4 ‘This is what Jehovah the God of Israel says: “Here I am turning around against you* the weapons of war that are in your own hands, with which you are fighting the king of Babylon+ and the Chal·deʹans who are outside the wall besieging you. And I will gather them into the middle of this city.

2 In the 11th year of Zed·e·kiʹah, in the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, they broke through the city wall.+

4 When King Zed·e·kiʹah of Judah and all the soldiers saw them, they fled,+ going out of the city by night by way of the king’s garden, through the gate between the double wall, and they continued by the way of the Arʹa·bah.+ 5 But the Chal·deʹan army chased after them, and they overtook Zed·e·kiʹah in the desert plains of Jerʹi·cho.+ They captured him and brought him up to King Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar* of Babylon at Ribʹlah+ in the land of Haʹmath,+ where he passed sentence on him. 6 The king of Babylon had the sons of Zed·e·kiʹah slaughtered before his eyes there at Ribʹlah, and the king of Babylon had all the nobles of Judah slaughtered.+ 7 Then he blinded the eyes of Zed·e·kiʹah, after which he bound him with copper fetters to bring him to Babylon.+

21 At length in the 12th year, in the tenth month, on the fifth day of the month of our exile, a man who had escaped from Jerusalem came to me+ and said: “The city has been struck down!”+