2 Kings, Chapter 25:

Verses from 2 Kings, Chapter 25 of the book of 1 Samuel in the Bible.

The fall of Jerusalem

• 1. In the ninth year of Zedekiah's reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with all his army. They camped in front of the city and built siege ramps around it.
• 2. The city was besieged until the eleventh year of Zedekiah's reign.
• 3. On the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine in the city was so severe that there was no more food for the people.
• 4. Then the wall of the city was breached, and all the soldiers fled during the night through the gate between the two walls, near the king's garden, while the Babylonians surrounded the city. They escaped towards the Arabah.
• 5. However, the Babylonian army pursued King Zedekiah and caught up with him in the plains of Jericho. All his soldiers abandoned him.
• 6. He was captured and taken to the king of Babylon at Riblah, where a sentence was pronounced against him.
• 7. Zedekiah's sons were executed before him, and their eyes were put out. He was bound with bronze chains and taken to Babylon.
• 8. On the seventh day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the commander of the imperial guard and advisor to the king of Babylon, arrived in Jerusalem.
• 9. He set fire to the temple of the Lord, the royal palace, and all the important houses in Jerusalem.
• 10. The entire Babylonian army that accompanied Nebuzaradan destroyed the walls of Jerusalem.
• 11. They took into exile the rest of the people who had remained in the city, the deserters who surrendered to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the population.
• 12. However, the commander left behind the poorest in the land to work in the vineyards and fields.
• 13. The Babylonians dismantled the bronze pillars, the supports, and the bronze pool from the temple of the Lord, taking all the bronze to Babylon.
• 14. They also took the pots, shovels, pruning shears, vessels, and all the bronze utensils used in the temple service.
• 15. The commander of the imperial guard took the censers and sprinkling basins, all made of pure gold or silver.
• 16. The two pillars, the bronze sea, and the supports that Solomon made for the temple of the Lord were so heavy that their weight could not be calculated.
• 17. Each column was eight meters and ten centimeters high. The bronze capital over each column was four feet tall and decorated with a row of bronze pomegranates around it.
• 18. The commander of the imperial guard took as prisoners the high priest Seraiah, the second priest Zephaniah and three guards at the entrance to the temple.
• 19. Of those still in the city, he took the officer who supervised the men of war and five royal advisors. He also took the commander's secretary, responsible for military enlistment, and sixty men of the people who were still in the city.
• 20. The commander Nebuzaradan took them all to the king of Babylon in Riblah.
• 21. There, in the land of Hamath, the king ordered them to be executed. Thus, Judah was taken into exile, far from his land.
• 22. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, appointed Gedaliah, son of Ahikam and grandson of Shaphan, as governor over the people who remained in the land of Judah.
• 23. When Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and Jazaniah son of a Maachathite heard that Gedaliah had been appointed governor by the king of Babylon, they and their soldiers went to Gedaliah in Mizpeh.
• 24. Gedaliah swore an oath to them and to his soldiers, assuring them that they need not fear the Babylonian officers. He told them to settle in the land, serve the king of Babylon, and everything would be fine.
• 25. However, in the seventh month, Ishmael, son of Nethaniah and grandson of Elishama, who was of royal blood, went with ten men and murdered Gedaliah, together with the Jews and the Babylonians who were with him in Mizpah.
• 26. Then all the people, from the youngest to the oldest, along with the leaders of the army, fled to Egypt, afraid of the Babylonians.

Jeconiah is released

• 27. In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the year in which Evil-Merodach became king of Babylon, he released Jehoiachin from prison on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month.
• 28. He treated him kindly and gave him a prominent place among the kings who were with him in Babylon.
• 29. Jehoiachin renounced his prisoner's clothing and, for the rest of his life, ate regularly at the king's table.
• 30. During his entire reign, he received a daily portion from the king, according to his need.

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