1 In the ninth year of his reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem. He camped against it, and they built siegeworks all around it. 2 The city remained under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. 3 By the ninth day of the month, the famine in the city had become severe, and there was no food for the people of the land. 4 Then the city was breached, and all the fighting men fled by night through the gate between the two walls beside the king’s garden. The Chaldeans were surrounding the city, and the king went by the road toward the Arabah. 5 The Chaldean army pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho. All his army had scattered away from him. 6 They captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, where they pronounced judgment on him. 7 They slaughtered Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes. Then the king of Babylon put out Zedekiah’s eyes, bound him in bronze shackles, and brought him to Babylon.

8 On the seventh day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard and servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. 9 He burned the house of the LORD, the king’s palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem. He burned every large house with fire. 10 All the Chaldean army with the captain of the guard tore down the walls around Jerusalem. 11 Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile the rest of the people who remained in the city, the deserters who had gone over to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the population. 12 But the captain of the guard left some of the poorest people of the land to tend the vineyards and work the fields. 13 The Chaldeans broke in pieces the bronze pillars of the house of the LORD, the stands, and the bronze Sea in the house of the LORD, and carried their bronze to Babylon. 14 They also took the pots, shovels, wick trimmers, ladles, and all the bronze articles used in the service. 15 The captain of the guard took the firepans and basins, whatever was gold and whatever was silver. 16 The two pillars, the one Sea, and the stands Solomon had made for the house of the LORD—the bronze of all these articles was beyond weighing. 17 One pillar was about twenty-seven feet high, with a bronze capital on it about four and a half feet high. There was latticework and pomegranates around the capital, all of bronze. The second pillar had the same, including the latticework. 18 The captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest of the second rank, and the three threshold guards. 19 From the city he took an official who was in charge of the fighting men, five men who had access to the king and were found in the city, the chief military secretary who mustered the people of the land, and sixty men of the people of the land who were found in the city. 20 Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. 21 The king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was carried into exile from its own land. 22 Over the people left in the land of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had left, he appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan.

23 When all the commanders of the forces and their men heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah, they came to Gedaliah at Mizpah: Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah son of the Maacathite, they and their men. 24 Gedaliah swore to them and their men, saying, “Do not be afraid of the servants of the Chaldeans. Settle in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it will go well with you.”

25 But in the seventh month, Ishmael son of Nethaniah, son of Elishama, of the royal family, came with ten men. They struck down Gedaliah, and he died, along with the Judeans and Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah. 26 Then all the people, from the least to the greatest, and the commanders of the forces got up and went to Egypt, for they were afraid of the Chaldeans.

27 In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month, Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the year he became king, lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah and released him from prison. 28 He spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat above the seats of the other kings who were with him in Babylon. 29 He changed Jehoiachin’s prison clothes, and Jehoiachin ate regularly in his presence all the days of his life. 30 A regular allowance was given him by the king, his daily portion day by day, all the days of his life.