¹And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon – he himself and all his army – came against Jerusalem, and he encamped against it, and they built a wall of circumvallation around it. ²And the city came under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. ³On the ninth day of the month, the famine in the city became severe, and there was no bread for the people of the land. ⁴And the city was breached, and all the warriors fled at night through the gate between the two walls which were alongside the king's garden, while the Chaldeans were alongside the city around it. And the king went by the road through the arid tract. ⁵Then the Chaldean army pursued the king, and they caught up with him in the arid tracts of Jericho, and all his army dispersed themselves away from him. ⁶And they caught the king, and they brought him up to the king of Babylon in Riblah, and they passed sentence on him. ⁷And they slaughtered Zedekiah's sons in his sight, and he blinded Zedekiah's eyes, and he bound him in fetters, and he brought him to Babylon. ⁸And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, that is the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan the chief guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem, ⁹and he burnt the house of the Lord and the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, and he burnt every high-ranking person's house with fire. ¹⁰And the whole army of the Chaldeans, who were under the chief guard, demolished the walls of Jerusalem surrounding it. ¹¹And Nebuzaradan the chief guard deported the rest of the people who remained in the city, and the defectors who had defected to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the population. ¹²But the chief guard left some of the poor of the land to be vine-growers and ploughmen. ¹³And the Chaldeans broke up the copper columns of the house of the Lord, and the plinths, and the copper artificial sea which was in the house of the Lord, and they carried the copper taken from them to Babylon. ¹⁴And they took the pans and the shovels and the snuffers and the ladles and all the copper equipment with which they served. ¹⁵And the chief guard took the firepans and the sprinkling basins which were of solid gold and which were of solid silver. ¹⁶As for the two columns, the one artificial sea, and the plinths which Solomon had made for the house of the Lord, the copper of all this equipment was of inestimable weight. ¹⁷The height of the first column was eighteen cubits, and the capital on it was of copper, and the height of the capital was three cubits, and the trellis and pomegranates on the capital around it were all of copper, and the second column had the same features in regard to the trellis work. ¹⁸And the chief guard took Seraiah the head priest, and Zephaniah the second most senior priest, and the three doorkeepers, ¹⁹and from the city he took one eunuch who was in charge of the warriors, and five men from those who attended to the king, who were present in the city, and the scribe who was commander of the army, who mobilized the people of the land, and sixty men from the people of the land who were present in the city. ²⁰And Nebuzaradan the chief guard took them and led them to the king of Babylon in Riblah. ²¹Then the king of Babylon struck them down and killed them in Riblah in the land of Hamath. And Judah was deported from its land. ²²And as for the people who remained in the land of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon left, he appointed Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, over them. ²³Then when all the officers of the forces – they and the men – heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah, they went to Gedaliah in Mizpah, as did Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Seraiah the son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah the son of the Maachathite – they and their men. ²⁴And Gedaliah swore to them and to their men, and he said to them, “Do not be afraid of the servants of the Chaldeans. Stay in the land, and serve the king of Babylon, and things will go well for you.” ²⁵But it came to pass in the seventh month that Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the royal seed came, with ten men accompanying him, struck Gedaliah down, and he died, and likewise the Jews and the Chaldeans who were with him in Mizpah. ²⁶Then all the people, both small and great, including officers of the forces, arose and went to Egypt, because they were afraid of the Chaldeans. ²⁷And it came to pass in the thirty-seventh year of the deportation of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, that Evil-Merodach king of Babylon, in the year when he started to reign, gave Jehoiachin king of Judah his liberty from being in prison. ²⁸And he spoke some welcome words to him, and he appointed his throne above the thrones of the kings who were with him in Babylon. ²⁹And he changed his prison clothes, and he ate food regularly in his presence all the days of his life. ³⁰And as for his meals, a regular meal was given to him by the king as a day-to-day matter all the days of his life.