The Anselm Project

Chapter 52

¹ Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And the name of his mother was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. ² And he did evil in the eyes of the LORD according to all that Jehoiakim had done. ³ For the anger of the LORD was in Jerusalem and Judah until he cast them from upon his face, and Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. ⁴ And it was in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babel came, he and all his might, against Jerusalem, and they encamped against it, and they built against it a siege mound all around. ⁵ The city was under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. ⁶ In the fourth month, on the ninth of the month, the famine strengthened in the city of refuge, and there was no bread for the people of the land. ⁷ The city was breached, and all the men of war fled and went out of the city by night by way of the gate between the walls, which is over the king's garden. The Chaldeans were around the city on every side, and the men went by way of the Arabah. ⁸ And the forces of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and they overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, and all his forces were scattered from him. ⁹ And they seized the king and brought him up to the king of Babel at Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he spoke judgments with him. ¹⁰ The king of Babel slaughtered Zedekiah's sons before his eyes. He also slaughtered all the officials of Judah in Riblah. ¹¹ And they blinded the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him in bronze and brought him to the king of Babel to Babel and put him in the house of the visitation until the day of his death. ¹² And in the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month, this was the nineteenth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babel. Nebuzaradan, chief of the executioners, came—he stood before the king of Babel in Jerusalem. ¹³ And he burned the house of the LORD and the house of the king and all the houses of Jerusalem, and he burned every great house with fire. ¹⁴ And all the walls of Jerusalem all around, they tore down—all the army of the Chaldeans, which the chief of the executioners. ¹⁵ And the poor of the people and the remainder of the people, the ones remaining in the city, and the fallen ones who fell to the king of Babel, and the remainder of the multitude, Nebuzaradan, chief of the executioners, exiled. ¹⁶ Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left the poor of the land to be vinedressers and plowmen. ¹⁷ And the bronze pillars which were for the house of the LORD, and the stands, and the bronze sea which was in the house of the LORD, the Chaldeans broke and carried all their bronze away to Babylon. ¹⁸ And the pots and the shovels and the pans and the bowls and the ladles and all the bronze vessels with which they served—they took them. ¹⁹ and the basins and the censers and the bowls and the pots and the lampstands and the bowls and the snuffers—which were gold in gold and which were silver in silver—the chief of the slaughterers took. ²⁰ The pillars, two; the sea, one; and the stands, twelve; bronze, which under the stands, which the king Solomon made for the house of the LORD. There was no weight for their bronze. All these utensils. ²¹ And the pillars were eighteen cubits in height for the one pillar, and a cord of twelve cubits surrounds it, and its thickness four fingers, hollow. ²² And a capital of bronze on it, and the height of the one capital was five cubits, with a network and pomegranates on the capital all around, all of bronze. And the second pillar was like these, with pomegranates. ²³ And the pomegranates were ninety-six, one hundred—all the pomegranates upon the latticework all around. ²⁴ And the chief of the executioners took Seraiah the head priest and Zephaniah the second priest and the three guards of the threshold. ²⁵ And from the city he took one eunuch who was overseer over the men of the warfare and seven men seers of the face of the king who were found in the city and the scribe of the commander of the host, the mustering the people of the land, and sixty men from the people of the land, the ones being found in the midst of the city. ²⁶ And Nebuzaradan the chief officer of the executioners took them and brought them to the king of Babel at Riblah. ²⁷ And the king of Babel struck them and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he exiled Judah from upon its land. ²⁸ This is the people whom Nebuchadnezzar exiled in the seventh year: Jews three thousand twenty-three. ²⁹ In the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, eight hundred and thirty-two souls from Jerusalem. ³⁰ In the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan, chief of the executioners, exiled seven hundred and forty-five Jews; all souls, four thousand six hundred.