Jeremiah
Chapter 52
1 Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king, and he ruled for 11 years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal, and she was the daughter of Jeremiah from Libnah.
2 He did bad things in God’s view, just like Jehoiakim did.
3 Because of God’s anger, this happened in Jerusalem and Judah until he threw them out of his presence, and Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
4 In the ninth year of his rule, on the tenth day of the tenth month, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and his whole army came to Jerusalem, surrounded it, camped against it, and built siege works all around it.
5 The city was under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.
6 In the fourth month, on the ninth day, the hunger in the city was very bad, and there was no bread for the people.
7 Then the city was breached, and all the soldiers ran away. They left the city at night through a gate between two walls near the king’s garden. The Chaldeans surrounded the city, and the soldiers escaped across the plain.
8 The Chaldean army chased the king and caught Zedekiah in the fields of Jericho; his whole army was separated from him.
9 Then they captured the king and brought him to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the Hamath region, where he passed sentence on him.
10 The king of Babylon killed Zedekiah’s sons in front of him; he also killed all the leaders of Judah in Riblah.
11 He blinded Zedekiah, and the king of Babylon tied him up, took him to Babylon, and put him in jail until he died.
12 In the fifth month, on the tenth day, in the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard serving the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.
13 He burned God’s house, the king’s house, and all Jerusalem’s houses, including the great men’s houses, with fire.
14 The entire army of the Chaldeans with the captain broke down all the walls around Jerusalem.
15 Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, took some poor people as prisoners, and the rest of the people left in the city, along with those who had joined the king of Babylon, and the remaining crowd.
16 Nebuzaradan, the guard captain, let some poor people stay to work as vineyard keepers and farmers.
17 The Chaldeans broke the brass pillars, bases, and the large brass basin in the house of God, and took all the brass to Babylon.
18 They also took away the pots, shovels, wick trimmers, dishes, spoons, and all the bronze tools used in service.
19 The officer in charge took away the bowls, the pans, the jars, the pots, the lampstands, the ladles, and the goblets. He took the gold items as gold and the silver items as silver.
20 Two pillars, one large basin, and twelve bronze bulls under the stands, which King Solomon made for God’s house: all this bronze was too heavy to weigh.
21 About the pillars, one pillar was 18 feet tall; a band twelve cubits long wrapped around it; and it was as thick as four fingers and hollow inside.
22 A brass capital was on it; the capital was five cubits high, with a net design and brass pomegranates all around. The second pillar and its pomegranates were the same.
23 There were ninety-six pomegranates on one side; in total, there were one hundred pomegranates all around the netting.
24 The guard leader took Seraiah the head priest, Zephaniah the second priest, and the three doorkeepers.
25 He also took from the city a eunuch who was in charge of the soldiers, and seven men who were close to the king, found in the city; the army’s chief secretary who counted the country’s people; and sixty men from the land’s people, found in the heart of the city.
26 Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, captured them and took them to the king of Babylon at Riblah.
27 The king of Babylon struck them down and killed them at Riblah in the Hamath region. So Judah was taken as prisoners from their land.
28 These are the people Nebuchadnezzar took as captives: in the seventh year, three thousand and twenty-three Jews.
29 In the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, he took 832 people as prisoners from Jerusalem.
30 In the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took 745 Jewish people as prisoners; the total taken was 4,600 people.
31 In the thirty-seventh year of Jehoiachin king of Judah’s captivity, on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month, Evilmerodach king of Babylon, in his first year as king, freed Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison.
32 He spoke nicely to him and placed his throne higher than the thrones of the kings who were with him in Babylon.
33 He changed his prison clothes and always ate bread in his presence for the rest of his life.
34 The king of Babylon provided him with daily food until he died, every day for the rest of his life.