Jeremiah
52* Sidkijah was twenty-one years old at his accession to the throne, and reigned eleven years at Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah, from Libnah. 2 And he did what displeased Jehovah just as Jehojakim had, 3 because it was a matter of Jehovah’s anger at Jerusalem and Judah, till he threw them away from before his face.
And Sidkijah broke his allegiance to the king of Babylon. 4 And in the year nine of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, King Nebucadressar of Babylon came against Jerusalem, he and all his armies, and beleaguered it, and they built a wall of investment around it; 5 and the city was besieged till the year eleven of King Sidkijah 6 in the fourth month, the ninth of the month. And hunger was pressing hard in the city, and there was no bread for the populace; 7 and the city was breached. And all the men of war tried to escape, and went out of the city by 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. 8 And the Chaldean forces pursued the king and overtook Sidkijah on the flats of Jericho, all his forces being scattered away from him, 9 and they captured the king and took him up to Riblah in the country of Hamath to the king of Babylon, and he held a court and tried him. 10 And the king of Babylon cut the throats of Sidkijah’s sons before his eyes, and also cut the throats of all the generals of Judah at Riblah. 11 And he put out Sidkijah’s eyes, and put him in fetters, and the king of Babylon brought him to Babylon and put him in confinement to the day of his death.
12 And in the fifth month, on the tenth of the month, it being the year nineteen of King Nebucadressar of Babylon, Chief Guardsman Nebuzaradan, of the service of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem 13* and burned down Jehovah’s house and the royal palace and all the houses in Jerusalem; 14 and all the Chaldean forces that the Chief Guardsman had with him pulled down all the walls of Jerusalem all around. 15* 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, 16 and the rest of the craftsmen, Chief Guardsman Nebuzaradan deported; but some of the proletariat Chief Guardsman Nebuzaradan left for vineyardists and farmers.
17 And the bronze pillars of Jehovah’s house, and the stands and the bronze sea in Jehovah’s house, the Chaldeans broke up, and carried all the bronze of them away to Babylon; 18* and they took the pots and shovels and snuffers and bowls and pans, and all the bronze articles with which the priests officiated. 19 And the basins and the firepans and the bowls and the pots and the lampstands and the pans and the chalices, gold what was gold and silver what was silver, the Chief Guardsman took. 20* And the pillars two, and the sea one, and the cattle twelve, bronze, that were under the stands which King Solomon had made for Jehovah’s house—there was no weighing the bronze of all these articles. 21 And as for the pillars, twenty-seven feet was the height of one pillar and eighteen feet its girth and three inches the thickness of the metal (hollow); 22* and it had on it a bronze capital, the height of one 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, and pomegranates. 23* And of the pomegranates there were ninety-six to the air; of all the pomegranates there were a hundred on the network, surrounding it.
24 And the Chief Guardsman took High Priest Seraiah and Second Priest Sephaniah and the three threshold-keepers, 25* and out of the city he took a eunuch who had had the oversight of the fighting men, and seven 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; 26 Chief Guardsman Nebuzaradan took them and brought them to Riblah to the king of Babylon, 27 and the king of Babylon struck them dead at Riblah, in the country of Hamath; and Judah was deported off its soil.
28 These were the people that Nebuzaradan deported: in the year seven three thousand and three Judahites; 29 in the year eighteen of Nebucadressar, out of Jerusalem eight hundred and thirty-two souls; 30 in the year twenty-three of Nebucadressar, Chief Guardsman Nebuzaradan deported seven hundred and forty-five Judahite souls; of all the souls there were forty-six hundred.
31 And in the thirty-seventh year of the deportation of King Jehojakin of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth of the month, King Evil-Merodac of Babylon, in the year of his accession to the throne, released King Jehojakin of Judah and took him out of jail 32 and had a friendly conversation with him, and put his throne above the thrones of the kings he had with him at Babylon, 33 and changed his jail clothes, and he ate before him regularly as long as he lived. 34 And his allowance was a regular one given him daily out of the king of Babylon’s supplies as long as he lived, to the day of his death.