So the Lord brought the king of Babylon against them. The Babylonians killed Judah’s young men, even chasing after them into the Temple. They had no pity on the people, killing both young men and young women, the old and the infirm. God handed all of them over to Nebuchadnezzar.

所以，耶和华使迦勒底人的王来攻击他们，在他们圣殿里用刀杀了他们的壮丁，不怜恤他们的少男处女、老人白叟。耶和华将他们都交在迦勒底王手里。

所以，耶和华使迦勒底人的王来攻击他们，在他们圣殿里用刀杀了他们的壮丁，不怜悯他们的少男少女、老人长者。耶和华把所有的人都交在他手里。

所以，耶和华使迦勒底人的王来攻击他们，在他们圣殿里用刀杀了他们的壮丁，不怜悯他们的少男少女、老人长者。耶和华把所有的人都交在他手里。

耶和华使迦勒底人的王起兵攻打他们，在他们的圣殿里用刀击杀他们的壮丁，毫不怜悯少男少女、老人和年高者。耶和华把他们全部交在他的手中。

耶和华使迦勒底人的王上来攻打他们，在他们的圣殿里用刀杀了他们的壮丁，少男和少女以及年老衰弱的，他们都不怜惜；耶和华把所有这些人都交在迦勒底王的手里。

所以，耶和華使迦勒底人的王來攻擊他們，在他們聖殿裏用刀殺了他們的壯丁，不憐恤他們的少男處女、老人白叟。耶和華將他們都交在迦勒底王手裏。

所以，耶和華使迦勒底人的王來攻擊他們，在他們聖殿裏用刀殺了他們的壯丁，不憐憫他們的少男少女、老人長者。耶和華把所有的人都交在他手裏。

所以，耶和華使迦勒底人的王來攻擊他們，在他們聖殿裏用刀殺了他們的壯丁，不憐憫他們的少男少女、老人長者。耶和華把所有的人都交在他手裏。

耶和華使迦勒底人的王起兵攻打他們，在他們的聖殿裡用刀擊殺他們的壯丁，毫不憐憫少男少女、老人和年高者。耶和華把他們全部交在他的手中。

耶和華使迦勒底人的王上來攻打他們，在他們的聖殿裡用刀殺了他們的壯丁，少男和少女以及年老衰弱的，他們都不憐惜；耶和華把所有這些人都交在迦勒底王的手裡。

因此永恆主使迦勒底人的王上來攻擊他們，就在他們聖所的殿裏用刀殺了他們的壯丁，不顧惜壯丁或處女、老邁的或衰弱的；永恆主把這一切人都交在迦勒底王手裏。

故上帝使迦勒底王來攻之、以刃戮其丁壯於其聖室、不恤幼男少女、老人白叟、俱付其手、

使迦勒底王至、在聖室中、戮諸壯士、凡丁男、處女、耆年、耄耋者、俱無所惜、見虜於敵。

使迦勒底王來攻之、在聖殿中、以刃戮諸壯士、不恤幼男少女、老人白叟、主俱付於其手、

He brought up against them the king of the Babylonians, who killed their young men with the sword in the sanctuary, and did not spare young men or young women, the elderly or the infirm. God gave them all into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar.

The Lord brought the king of the Babylonians against them. The Babylonian army killed their young people with their swords at the temple. They didn’t spare young men or young women. They didn’t spare the old people or weak people either. God handed all of them over to Nebuchadnezzar.

Therefore he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or aged. He gave them all into his hand.

So he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their fit young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary. He had no pity on young men or young women, elderly or aged; he handed them all over to him.

So He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or frail; He handed them all over to him.

Therefore He brought against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, on the aged or the weak; He gave them all into his hand.

Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldeans, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or virgin, old man or hoary- headed: he gave them all into his hand.

So He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their choice young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary. He had no pity on young men or young women, elderly or aged; He handed them all over to him.

Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age: he gave[ them] all into his hand.

He brought against them the king of the Babylonians, who slaughtered their young men in their temple. He did not spare young men or women, or even the old and aging. God handed everyone over to him.

Therefore he brought on them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or gray- headed. He gave them all into his hand.

Remember your covenant promises, for the land is full of darkness and violence!

From the days of our ancestors until now, we have been steeped in sin. That is why we and our kings and our priests have been at the mercy of the pagan kings of the land. We have been killed, captured, robbed, and disgraced, just as we are today.

There will be more widows than the grains of sand on the seashore. At noontime I will bring a destroyer against the mothers of young men. I will cause anguish and terror to come upon them suddenly.The mother of seven grows faint and gasps for breath; her sun has gone down while it is still day. She sits childless now, disgraced and humiliated. And I will hand over those who are left to be killed by the enemy. I, the Lord, have spoken!”

“ However, if you do not listen to me or obey all these commands,and if you break my covenant by rejecting my decrees, treating my regulations with contempt, and refusing to obey my commands,I will punish you. I will bring sudden terrors upon you— wasting diseases and burning fevers that will cause your eyes to fail and your life to ebb away. You will plant your crops in vain because your enemies will eat them.I will turn against you, and you will be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you, and you will run even when no one is chasing you!“ And if, in spite of all this, you still disobey me, I will punish you seven times over for your sins.I will break your proud spirit by making the skies as unyielding as iron and the earth as hard as bronze.All your work will be for nothing, for your land will yield no crops, and your trees will bear no fruit.“ If even then you remain hostile toward me and refuse to obey me, I will inflict disaster on you seven times over for your sins.I will send wild animals that will rob you of your children and destroy your livestock. Your numbers will dwindle, and your roads will be deserted.“ And if you fail to learn the lesson and continue your hostility toward me,then I myself will be hostile toward you. I will personally strike you with calamity seven times over for your sins.I will send armies against you to carry out the curse of the covenant you have broken. When you run to your towns for safety, I will send a plague to destroy you there, and you will be handed over to your enemies.I will destroy your food supply, so that ten women will need only one oven to bake bread for their families. They will ration your food by weight, and though you have food to eat, you will not be satisfied.“ If in spite of all this you still refuse to listen and still remain hostile toward me,then I will give full vent to my hostility. I myself will punish you seven times over for your sins.Then you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters.I will destroy your pagan shrines and knock down your places of worship. I will leave your lifeless corpses piled on top of your lifeless idols, and I will despise you.I will make your cities desolate and destroy your places of pagan worship. I will take no pleasure in your offerings that should be a pleasing aroma to me.Yes, I myself will devastate your land, and your enemies who come to occupy it will be appalled at what they see.I will scatter you among the nations and bring out my sword against you. Your land will become desolate, and your cities will lie in ruins.Then at last the land will enjoy its neglected Sabbath years as it lies desolate while you are in exile in the land of your enemies. Then the land will finally rest and enjoy the Sabbaths it missed.As long as the land lies in ruins, it will enjoy the rest you never allowed it to take every seventh year while you lived in it.“ And for those of you who survive, I will demoralize you in the land of your enemies. You will live in such fear that the sound of a leaf driven by the wind will send you fleeing. You will run as though fleeing from a sword, and you will fall even when no one pursues you.Though no one is chasing you, you will stumble over each other as though fleeing from a sword. You will have no power to stand up against your enemies.You will die among the foreign nations and be devoured in the land of your enemies.Those of you who survive will waste away in your enemies’ lands because of their sins and the sins of their ancestors.“ But at last my people will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors for betraying me and being hostile toward me.When I have turned their hostility back on them and brought them to the land of their enemies, then at last their stubborn hearts will be humbled, and they will pay for their sins.Then I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.For the land must be abandoned to enjoy its years of Sabbath rest as it lies deserted. At last the people will pay for their sins, for they have continually rejected my regulations and despised my decrees.“ But despite all this, I will not utterly reject or despise them while they are in exile in the land of their enemies. I will not cancel my covenant with them by wiping them out, for I am the Lord their God.For their sakes I will remember my ancient covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of all the nations, that I might be their God. I am the Lord.”These are the decrees, regulations, and instructions that the Lord gave through Moses on Mount Sinai as evidence of the relationship between himself and the Israelites.

“ O Lord, think about this! Should you treat your own people this way? Should mothers eat their own children, those they once bounced on their knees? Should priests and prophets be killed within the Lord’s Temple?“ See them lying in the streets— young and old, boys and girls, killed by the swords of the enemy. You have killed them in your anger, slaughtering them without mercy.“ You have invited terrors from all around, as though you were calling them to a day of feasting. In the day of the Lord’s anger, no one has escaped or survived. The enemy has killed all the children whom I carried and raised.”

“ This is what the Lord says: Just as I have brought all these calamities on them, so I will do all the good I have promised them.

I am making this covenant with you so that no one among you— no man, woman, clan, or tribe— will turn away from the Lord our God to worship these gods of other nations, and so that no root among you bears bitter and poisonous fruit.“ Those who hear the warnings of this curse should not congratulate themselves, thinking,‘ I am safe, even though I am following the desires of my own stubborn heart.’ This would lead to utter ruin!The Lord will never pardon such people. Instead his anger and jealousy will burn against them. All the curses written in this book will come down on them, and the Lord will erase their names from under heaven.The Lord will separate them from all the tribes of Israel, to pour out on them all the curses of the covenant recorded in this Book of Instruction.“ Then the generations to come, both your own descendants and the foreigners who come from distant lands, will see the devastation of the land and the diseases the Lord inflicts on it.They will exclaim,‘ The whole land is devastated by sulfur and salt. It is a wasteland with nothing planted and nothing growing, not even a blade of grass. It is like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord destroyed in his intense anger.’“ And all the surrounding nations will ask,‘ Why has the Lord done this to this land? Why was he so angry?’“ And the answer will be,‘ This happened because the people of the land abandoned the covenant that the Lord, the God of their ancestors, made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.Instead, they turned away to serve and worship gods they had not known before, gods that were not from the Lord.That is why the Lord’s anger has burned against this land, bringing down on it every curse recorded in this book.In great anger and fury the Lord uprooted his people from their land and banished them to another land, where they still live today!’

They have left the bodies of your servants as food for the birds of heaven. The flesh of your godly ones has become food for the wild animals.Blood has flowed like water all around Jerusalem; no one is left to bury the dead.

The Lord said to Moses,“ You are about to die and join your ancestors. After you are gone, these people will begin to worship foreign gods, the gods of the land where they are going. They will abandon me and break my covenant that I have made with them.Then my anger will blaze forth against them. I will abandon them, hiding my face from them, and they will be devoured. Terrible trouble will come down on them, and on that day they will say,‘ These disasters have come down on us because God is no longer among us!’At that time I will hide my face from them on account of all the evil they commit by worshiping other gods.

So let their children starve! Let them die by the sword! Let their wives become childless widows. Let their old men die in a plague, and let their young men be killed in battle!

“ But if you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and do not obey all the commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come and overwhelm you:Your towns and your fields will be cursed.Your fruit baskets and breadboards will be cursed.Your children and your crops will be cursed. The offspring of your herds and flocks will be cursed.Wherever you go and whatever you do, you will be cursed.“ The Lord himself will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in everything you do, until at last you are completely destroyed for doing evil and abandoning me.The Lord will afflict you with diseases until none of you are left in the land you are about to enter and occupy.The Lord will strike you with wasting diseases, fever, and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew. These disasters will pursue you until you die.The skies above will be as unyielding as bronze, and the earth beneath will be as hard as iron.The Lord will change the rain that falls on your land into powder, and dust will pour down from the sky until you are destroyed.“ The Lord will cause you to be defeated by your enemies. You will attack your enemies from one direction, but you will scatter from them in seven! You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.Your corpses will be food for all the scavenging birds and wild animals, and no one will be there to chase them away.“ The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, scurvy, and the itch, from which you cannot be cured.The Lord will strike you with madness, blindness, and panic.You will grope around in broad daylight like a blind person groping in the darkness, but you will not find your way. You will be oppressed and robbed continually, and no one will come to save you.“ You will be engaged to a woman, but another man will sleep with her. You will build a house, but someone else will live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will never enjoy its fruit.Your ox will be butchered before your eyes, but you will not eat a single bite of the meat. Your donkey will be taken from you, never to be returned. Your sheep and goats will be given to your enemies, and no one will be there to help you.You will watch as your sons and daughters are taken away as slaves. Your heart will break for them, but you won’t be able to help them.A foreign nation you have never heard about will eat the crops you worked so hard to grow. You will suffer under constant oppression and harsh treatment.You will go mad because of all the tragedy you see around you.The Lord will cover your knees and legs with incurable boils. In fact, you will be covered from head to foot.“ The Lord will exile you and your king to a nation unknown to you and your ancestors. There in exile you will worship gods of wood and stone!You will become an object of horror, ridicule, and mockery among all the nations to which the Lord sends you.“ You will plant much but harvest little, for locusts will eat your crops.You will plant vineyards and care for them, but you will not drink the wine or eat the grapes, for worms will destroy the vines.You will grow olive trees throughout your land, but you will never use the olive oil, for the fruit will drop before it ripens.You will have sons and daughters, but you will lose them, for they will be led away into captivity.Swarms of insects will destroy your trees and crops.“ The foreigners living among you will become stronger and stronger, while you become weaker and weaker.They will lend money to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, and you will be the tail!“ If you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and to obey the commands and decrees he has given you, all these curses will pursue and overtake you until you are destroyed.These horrors will serve as a sign and warning among you and your descendants forever.If you do not serve the Lord your God with joy and enthusiasm for the abundant benefits you have received,you will serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you. You will be left hungry, thirsty, naked, and lacking in everything. The Lord will put an iron yoke on your neck, oppressing you harshly until he has destroyed you.“ The Lord will bring a distant nation against you from the end of the earth, and it will swoop down on you like a vulture. It is a nation whose language you do not understand,a fierce and heartless nation that shows no respect for the old and no pity for the young.Its armies will devour your livestock and crops, and you will be destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine, olive oil, calves, or lambs, and you will starve to death.They will attack your cities until all the fortified walls in your land— the walls you trusted to protect you— are knocked down. They will attack all the towns in the land the Lord your God has given you.“ The siege and terrible distress of the enemy’s attack will be so severe that you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you.The most tenderhearted man among you will have no compassion for his own brother, his beloved wife, and his surviving children.He will refuse to share with them the flesh he is devouring— the flesh of one of his own children— because he has nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns.The most tender and delicate woman among you— so delicate she would not so much as touch the ground with her foot— will be selfish toward the husband she loves and toward her own son or daughter.She will hide from them the afterbirth and the new baby she has borne, so that she herself can secretly eat them. She will have nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns.“ If you refuse to obey all the words of instruction that are written in this book, and if you do not fear the glorious and awesome name of the Lord your God,then the Lord will overwhelm you and your children with indescribable plagues. These plagues will be intense and without relief, making you miserable and unbearably sick.He will afflict you with all the diseases of Egypt that you feared so much, and you will have no relief.The Lord will afflict you with every sickness and plague there is, even those not mentioned in this Book of Instruction, until you are destroyed.Though you become as numerous as the stars in the sky, few of you will be left because you would not listen to the Lord your God.“ Just as the Lord has found great pleasure in causing you to prosper and multiply, the Lord will find pleasure in destroying you. You will be torn from the land you are about to enter and occupy.For the Lord will scatter you among all the nations from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship foreign gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods made of wood and stone!There among those nations you will find no peace or place to rest. And the Lord will cause your heart to tremble, your eyesight to fail, and your soul to despair.Your life will constantly hang in the balance. You will live night and day in fear, unsure if you will survive.In the morning you will say,‘ If only it were night!’ And in the evening you will say,‘ If only it were morning!’ For you will be terrified by the awful horrors you see around you.Then the Lord will send you back to Egypt in ships, to a destination I promised you would never see again. There you will offer to sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves, but no one will buy you.”

Therefore, the Lord has brought upon us the disaster he prepared. The Lord our God was right to do all of these things, for we did not obey him.

So the Lord sent the commanders of the Assyrian armies, and they took Manasseh prisoner. They put a ring through his nose, bound him in bronze chains, and led him away to Babylon.

So on January 15, during the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon led his entire army against Jerusalem. They surrounded the city and built siege ramps against its walls.Jerusalem was kept under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah’s reign.By July 18 in the eleventh year of Zedekiah’s reign, the famine in the city had become very severe, and the last of the food was entirely gone.Then a section of the city wall was broken down. Since the city was surrounded by the Babylonians, the soldiers waited for nightfall and escaped through the gate between the two walls behind the king’s garden. Then they headed toward the Jordan Valley.But the Babylonian troops chased the king and overtook him on the plains of Jericho, for his men had all deserted him and scattered.They captured the king and took him to the king of Babylon at Riblah, where they pronounced judgment upon Zedekiah.They made Zedekiah watch as they slaughtered his sons. Then they gouged out Zedekiah’s eyes, bound him in bronze chains, and led him away to Babylon.On August 14 of that year, which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard and an official of the Babylonian king, arrived in Jerusalem.He burned down the Temple of the Lord, the royal palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem. He destroyed all the important buildings in the city.Then he supervised the entire Babylonian army as they tore down the walls of Jerusalem on every side.Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, took as exiles the rest of the people who remained in the city, the defectors who had declared their allegiance to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the population.But the captain of the guard allowed some of the poorest people to stay behind to care for the vineyards and fields.The Babylonians broke up the bronze pillars in front of the Lord’s Temple, the bronze water carts, and the great bronze basin called the Sea, and they carried all the bronze away to Babylon.They also took all the ash buckets, shovels, lamp snuffers, ladles, and all the other bronze articles used for making sacrifices at the Temple.The captain of the guard also took the incense burners and basins, and all the other articles made of pure gold or silver.The weight of the bronze from the two pillars, the Sea, and the water carts was too great to be measured. These things had been made for the Lord’s Temple in the days of Solomon.Each of the pillars was 27 feet tall. The bronze capital on top of each pillar was 7 1/2 feet high and was decorated with a network of bronze pomegranates all the way around.Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, took with him as prisoners Seraiah the high priest, Zephaniah the priest of the second rank, and the three chief gatekeepers.And from among the people still hiding in the city, he took an officer who had been in charge of the Judean army; five of the king’s personal advisers; the army commander’s chief secretary, who was in charge of recruitment; and sixty other citizens.Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, took them all to the king of Babylon at Riblah.And there at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, the king of Babylon had them all put to death. So the people of Judah were sent into exile from their land.Then King Nebuchadnezzar appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam and grandson of Shaphan as governor over the people he had left in Judah.When all the army commanders and their men learned that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah as governor, they went to see him at Mizpah. These included Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, Jezaniah son of the Maacathite, and all their men.Gedaliah vowed to them that the Babylonian officials meant them no harm.“ Don’t be afraid of them. Live in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and all will go well for you,” he promised.But in midautumn of that year, Ishmael son of Nethaniah and grandson of Elishama, who was a member of the royal family, went to Mizpah with ten men and killed Gedaliah. He also killed all the Judeans and Babylonians who were with him at Mizpah.Then all the people of Judah, from the least to the greatest, as well as the army commanders, fled in panic to Egypt, for they were afraid of what the Babylonians would do to them.In the thirty seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, Evil merodach ascended to the Babylonian throne. He was kind to Jehoiachin and released him from prison on April 2 of that year.He spoke kindly to Jehoiachin and gave him a higher place than all the other exiled kings in Babylon.He supplied Jehoiachin with new clothes to replace his prison garb and allowed him to dine in the king’s presence for the rest of his life.So the king gave him a regular food allowance as long as he lived.

just as he said he would. For these people have sinned against the Lord and disobeyed him. That is why it happened.

Then I heard the Lord say to the other men,“ Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy; have no pity!Kill them all— old and young, girls and women and little children. But do not touch anyone with the mark. Begin right here at the Temple.” So they began by killing the seventy leaders.“ Defile the Temple!” the Lord commanded.“ Fill its courtyards with corpses. Go!” So they went and began killing throughout the city.

In January of the ninth year of King Zedekiah’s reign, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came with his entire army to besiege Jerusalem.Two and a half years later, on July 18 in the eleventh year of Zedekiah’s reign, a section of the city wall was broken down.All the officers of the Babylonian army came in and sat in triumph at the Middle Gate: Nergal sharezer of Samgar, and Nebo sarsekim, a chief officer, and Nergal sharezer, the king’s adviser, and all the other officers of the king of Babylon.When King Zedekiah of Judah and all the soldiers saw that the Babylonians had broken into the city, they fled. They waited for nightfall and then slipped through the gate between the two walls behind the king’s garden and headed toward the Jordan Valley.But the Babylonian troops chased them and overtook Zedekiah on the plains of Jericho. They captured him and took him to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, who was at Riblah in the land of Hamath. There the king of Babylon pronounced judgment upon Zedekiah.The king of Babylon made Zedekiah watch as he slaughtered his sons at Riblah. The king of Babylon also slaughtered all the nobles of Judah.Then he gouged out Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him in bronze chains to lead him away to Babylon.Meanwhile, the Babylonians burned Jerusalem, including the royal palace and the houses of the people, and they tore down the walls of the city.Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, took as exiles to Babylon the rest of the people who remained in the city, those who had defected to him, and everyone else who remained.But Nebuzaradan allowed some of the poorest people to stay behind in the land of Judah, and he assigned them to care for the vineyards and fields.King Nebuchadnezzar had told Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, to find Jeremiah.“ See that he isn’t hurt,” he said.“ Look after him well, and give him anything he wants.”So Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard; Nebushazban, a chief officer; Nergal sharezer, the king’s adviser; and the other officers of Babylon’s kingsent messengers to bring Jeremiah out of the prison. They put him under the care of Gedaliah son of Ahikam and grandson of Shaphan, who took him back to his home. So Jeremiah stayed in Judah among his own people.The Lord had given the following message to Jeremiah while he was still in prison:“ Say to Ebed melech the Ethiopian,‘ This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says: I will do to this city everything I have threatened. I will send disaster, not prosperity. You will see its destruction,but I will rescue you from those you fear so much.Because you trusted me, I will give you your life as a reward. I will rescue you and keep you safe. I, the Lord, have spoken!’”

Zedekiah was twenty one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. His mother was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah from Libnah.But Zedekiah did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, just as Jehoiakim had done.These things happened because of the Lord’s anger against the people of Jerusalem and Judah, until he finally banished them from his presence and sent them into exile. Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.So on January 15, during the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon led his entire army against Jerusalem. They surrounded the city and built siege ramps against its walls.Jerusalem was kept under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah’s reign.By July 18 in the eleventh year of Zedekiah’s reign, the famine in the city had become very severe, and the last of the food was entirely gone.Then a section of the city wall was broken down, and all the soldiers fled. Since the city was surrounded by the Babylonians, they waited for nightfall. Then they slipped through the gate between the two walls behind the king’s garden and headed toward the Jordan Valley.But the Babylonian troops chased King Zedekiah and overtook him on the plains of Jericho, for his men had all deserted him and scattered.They captured the king and took him to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath. There the king of Babylon pronounced judgment upon Zedekiah.The king of Babylon made Zedekiah watch as he slaughtered his sons. He also slaughtered all the officials of Judah at Riblah.Then he gouged out Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him in bronze chains, and the king of Babylon led him away to Babylon. Zedekiah remained there in prison until the day of his death.On August 17 of that year, which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard and an official of the Babylonian king, arrived in Jerusalem.He burned down the Temple of the Lord, the royal palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem. He destroyed all the important buildings in the city.Then he supervised the entire Babylonian army as they tore down the walls of Jerusalem on every side.Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, took as exiles some of the poorest of the people, the rest of the people who remained in the city, the defectors who had declared their allegiance to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the craftsmen.But Nebuzaradan allowed some of the poorest people to stay behind to care for the vineyards and fields.The Babylonians broke up the bronze pillars in front of the Lord’s Temple, the bronze water carts, and the great bronze basin called the Sea, and they carried all the bronze away to Babylon.They also took all the ash buckets, shovels, lamp snuffers, basins, dishes, and all the other bronze articles used for making sacrifices at the Temple.The captain of the guard also took the small bowls, incense burners, basins, pots, lampstands, ladles, bowls used for liquid offerings, and all the other articles made of pure gold or silver.The weight of the bronze from the two pillars, the Sea with the twelve bronze oxen beneath it, and the water carts was too great to be measured. These things had been made for the Lord’s Temple in the days of King Solomon.Each of the pillars was 27 feet tall and 18 feet in circumference. They were hollow, with walls 3 inches thick.The bronze capital on top of each pillar was 7 1/2 feet high and was decorated with a network of bronze pomegranates all the way around.There were 96 pomegranates on the sides, and a total of 100 pomegranates on the network around the top.Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, took with him as prisoners Seraiah the high priest, Zephaniah the priest of the second rank, and the three chief gatekeepers.And from among the people still hiding in the city, he took an officer who had been in charge of the Judean army; seven of the king’s personal advisers; the army commander’s chief secretary, who was in charge of recruitment; and sixty other citizens.Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, took them all to the king of Babylon at Riblah.And there at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, the king of Babylon had them all put to death. So the people of Judah were sent into exile from their land.The number of captives taken to Babylon in the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign was 3,023.Then in Nebuchadnezzar’s eighteenth year he took 832 more.In Nebuchadnezzar’s twenty third year he sent Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, who took 745 more— a total of 4,600 captives in all.In the thirty seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, Evil merodach ascended to the Babylonian throne. He was kind to Jehoiachin and released him from prison on March 31 of that year.He spoke kindly to Jehoiachin and gave him a higher place than all the other exiled kings in Babylon.He supplied Jehoiachin with new clothes to replace his prison garb and allowed him to dine in the king’s presence for the rest of his life.So the Babylonian king gave him a regular food allowance as long as he lived. This continued until the day of his death.

“ But Israel soon became fat and unruly; the people grew heavy, plump, and stuffed! Then they abandoned the God who had made them; they made light of the Rock of their salvation.They stirred up his jealousy by worshiping foreign gods; they provoked his fury with detestable deeds.They offered sacrifices to demons, which are not God, to gods they had not known before, to new gods only recently arrived, to gods their ancestors had never feared.You neglected the Rock who had fathered you; you forgot the God who had given you birth.“ The Lord saw this and drew back, provoked to anger by his own sons and daughters.He said,‘ I will abandon them; then see what becomes of them. For they are a twisted generation, children without integrity.They have roused my jealousy by worshiping things that are not God; they have provoked my anger with their useless idols. Now I will rouse their jealousy through people who are not even a people; I will provoke their anger through the foolish Gentiles.For my anger blazes forth like fire and burns to the depths of the grave. It devours the earth and all its crops and ignites the foundations of the mountains.I will heap disasters upon them and shoot them down with my arrows.I will weaken them with famine, burning fever, and deadly disease. I will send the fangs of wild beasts and poisonous snakes that glide in the dust.Outside, the sword will bring death, and inside, terror will strike both young men and young women, both infants and the aged.I would have annihilated them, wiping out even the memory of them.But I feared the taunt of Israel’s enemy, who might misunderstand and say,“ Our own power has triumphed! The Lord had nothing to do with this!”’“ But Israel is a senseless nation; the people are foolish, without understanding.

Then the Lord sent bands of Babylonian, Aramean, Moabite, and Ammonite raiders against Judah to destroy it, just as the Lord had promised through his prophets.These disasters happened to Judah because of the Lord’s command. He had decided to banish Judah from his presence because of the many sins of Manasseh,

Then the leaders plotted to kill Zechariah, and King Joash ordered that they stone him to death in the courtyard of the Lord’s Temple.

then I warn you now that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live a long, good life in the land you are crossing the Jordan to occupy.

About this time Jesus was informed that Pilate had murdered some people from Galilee as they were offering sacrifices at the Temple.“ Do you think those Galileans were worse sinners than all the other people from Galilee?” Jesus asked.“ Is that why they suffered?