniah and Johanan the son of Kareah and Seraiah the son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite and Jaazaniah the Ben-Maacathite, they and their men—
24 and Gedaliah swore to his good faith toward them and their men, and said to them “Do not be afraid of the Chaldeans’ soldiery; live in the country and be subject to the king of Babylon and be well off.”
25 But in the seventh month Ishmaʽel the son of Nethaniah the son of Elishamaʽ, of the royal blood, came and assassinated Gedaliah and the Jews and Chaldeans he had with him at Mispah.
26 And all the people, small and great, and the partisan captains, went off into Egypt because they were afraid of the Chaldeans.
27 And in the thirty-seventh year of the deportation of King Jehojakin of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh of the month, King Evil-Merodac of Babylon, in the year of his accession to the throne, released King Jehojakin of Judah from jail
28 and had a friendly conversation with him, and put his throne above the thrones of the kings he had with him at Babylon,
29 and changed his jail clothes, and he ate before him regularly as long as he lived.
30 And his allowance was a regular one given him daily out of the royal supplies as long as he lived.
Footnotes
^ 25 Different copies vary much as to dates in this chapter
^ 25:6 Var. they held
^ 25:7 Var. they cut . . . and he put out
^ 25:7 Var.* and they brought
^ 25:8, 10, 11, 12, 15, 18, 20 Lit. Chief of the Butchers
^ 25:9 Codd. burned Jehovah’s house and the royal palace and all the houses in Jerusalem and burned down every great house
^ 25:11 (craftsmen) Var. masses
^ 25:14 Lit. with which they officiated
^ 25:16 Codd. and the stands, which
^ 25:17 Var. being three cubits
^ 25:17 Var. and pomegranates instead of on the network
^ 25:19 Or and five, as many as were to be found in the city, of the men who had had the right of seeing the king’s face
