God's Judgment on Jehoiachin

^24 (A)The Lord said to King Jehoiachin, son of King Jehoiakim of Judah, “As surely as I am the living God, even if you were the signet ring on my right hand, I would pull you off ²⁵ and give you to people you are afraid of, people who want to kill you. I will give you to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia and his soldiers. ²⁶ I am going to force you and your mother into exile. You will go to a country where neither of you was born, and both of you will die there. ²⁷ You will long to see this country again, but you will never return.”

²⁸ I said, “Has King Jehoiachin become like a broken jar that is thrown away and that no one wants? Is that why he and his children have been taken into exile to a land they know nothing about?”

24 ^(A)While Jehoiakim was king, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia invaded Judah, and for three years Jehoiakim was forced to submit to his rule; then he rebelled. ² The Lord sent armed bands of Babylonians, Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites against Jehoiakim to destroy Judah, as the Lord had said through his servants the prophets that he would do. ³ This happened at the Lord's command, in order to banish the people of Judah from his sight because of all the sins that King Manasseh had committed, ⁴ and especially because of all the innocent people he had killed. The Lord could not forgive Manasseh for that.

⁵ Everything that Jehoiakim did is recorded in The History of the Kings of Judah. ⁶ Jehoiakim died, and his son Jehoiachin succeeded him as king.

⁷ The king of Egypt and his army never marched out of Egypt again, because the king of Babylonia now controlled all the territory that had belonged to Egypt, from the Euphrates River to the northern border of Egypt.

King Jehoiachin of Judah^(B)

⁸ Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for three months. His mother was Nehushta, the daughter of Elnathan from Jerusalem. ⁹ Following the example of his father, Jehoiachin sinned against the Lord.

¹⁰ It was during his reign that the Babylonian army, commanded by King Nebuchadnezzar's officers, marched against Jerusalem and besieged it.