Jerusalem's Defeat Is Predicted

21 King Zedekiah of Judah sent to me Pashhur son of Malchiah and the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah with this request: ^2 (A)“Please speak to the Lord for us, because King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia and his army are besieging the city. Maybe the Lord will perform one of his miracles for us and force Nebuchadnezzar to retreat.”

³ Then the Lord spoke to me, and I told those who had been sent to me ⁴ to tell Zedekiah that the Lord, the God of Israel, had said, “Zedekiah, I am going to defeat your army that is fighting against the king of Babylonia and his army. I will pile up your soldiers' weapons in the center of the city. ⁵ I will fight against you with all my might, my anger, my wrath, and my fury. ⁶ I will kill everyone living in this city; people and animals alike will die of a terrible disease. ⁷ But as for you, your officials, and the people who survive the war, the famine, and the disease—I will let all of you be captured by King Nebuchadnezzar and by your enemies, who want to kill you. Nebuchadnezzar will put you to death. He will not spare any of you or show mercy or pity to any of you. I, the Lord, have spoken.”

⁸ Then the Lord told me to say to the people, “Listen! I, the Lord, am giving you a choice between the way that leads to life and the way that leads to death. ⁹ Anyone who stays in the city will be killed in war or by starvation or disease. But those who go out and surrender to the Babylonians, who are now attacking the city, will not be killed; they will at least escape with their life. ¹⁰ I have made up my mind not to spare this city, but to destroy it. It will be given over to the king of Babylonia, and he will burn it to the ground. I, the Lord, have spoken.”

King Josiah of Judah^(A)

34 ^(B)Josiah was eight years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for thirty-one years. ² He did what was pleasing to the Lord; he followed the example of his ancestor King David, strictly obeying all the laws of God.

Josiah Attacks Pagan Worship

³ In the eighth year that Josiah was king, while he was still very young, he began to worship the God of his ancestor King David. Four years later he began to destroy the pagan places of worship, the symbols of the goddess Asherah, and all the other idols. ^4 (C)Under his direction the altars where Baal was worshiped were smashed, and the incense altars near them were torn down. They ground to dust the images of Asherah and all the other idols and then scattered the dust on the graves of the people who had sacrificed to them. ^5 (D)He burned the bones of the pagan priests on the altars where they had worshiped. By doing all this, he made Judah and Jerusalem ritually clean again.