\v 1 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign; he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hamutal; she was the daughter of Jeremiah from Libnah.
\v 3 Through Yahweh's anger, all these events happened in Jerusalem and Judah, until he drove them from before himself. Then Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
\v 6 In the fourth month, on the ninth day of that year, the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.
\v 7 Then the city was broken into, and all the fighting men fled and went out of the city at night by the way of the gate that was between the two walls, by the king's garden, although the Chaldeans were all around the city. So they went in the direction of the Arabah.
\v 8 But the army of Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of the Jordan River valley near Jericho. All his army was scattered away from him.
\v 9 They captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he passed sentence on him.
\v 10 The king of Babylon slaughtered Zedekiah's sons before his own eyes, and at Riblah he also slaughtered all the leaders of Judah.
\v 11 Then he put out Zedekiah's eyes, bound him in bronze chains, and brought him to Babylon. The king of Babylon put him in prison until the day of his death.
\v 12 Now in the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan came to Jerusalem. He was the commander of the king's bodyguards and a servant of the king of Babylon.
\v 13 He burned the house of Yahweh, the king's palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem; also every important building in the city he burned.
\v 15 As for the poorest people, the rest of the people who were left in the city, those who had deserted to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the craftsmen—
\v 17 As for the bronze pillars that belonged to the house of Yahweh, and the stands and the bronze sea that were in the house of
Yahweh, the Chaldeans broke them into pieces and carried all the bronze back to Babylon.
\v 18 The pots, shovels, lamp trimmers, bowls, and all the utensils of bronze with which the priests had served in the temple—the Chaldeans took them all away.
\v 19 The basins and the incense burners, the bowls, pots, lampstands, pans, and basins that were made of gold, and those made of silver—the commander of the king's guard took them away as well.
\v 20 The two pillars, the sea, and the twelve bronze bulls that were under the stands, things that Solomon had made for the house of Yahweh, contained more bronze than could be weighed.
\v 21 The pillars were eighteen cubits high each, and a line around each one measured twelve cubits. Each was four fingers thick and hollow.
\v 22 A capital of bronze was on top of it. The capital was five cubits high, with latticework and pomegranates all around. It was all made of bronze. The other pillar and its pomegranates were the same as the first.
\v 25 From the city he took prisoner an officer who was in charge of soldiers, and seven men of those who advised the king, who were still in the city. He also took prisoner the king's army officer responsible for drafting men into the army, along with sixty important men from the land who were in the city.
\v 30 In the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan, the commander of the king's bodyguards, exiled 745 Judean people. All the exiled people totaled 4,600.
\v 31 It happened later 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, that Evil-Merodach, king of Babylon released Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison. This happened in the year that Evil-Merodach began to reign.
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