241 It was during his reign that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded the country. Jehoiakim became his puppet. But after three years he had had enough and revolted. 2 God dispatched a succession of raiding bands against him: Babylonian, Aramean, Moabite, and Ammonite. The strategy was to destroy Judah. Through the preaching of his servants and prophets, God had said he would do this, and now he was doing it. 3 None of this was by chance - it was God's judgment as he turned his back on Judah because of the enormity of the sins of Manasseh - Manasseh, the killer-king, 4 who made the Jerusalem streets flow with the innocent blood of his victims. God wasn't about to overlook such crimes. 5 The rest of the life and times of Jehoiakim is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. 6 Jehoiakim died and was buried with his ancestors. His son Jehoiachin became the next king. 7 The threat from Egypt was now over - no more invasions by the king of Egypt - for by this time the king of Babylon had captured all the land between the Brook of Egypt and the Euphrates River, land formerly controlled by the king of Egypt.
8 Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king. His rule in Jerusalem lasted only three months. His mother's name was Nehushta daughter of Elnathan; she was from Jerusalem. 9 In God's opinion he also was an evil king, no different from his father. 10 The next thing to happen was that the officers of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon attacked Jerusalem and put it under siege. 11 While his officers were laying siege to the city, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon paid a personal visit. 12 And Jehoiachin king of Judah, along with his mother, officers, advisors, and government leaders, surrendered. 13 Nebuchadnezzar emptied the treasuries of both The Temple of God and the royal palace and confiscated all the gold furnishings that Solomon king of Israel had made for The Temple of God. This should have been no surprise - God had said it would happen. 14 And then he emptied Jerusalem of people - all its leaders and soldiers, all its craftsmen and artisans. He took them into exile, something like ten thousand of them! The only ones he left were the very poor. 15 He took Jehoiachin into exile to Babylon. With him he took the king's mother, his wives, his chief officers, the community leaders, 16 anyone who was anybody - in round numbers, seven thousand soldiers plus another thousand or so craftsmen and artisans, all herded off into exile in Babylon. 17 Then the king of Babylon made Jehoiachin's uncle, Mattaniah, his puppet king, but changed his name to Zedekiah.
18 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he started out as king. He was king in Jerusalem for eleven years. His mother's name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah. Her hometown was Libnah. 19 As far as God was concerned Zedekiah was just one more evil king, a carbon copy of Jehoiakim. 20 The source of all this doom to Jerusalem and Judah was God's anger - God turned his back on them as an act of judgment. And then Zedekiah revolted against the king of Babylon.
251 The revolt dates from the ninth year and tenth month of Zedekiah's reign. Nebuchadnezzar set out for Jerusalem immediately with a full army. He set up camp and sealed off the city by building siege mounds around it. 2 The city was under siege for nineteen months (until the eleventh year of Zedekiah). 3 By the fourth month of Zedekiah's eleventh year, on the ninth day of the month, the famine was so bad that there wasn't so much as a crumb of bread for anyone. 4 Then there was a breakthrough. At night, under cover of darkness, the entire army escaped through an opening in the wall (it was the gate between the two walls above the King's Garden). They slipped through the lines of the Babylonians who surrounded the city and headed for the Jordan on the Arabah Valley road. 5 But the Babylonians were in pursuit of the king and they caught up with him in the Plains of Jericho. By then Zedekiah's army had deserted and was scattered. 6 The Babylonians took Zedekiah prisoner and marched him off to the king of Babylon at Riblah, then tried and sentenced him on the spot. 7 Zedekiah's sons were executed right before his eyes; the summary murder of his sons was the last thing he saw, for they then blinded him. Securely handcuffed, he was hauled off to Babylon.
8 In the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, on the seventh day of the fifth month, Nebuzaradan, the king of Babylon's chief deputy, arrived in Jerusalem. 9 He burned The Temple of God to the ground, went on to the royal palace, and then finished off the city - burned the whole place down. 10 He put the Babylonian troops he had with him to work knocking down the city walls. 11 Finally, he rounded up everyone left in the city, including those who had earlier deserted to the king of Babylon, and took them off into exile. 12 He left a few poor dirt farmers behind to tend the vineyards and what was left of the fields. 13 The Babylonians broke up the bronze pillars, the bronze washstands, and the huge bronze basin (the Sea) that were in The Temple of God and hauled the bronze off to Babylon. 14 They also took the various bronze-crafted liturgical accessories used in the services of Temple worship, 15 as well as the gold and silver censers and sprinkling bowls. The king's deputy didn't miss a thing - he took every scrap of precious metal he could find. 16 The amount of bronze they got from the two pillars, the Sea, and all the washstands that Solomon had made for The Temple of God was enormous - they couldn't weigh it all! 17 Each pillar stood twenty-seven feet high, plus another four and a half feet for an ornate capital of bronze filigree and decorative fruit. 18 The king's deputy took a number of special prisoners: Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the associate priest, three wardens, 19 the chief remaining army officer, five of the king's counselors, the accountant, the chief recruiting officer for the army, and sixty men of standing from among the people. 20 Nebuzaradan the king's deputy marched them all off to the king of Babylon at Riblah. 21 And there at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, the king of Babylon killed the lot of them in cold blood. Judah went into exile, orphaned from her land.
22 Regarding the common people who were left behind in Judah, this: Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, as their governor. 23 When veteran army officers among the people heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah, they came to Gedaliah at Mizpah. Among them were Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, Jaazaniah the son of the Maacathite, and some of their followers. 24 Gedaliah assured the officers and their men, giving them his word, "Don't be afraid of the Babylonian officials. Go back to your farms and families and respect the king of Babylon. Trust me, everything is going to be all right." 25 Some time later - it was in the seventh month - Ishmael son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama (he had royal blood in him), came back with ten men and killed Gedaliah, the traitor Jews, and the Babylonian officials who were stationed at Mizpah - a bloody massacre. 26 But then, afraid of what the Babylonians would do, they all took off for Egypt, leaders and people, small and great.
27 When Jehoiachin king of Judah had been in exile for thirty-seven years, Evil-Merodach became king in Babylon and let Jehoiachin out of prison. This release took place on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month. 28 The king treated him most courteously and gave him preferential treatment beyond anything experienced by the other political prisoners held in Babylon. 29 Jehoiachin took off his prison garb and for the rest of his life ate his meals in company with the king. 30 The king provided everything he needed to live comfortably.
361 2 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to rule. He was king in Jerusalem for a mere three months. 3 The king of Egypt dethroned him and forced the country to pay him nearly four tons of silver and seventy-five pounds of gold. 4 Neco king of Egypt then made Eliakim, Jehoahaz's brother, king of Judah and Jerusalem, but changed his name to Jehoiakim; then he took Jehoahaz back with him to Egypt.
5 Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to rule; he was king for eleven years in Jerusalem. In God's opinion he was an evil king. 6 Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made war against him, and bound him in bronze chains, intending to take him prisoner to Babylon. 7 Nebuchadnezzar also took things from The Temple of God to Babylon and put them in his royal palace. 8 The rest of the history of Jehoiakim, the outrageous sacrilege he committed and what happened to him as a consequence, is all written in the Royal Annals of the Kings of Israel and Judah. Jehoiachin his son became the next king.
9 Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king. But he ruled for only three months and ten days in Jerusalem. In God's opinion he was an evil king. 10 In the spring King Nebuchadnezzar ordered him brought to Babylon along with the valuables remaining in The Temple of God. Then he made his uncle Zedekiah a puppet king over Judah and Jerusalem.
11 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he started out as king. He was king in Jerusalem for eleven years. 12 As far as God was concerned, he was just one more evil king; there wasn't a trace of contrition in him when the prophet Jeremiah preached God's word to him. 13 Then he compounded his troubles by rebelling against King Nebuchadnezzar, who earlier had made him swear in God's name that he would be loyal. He became set in his own stubborn ways - he never gave God a thought; repentance never entered his mind. 14 The evil mindset spread to the leaders and priests and filtered down to the people - it kicked off an epidemic of evil, repeating the abominations of the pagans and polluting The Temple of God so recently consecrated in Jerusalem. 15 God, the God of their ancestors, repeatedly sent warning messages to them. Out of compassion for both his people and his Temple he wanted to give them every chance possible. 16 But they wouldn't listen; they poked fun at God's messengers, despised the message itself, and in general treated the prophets like idiots. God became more and more angry until there was no turning back -
17 God called in Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who came and killed indiscriminately - and right in The Temple itself; it was a ruthless massacre: young men and virgins, the elderly and weak - they were all the same to him. 18 And then he plundered The Temple of everything valuable, cleaned it out completely; he emptied the treasuries of The Temple of God, the treasuries of the king and his officials, and hauled it all, people and possessions, off to Babylon. 19 He burned The Temple of God to the ground, knocked down the wall of Jerusalem, and set fire to all the buildings - everything valuable was burned up. 20 Any survivor was taken prisoner into exile in Babylon and made a slave to Nebuchadnezzar and his family. The exile and slavery lasted until the kingdom of Persia took over. 21 This is exactly the message of God that Jeremiah had preached: the desolate land put to an extended sabbath rest, a seventy-year Sabbath rest making up for all the unkept Sabbaths.
22 In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia - this fulfilled the message of God preached by Jeremiah - God moved Cyrus king of Persia to make an official announcement throughout his kingdom; he wrote it out as follows: 23 "From Cyrus king of Persia a proclamation: God, the God of the heavens, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has also assigned me to build him a Temple of worship at Jerusalem in Judah. All who belong to God's people are urged to return - and may your God be with you! Move forward!"
