2 Kings 18-25

New American Bible (Revised Edition)

XI. The End of Judah^[a]

Chapter 18

Reign of Hezekiah. ¹ In the third year of Hoshea, son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, king of Judah, became king. ² He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi, daughter of Zechariah.

³ He did what was right in the Lord’s sight, just as David his father had done. ⁴ It was he who removed the high places, shattered the pillars, cut down the asherah,^[b] and smashed the bronze serpent Moses had made, because up to that time the Israelites were burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.)^{(A) 5} He put his trust in the Lord, the God of Israel; and neither before nor after him was there anyone like him among all the kings of Judah. ⁶ Hezekiah held fast to the Lord and never turned away from following him, but observed the commandments the Lord had given Moses. ⁷ The Lord was with him, and he succeeded in all he set out to do. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him. ⁸ It was he who struck the Philistines as far as Gaza, and all its territory from guard post to garrisoned town.

^9 [c]In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea, son of Elah, king of Israel, Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, attacked Samaria and laid siege to it, ^10 (B)and after three years they captured it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, the ninth year of Hoshea, king of Israel, Samaria was taken. ¹¹ The king of Assyria then deported the Israelites to Assyria and led them off to Halah, and the Habor, a river of Gozan, and the cities of the Medes. ¹² This happened because they did not obey the Lord, their God, but violated his covenant; they did not obey nor do all that Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded.^(C)

Sennacherib and Hezekiah. ^13 [d]In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria,^[e] attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.^{(D) 14} Hezekiah, king of Judah, sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: “I have done wrong. Leave me, and whatever you impose on me I will bear.” The king of Assyria exacted three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold from Hezekiah, king of Judah. ¹⁵ Hezekiah gave him all the funds there were in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s house. ¹⁶ At the same time, Hezekiah removed the nave doors and the uprights of the house of the Lord, which the king of Judah had ordered to be overlaid with gold, and gave them to the king of Assyria.^(E)

¹⁷ The king of Assyria sent the general, the lord chamberlain, and the commander^[f] from Lachish with a great army to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They went up and came to Jerusalem, to the conduit of the upper pool on the highway of the fuller’s field, where they took their stand. ¹⁸ They called for the king, but Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, the master of the palace, came out, along with Shebnah the scribe and the chancellor Joah, son of Asaph.^(F)

¹⁹ The commander said to them, “Tell Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you base this trust of yours? ²⁰ Do you think mere words substitute for strategy and might in war? In whom, then, do you place your trust, that you rebel against me? ²¹ Do you trust in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which pierces the hand of anyone who leans on it? That is what Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is to all who trust in him.^{(G) 22} Or do you people say to me, “It is in the Lord our God we trust!”? Is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, commanding Judah and Jerusalem, “Worship before this altar in Jerusalem”?’

²³ “Now, make a wager with my lord, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses if you are able to put riders on them. ²⁴ How then can you turn back even a captain, one of the least servants of my lord, trusting, as you do, in Egypt for chariots and horses? ²⁵ Did I come up to destroy this place without the Lord? The Lord himself said to me: Go up and destroy that land!”

²⁶ Then Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, and Shebnah and Joah said to the commander: “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic; we understand it. Do not speak to us in the language of Judah within earshot of the people who are on the wall.” ²⁷ But the commander replied: “Was it to your lord and to you that my lord sent me to speak these words? Was it not rather to those sitting on the wall, who, with you, will have to eat their own excrement and drink their urine?”^[g]

²⁸ Then the commander stepped forward and cried out in a loud voice in the language of Judah, “Listen to the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. ²⁹ Thus says the king: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he cannot rescue you from my hand. ³⁰ And do not let Hezekiah induce you to trust in the Lord, saying, ‘The Lord will surely rescue us, and this city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.’ ³¹ Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria: Make peace with me, and surrender to me! Eat, each of you, from your vine, each from your own fig tree. Drink water, each from your own well, ³² until I arrive and take you to a land like your own, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of rich olives and honey. Live, and do not die! And do not listen to Hezekiah when he would incite you by saying, ‘The Lord will rescue us.’ ³³ Has any of the gods of the nations ever rescued his land from the power of the king of Assyria? ³⁴ Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Did they indeed rescue Samaria from my power?^{[h] 35} Which of the gods for all these lands ever rescued his land from my power? Will the Lord then rescue Jerusalem from my power?” ³⁶ But the people remained silent and did not answer at all, for the king’s command was, “Do not answer him.”

³⁷ Then the master of the palace, Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, Shebnah the scribe, and the chancellor Joah, son of Asaph, came to Hezekiah with their garments torn, and reported to him the words of the commander.

Chapter 19

Hezekiah and Isaiah. ¹ When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his garments, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord. ² He sent Eliakim, the master of the palace, Shebnah the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to tell the prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, ³ “Thus says Hezekiah:

⁴ Perhaps the Lord, your God, will hear all the words of the commander, whom his lord, the king of Assyria, sent to taunt the living God, and will rebuke him for the words which the Lord, your God, has heard. So lift up a prayer for the remnant that is here.” ⁵ When the servants of King Hezekiah had come to Isaiah, ⁶ he said to them, “Tell this to your lord: Thus says the Lord: Do not be frightened by the words you have heard, by which the deputies of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.^{(H) 7} I am putting in him such a spirit that when he hears a report he will return to his land. I will make him fall by the sword in his land.”

⁸ When the commander, on his return, heard that the king of Assyria had withdrawn from Lachish, he found him besieging Libnah.

Sennacherib, Hezekiah, and Isaiah. ⁹ The king of Assyria heard a report: “Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, has come out to fight against you.” Again he sent messengers to Hezekiah to say: ¹⁰ “Thus shall you say to Hezekiah, king of Judah: Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by saying, ‘Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.’ ¹¹ You, certainly, have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands: they put them under the ban! And are you to be rescued? ^12 (I)Did the gods of the nations whom my fathers destroyed deliver them—Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, or the Edenites in Telassar? ¹³ Where are the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, or the kings of the cities Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah?”

¹⁴ Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; then he went up to the house of the Lord, and spreading it out before the Lord, ¹⁵ Hezekiah prayed in the Lord’s presence: “Lord, God of Israel, enthroned on the cherubim! You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. It is you who made the heavens and the earth.^{(J) 16} Incline your ear, Lord, and listen! Open your eyes, Lord, and see! Hear the words Sennacherib has sent to taunt the living God. ¹⁷ Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands. ¹⁸ They gave their gods to the fire—they were not gods at all, but the work of human hands—wood and stone, they destroyed them. ¹⁹ Therefore, Lord, our God, save us from this man’s power, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone, Lord, are God.”^(K)

²⁰ Then Isaiah, son of Amoz, sent this message to Hezekiah: “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to whom you have prayed concerning Sennacherib, king of Assyria: I have listened! ^21 [j]This is the word the Lord has spoken concerning him:

³² “Therefore, thus says the Lord about the king:

³⁵ That night the angel of the Lord went forth and struck down one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. Early the next morning, there they were, dead, all those corpses!^{(N) 36} So Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, broke camp, departed, returned home, and stayed in Nineveh.

³⁷ When he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword and fled into the land of Ararat. His son Esarhaddon reigned in his place.

Chapter 20

End of Hezekiah’s Reign. ^1 (O)In those days, when Hezekiah was mortally ill, the prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, came and said to him: “Thus says the Lord: Put your house in order, for you are about to die; you shall not recover.” ² He turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord: ³ “Ah, Lord, remember how faithfully and wholeheartedly I conducted myself in your presence, doing what was good in your sight!” And Hezekiah wept bitterly. ⁴ Before Isaiah had left the central courtyard, the word of the Lord came to him: ⁵ Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people: “Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father:

⁷ Then Isaiah said, “Bring a poultice of figs and apply it to the boil for his recovery.” ⁸ Hezekiah asked Isaiah, “What is the sign that the Lord will heal me and that I shall go up to the house of the Lord on the third day?” ⁹ Isaiah replied, “This will be the sign for you from the Lord that he will carry out the word he has spoken: Shall the shadow go forward or back ten steps?” ¹⁰ “It is easy for the shadow to advance ten steps,” Hezekiah answered. “Rather, let it go back ten steps.” ¹¹ So Isaiah the prophet invoked the Lord. He made the shadow go back the ten steps it had descended on the staircase to the terrace of Ahaz.

¹² At that time, Berodach-baladan,^[k] son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and gifts to Hezekiah when he heard that he had been ill. ¹³ Hezekiah listened to the envoys and then showed off his whole treasury: his silver, gold, spices and perfumed oil, his armory, and everything in his storerooms; there was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them. ¹⁴ Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and asked him: “What did these men say to you? Where did they come from?” Hezekiah replied, “They came from a distant land, from Babylon.” ¹⁵ He asked, “What did they see in your house?” Hezekiah answered, “They saw everything in my house. There is nothing in my storerooms that I did not show them.” ¹⁶ Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah: “Hear the word of the Lord: ¹⁷ The time is coming when all that is in your house, everything that your ancestors have stored up until this day, shall be carried off to Babylon; nothing shall be left, says the Lord. ¹⁸ Some of your own descendants, your offspring, your progeny, shall be taken and made attendants in the palace of the king of Babylon.” ¹⁹ Hezekiah replied to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord which you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “There will be peace and stability in my lifetime.”

²⁰ The rest of the acts of Hezekiah, with all his valor, and how he constructed the pool and conduit^[l] and brought water into the city, are recorded in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah.^{(P) 21} Hezekiah rested with his ancestors, and his son Manasseh succeeded him as king.

Chapter 21

Reign of Manasseh. ¹ Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah.

² He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, following the abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites. ³ He rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed. He set up altars to Baal and also made an asherah, as Ahab, king of Israel, had done. He bowed down to the whole host of heaven and served them.^{(Q) 4} He built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said: In Jerusalem I will set my name. ⁵ And he built altars for the whole host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. ⁶ He immolated his child by fire. He practiced soothsaying and divination, and reintroduced the consulting of ghosts and spirits.

He did much evil in the Lord’s sight and provoked him to anger.^{(R) 7} The Asherah idol he had made, he placed in the Lord’s house, of which the Lord had said to David and to his son Solomon: In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I shall set my name forever.^{(S) 8} I will no longer make Israel step out of the land I gave their ancestors, provided that they are careful to observe all I have commanded them and the entire law which Moses my servant enjoined upon them. ⁹ But they did not listen.

Manasseh misled them into doing even greater evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed at the coming of the Israelites. ¹⁰ Then the Lord spoke through his servants the prophets: ¹¹ “Because Manasseh, king of Judah, has practiced these abominations, and has done greater evil than all that was done by the Amorites before him, and has led Judah into sin by his idols,^{(T) 12} therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I am about to bring such evil on Jerusalem and Judah that, when any hear of it, their ears shall ring: ¹³ I will measure Jerusalem with the same cord as I did Samaria, and with the plummet I used for the house of Ahab. I will wipe Jerusalem clean as one wipes a dish, wiping it inside and out.^{(U) 14} I will cast off the survivors of my inheritance. I will deliver them into enemy hands, to become prey and booty for all their enemies, ¹⁵ because they have done what is evil in my sight and provoked me from the day their ancestors came forth from Egypt until this very day.” ¹⁶ Manasseh shed so much innocent blood that it filled the length and breadth of Jerusalem, in addition to the sin he caused Judah to commit by doing what was evil in the Lord’s sight.

¹⁷ The rest of the acts of Manasseh, with all that he did and the sin he committed, are recorded in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah. ¹⁸ Manasseh rested with his ancestors; he was buried in his palace garden, the garden of Uzza, and his son Amon succeeded him as king.

Reign of Amon. ¹⁹ Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Meshullemeth, daughter of Haruz, from Jotbah.

²⁰ He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, as his father Manasseh had done. ²¹ He walked in all the ways of his father; he served the idols his father had served, and bowed down to them. ²² He abandoned the Lord, the God of his ancestors, and did not walk in the way of the Lord.

²³ Officials of Amon plotted against him and killed the king in his palace, ²⁴ but the people of the land^[m] then slew all who had plotted against King Amon, and the people of the land made his son Josiah king in his stead. ²⁵ The rest of the acts of Amon, which he did, are recorded in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah. ²⁶ He was buried in his own grave in the garden of Uzza, and his son Josiah succeeded him as king.

Chapter 22

Reign of Josiah. ¹ Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jedidah, daughter of Adaiah, from Bozkath.

² He did what was right in the Lord’s sight, walking in the way of David his father, not turning right or left.

The Book of the Law. ^3 (V)In his eighteenth year, King Josiah sent the scribe Shaphan,^[n] son of Azaliah, son of Meshullam, to the house of the Lord with these orders: ⁴ “Go to the high priest Hilkiah and have him calculate the valuables that have been brought to the house of the Lord, which the doorkeepers have collected from the people. ⁵ Then have him turn them over to the master workers in the house of the Lord, and have them give them to the ordinary workers who are in the house of the Lord to repair its breaches: ⁶ to the carpenters, the builders, and the masons, and to purchase wood and hewn stone. ⁷ No reckoning shall be asked of them regarding the funds provided to them, because they hold positions of trust.”

⁸ The high priest Hilkiah informed the scribe Shaphan, “I have found the book of the law^[o] in the temple of the Lord.” Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, who read it. ⁹ Then the scribe Shaphan went to the king and reported, “Your servants have smelted down the silver deposited in the temple and have turned it over to the master workers in the house of the Lord.” ¹⁰ The scribe Shaphan also informed the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book,” and then Shaphan read it in the presence of the king. ¹¹ When the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his garments.

¹² The king then issued this command to Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, son of Shaphan, Achbor, son of Micaiah, Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah the king’s servant: ¹³ “Go, consult the Lord for me, for the people, and for all Judah, about the words of this book that has been found, for the rage of the Lord has been set furiously ablaze against us, because our ancestors did not obey the words of this book, nor do what is written for us.” ¹⁴ So Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to Huldah the prophet, wife of Shallum, son of Tikvah, son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe; she lived in Jerusalem, in the Second Quarter. When they had spoken to her, ¹⁵ she said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Say to the man who sent you to me, ¹⁶ Thus says the Lord: I am about to bring evil upon this place and upon its inhabitants—all the words of the book which the king of Judah has read. ¹⁷ Because they have abandoned me and have burned incense to other gods, provoking me by all the works of their hands, my rage is ablaze against this place and it cannot be extinguished.

¹⁸ “But to the king of Judah who sent you to consult the Lord, give this response: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: As for the words you have heard, ¹⁹ because you were heartsick and have humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I have spoken concerning this place and its inhabitants, that they would become a desolation and a curse; and because you tore your garments and wept before me, I in turn have heard, oracle of the Lord. ²⁰ I will therefore gather you to your ancestors; you shall go to your grave in peace, and your eyes shall not see all the evil I am about to bring upon this place.” This they reported to the king.

Chapter 23

¹ The king then had all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem summoned before him. ² The king went up to the house of the Lord with all the people of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem: priests, prophets, and all the people, great and small. He read aloud to them all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the house of the Lord.^{(W) 3} The king stood by the column and made a covenant in the presence of the Lord to follow the Lord and to observe his commandments, statutes, and decrees with his whole heart and soul, and to re-establish the words of the covenant written in this book. And all the people stood by the covenant.

Josiah’s Religious Reform. ⁴ Then the king commanded the high priest Hilkiah, his assistant priests, and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the Lord all the objects that had been made for Baal, Asherah, and the whole host of heaven. These he burned outside Jerusalem on the slopes of the Kidron; their ashes were carried to Bethel.^{(X) 5} He also put an end to the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the vicinity of Jerusalem, as well as those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, moon, and signs of the zodiac, and to the whole host of heaven.^{(Y) 6} From the house of the Lord he also removed the Asherah to the Wadi Kidron, outside Jerusalem; he burned it and beat it to dust, in the Wadi Kidron, and scattered its dust over the graveyard of the people of the land.^{[p](Z) 7} He tore down the apartments of the cult prostitutes in the house of the Lord, where the women wove garments for the Asherah.^{(AA) 8} He brought in all the priests from the cities of Judah, and then defiled, from Geba to Beer-sheba, the high places where they had offered incense. He also tore down the high places of the gates, which were at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua, governor of the city, north of the city gate. ⁹ (The priests of the high places could not function at the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem; but they, along with their relatives, ate the unleavened bread.)

¹⁰ The king also defiled Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom, so that there would no longer be any immolation of sons or daughters by fire^[q] in honor of Molech.^{(AB) 11} He did away with the horses which the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun; these were at the entrance of the house of the Lord, near the chamber of Nathan-melech the official, which was in the large building. The chariots of the sun he destroyed by fire. ¹² He also demolished the altars made by the kings of Judah on the roof (the roof terrace of Ahaz), and the altars made by Manasseh in the two courts of the Lord’s house. He pulverized them and threw the dust into the Wadi Kidron.^{(AC) 13} The king defiled the high places east of Jerusalem, south of the Mount of the Destroyer,^[r] which Solomon, king of Israel, had built in honor of Astarte, the Sidonian horror, of Chemosh, the Moabite horror, and of Milcom, the Ammonites’ abomination.^{(AD) 14} He broke to pieces the pillars, cut down the asherahs, and filled the places where they had been with human bones.^(AE)

¹⁵ Likewise the altar which was at Bethel, the high place built by Jeroboam, son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin—this same altar and high place he tore down and burned, grinding the high place to powder and burning the asherah.^{(AF) 16} When Josiah turned and saw the graves there on the mountainside, he ordered the bones taken from the graves and burned on the altar, and thus defiled it, according to the Lord’s word proclaimed by the man of God as Jeroboam stood by the altar on the feast day. When the king looked up and saw the grave of the man of God who had proclaimed these words, ¹⁷ he asked, “What is that marker I see?” The people of the city replied, “The grave of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed the very things you have done to the altar in Bethel.” ¹⁸ “Let him be,” he said, “let no one move his bones.” So they left his bones undisturbed together with the bones of the prophet who had come from Samaria.^{[s] 19} Josiah also removed all the temples on the high places in the cities of Samaria which the kings of Israel had built, provoking the Lord; he did the very same to them as he had done in Bethel. ²⁰ He slaughtered upon the altars all the priests of the high places that were there, and burned human bones upon them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

²¹ The king issued a command to all the people: “Observe the Passover of the Lord, your God, as it is written in this book of the covenant.”^{(AG) 22} No Passover such as this had been observed during the period when the judges ruled Israel, or during the entire period of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah, ²³ until the eighteenth year of King Josiah, when this Passover of the Lord was kept in Jerusalem.

²⁴ Further, Josiah purged the consultation of ghosts and spirits, with the household gods, idols,^[t] and all the other horrors to be seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, so that he might carry out the words of the law that were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had found in the house of the Lord.^(AH)

²⁵ Before him there had been no king who turned to the Lord as he did, with his whole heart, his whole being, and his whole strength, in accord with the entire law of Moses; nor did any king like him arise after him.^{(AI) 26} Yet the Lord did not turn from his fiercely burning anger against Judah, because of all the provocations that Manasseh had given. ²⁷ The Lord said: Even Judah will I put out of my sight as I did Israel. I will reject this city, Jerusalem, which I chose, and the house of which I said: There shall my name be.

²⁸ The rest of the acts of Josiah, with all that he did, are recorded in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah. ²⁹ In his time Pharaoh Neco, king of Egypt, went up toward the Euphrates River against the king of Assyria.^[u] King Josiah set out to meet him, but was slain at Megiddo at the first encounter. ³⁰ His servants brought his body on a chariot from Megiddo to Jerusalem, where they buried him in his own grave. Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz, son of Josiah, anointed him, and proclaimed him king to succeed his father.

Reign of Jehoahaz. ³¹ Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal, daughter of Jeremiah, from Libnah.^(AJ)

³² He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, just as his ancestors had done. ³³ Pharaoh Neco took him prisoner at Riblah in the land of Hamath, thus ending his reign in Jerusalem. He imposed a fine upon the land of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.^{[v] 34} Pharaoh Neco then made Eliakim, son of Josiah, king in place of Josiah his father; he changed his name to Jehoiakim. Jehoahaz he took away with him to Egypt, where he died. ³⁵ Jehoiakim gave the silver and gold to Pharaoh, but taxed the land to raise the amount Pharaoh demanded. He exacted the silver and gold from the people of the land, from each proportionately, to pay Pharaoh Neco.

Reign of Jehoiakim. ³⁶ Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zebidah, daughter of Pedaiah, from Rumah.

³⁷ He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, just as his ancestors had done.

Chapter 24

¹ During Jehoiakim’s reign Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, attacked, and Jehoiakim became his vassal for three years. Then Jehoiakim turned and rebelled against him. ² The Lord loosed against him bands of Chaldeans, Arameans, Moabites, and Ammonites; he unleashed them against Judah to destroy him, according to the Lord’s word spoken through his servants the prophets. ³ This befell Judah because the Lord had stated that he would put them out of his sight for the sins Manasseh had committed in all that he did, ⁴ and especially because of the innocent blood he shed; he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord would not forgive.^(AK)

⁵ The rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, with all that he did, are recorded in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah. ⁶ Jehoiakim rested with his ancestors, and his son Jehoiachin succeeded him as king. ⁷ The king of Egypt did not again leave his own land, for the king of Babylon had taken all that belonged to the king of Egypt from the wadi of Egypt to the Euphrates River.

Reign of Jehoiachin. ⁸ Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Nehushta, daughter of Elnathan, from Jerusalem.

⁹ He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, just as his father had done.

^10 (AL)At that time officers of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, attacked Jerusalem, and the city came under siege. ¹¹ Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, himself arrived at the city while his officers were besieging it. ¹² Then Jehoiachin, king of Judah, together with his mother, his ministers, officers, and functionaries, surrendered to the king of Babylon, who, in the eighth year of his reign,^[w] took him captive. ¹³ He carried off all the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king’s house, and broke up all the gold utensils that Solomon, king of Israel, had provided in the house of the Lord, as the Lord had decreed.^{(AM) 14} He deported all Jerusalem: all the officers and warriors of the army, ten thousand in number, and all the artisans and smiths. Only the lowliest of the people of the land^[x] were left. ¹⁵ He deported Jehoiachin to Babylon, and the king’s mother, his wives, his functionaries, and the chiefs of the land he led captive from Jerusalem to Babylon.^{(AN) 16} All seven thousand soldiers of the army, and a thousand artisans and smiths, all of them trained warriors, these too the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon. ¹⁷ In place of Jehoiachin the king of Babylon made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s uncle, king; he changed his name to Zedekiah.^(AO)

Reign of Zedekiah. ^18 [y]Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal, daughter of Jeremiah, from Libnah.^(AP)

¹⁹ He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, just as Jehoiakim had done. ²⁰ This befell Jerusalem and Judah because the Lord was so angry that he cast them out of his sight.

Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

Chapter 25

¹ In the tenth month of the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and his whole army advanced against Jerusalem, encamped around it, and built siege walls on every side. ² The siege of the city continued until the eleventh year of Zedekiah. ³ On the ninth day of the month,^[z] when famine had gripped the city, and the people of the land had no more food, ⁴ the city walls were breached. That night, all the soldiers came to the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden (the Chaldeans had the city surrounded), while the king went toward the Arabah.^{[aa] 5} But the Chaldean army pursued the king and overtook him in the desert near Jericho, abandoned by his whole army. ⁶ The king was therefore arrested and brought to Riblah to the king of Babylon, who pronounced sentence on him. ⁷ They slew Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes; then they put out his eyes, bound him with fetters, and brought him to Babylon.

⁸ On the seventh day of the fifth month (this was in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon), Nebuzaradan, captain of the bodyguard, came to Jerusalem as the agent of the king of Babylon. ⁹ He burned the house of the Lord, the house of the king, and all the houses of Jerusalem (every noble house); he destroyed them by fire.^{(AQ) 10} The Chaldean troops who were with the captain of the guard tore down the walls that surrounded Jerusalem, ¹¹ and Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, led into exile the last of the army remaining in the city, and those who had deserted^[ab] to the king of Babylon, and the last of the commoners. ¹² But some of the country’s poor the captain of the guard left behind as vinedressers and farmers.

¹³ The bronze columns that belonged to the house of the Lord, and the stands and the bronze sea in the house of the Lord, the Chaldeans broke into pieces; they carried away the bronze to Babylon.^{(AR) 14} They took also the pots, the shovels, the snuffers, the cups and all the bronze articles used for service.^{(AS) 15} The fire pans and the bowls that were of solid gold or silver the captain of the guard also carried off.^{(AT) 16} The two columns, the one bronze sea, and the stands, which Solomon had made for the house of the Lord—the weight in bronze of all these articles was never calculated.^{(AU) 17} Each of the columns was eighteen cubits high; a bronze capital three cubits high surmounted each column, and a netting with pomegranates encircled the capital, all of bronze; and they were duplicated on the other column, on the netting.^(AV)

¹⁸ The captain of the guard also took Seraiah, the chief priest, Zephaniah, an assistant priest, and the three doorkeepers. ¹⁹ And from the city he took one officer who was a commander of soldiers, five courtiers in the personal service of the king who were still in the city, the scribe in charge of the army who mustered the people of the land,^[ac] and sixty of the people of the land still remaining in the city. ²⁰ The captain of the guard, Nebuzaradan, arrested these and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah, and ²¹ the king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death in Riblah, in the land of Hamath. And thus Judah went into exile from their native soil.

Governorship of Gedaliah. ^22 (AW)As for the people whom he had allowed to remain in the land of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, appointed Gedaliah, son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan, over them. ²³ Hearing that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah over them, all the army commanders and the troops came to him at Mizpah: Ishmael, son of Nethaniah, Johanan, son of Kareah, Seraiah, son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah, son of the Maakite, each with his troops. ²⁴ Gedaliah gave the commanders and their troops his oath. He said to them, “Do not be afraid of the Chaldean officials. Remain in the country and serve the king of Babylon, so that all will be well with you.”

²⁵ But in the seventh month Ishmael, son of Nethaniah, son of Elishama, of royal descent, came with ten others, attacked Gedaliah and killed him, along with the Judahites and Chaldeans who were in Mizpah with him. ²⁶ Then all the people, great and small, left with the army commanders and went to Egypt for fear of the Chaldeans.

Release of Jehoiachin. ²⁷ In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month, Evil-merodach, king of Babylon, in the inaugural year of his own reign, raised up Jehoiachin, king of Judah, from prison. ²⁸ He spoke kindly to him and gave him a throne higher than that of the other kings who were with him in Babylon. ²⁹ Jehoiachin took off his prison garb; he ate regularly in the king’s presence as long as he lived; ³⁰ and for his allowance the king granted him a regular allowance, in fixed daily amounts, for as long as he lived.