Scriptures

New Living Translation (NLT)

2 Kings 25
² Jerusalem was kept under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah’s reign.
³ 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.
⁴ 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.
⁵ But the Babylonian troops chased the king and caught him on the plains of Jericho, for his men had all deserted him and scattered.
⁶ They took him to the king of Babylon at Riblah, where they pronounced judgment upon Zedekiah.
⁷ 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.
⁸ 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.
⁹ 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.
¹⁰ Then he supervised the entire Babylonian army as they tore down the walls of Jerusalem on every side.
¹¹ Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, then 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.
¹² But the captain of the guard allowed some of the poorest people to stay behind in Judah to care for the vineyards and fields.