2 Kings 25
Babylon defeats Jerusalem
In the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day, Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar brought his entire army to Jerusalem and laid siege on it. They built siegeworks all around it, and finally captured it in King Zedekiah’s eleventh year. On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine got so severe that the city ran out of food. Then a breach was made, and all the soldiers ran away at night through the king’s garden and out the gate. When they got outside, the Chaldeans were all around the city, and they went toward Arabah. The Chaldean army chased them and overtook the king in the plains of Jericho, scattering all his troops. So they captured the king and brought him to Babylon’s king at Riblah, and sentenced him to death. They slaughtered Zedekiah’s sons right before his own eyes, then gouged his eyes out and took him to Babylon in chains.
On the seventh day of the fifth month (which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar’s reign), Nebuzaradan (the captain of Nebuchadnezzar’s bodyguards) came to Jerusalem. He burned the Existing One’s temple and the king’s house and all the best houses in Jerusalem. The captain of the guard and the Chaldeans’ entire army tore down Jerusalem’s walls. Nebuzaradan took into captivity everyone who was left, carrying them away into exile. He only left a few of the poorest people so they could maintain the vineyards and fields.
The Chaldeans destroyed the bronze pillars, and bronze equipment that were in the Existing One’s house, and took the material back to Babylon. They also took the pots, shovels, snuffers, incense dishes, bronze vessels, fire pans, and bowls. They took all the gold and all the silver. The bronze from the pillars, basin and stands that Solomon had made for the Existing One’s house were too heavy to bring back. The two pillars were each 27 feet tall topped with 4.5 foot bronze capitals that had a bronze latticework and bronze pomegranates all around them.
The captain of the guard took Seraiah (the chief priest) and Zephaniah (the second priest) and the three doorkeepers. He also took the officer who had been in charge of the army, five men from the king’s council, the army commander’s secretary who organized the draft, and sixty common people who were found in the city. Nebuzaradan took them all and brought them to Babylon’s king at Riblah in Hamath, where the king put them to death. So Judah was extracted from its own land, and taken into captivity.
Babylon appoints Judah governor, governor assassinated, Judah flees
Nebuchadnezzar appointed Gedaliah (Ahikam’s son and Shaphan’s grandson) as governor to rule whoever remained in Judah. Now when all the captains and their men heard that Babylon’s king had appointed Gedaliah governor, they came to Gedaliah at Mizpah. The ones who came were Ishmael (Nethaniah’s son, and Elishama’s grandson) and Johanan (Kareah’s son) and Seraiah (Tanhumeth the Netophathite’s son) and Jaazaniah (Maacathite’s son). Gedaliah swore to them and their men, “Don’t be frightened by the Chaldean officials. If you live here and serve Babylon, everything will be fine for you.” But in the seventh month, Ishmael of the royal family came and assassinated Gedaliah along with the Jews and Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah. Then all the people, both small and great, went to Egypt because they were terrified of the Chaldeans.
New Babylonian king promotes Judah’s former king
In the thirty-seventh year of Judah’s King Jehoiachin being exiled, on the twenty seventh day of the twelfth month, Evil-merodach took the Babylonian throne. That same year, he graciously freed Judah’s King Jehoiachin from prison, and promoted him above the other Babylonian kings. So Jehoiachin took off his prison garments, and at at the king’s table every day for the rest of his life, and the king gave him a regular allowance to meet his daily needs for as long as he lived.