II Kings 25

 II Kings 25

1 Now 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 came against Jerusalem, he and all his army, and encamped against it, and they cast sieges against it all around.

2 And the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

3 On the ninth day of the fourth month, when the city was in great distress with famine, there was no bread for the people of the land.

4 Then the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls that were by the king's garden (for the Chaldeans were against the city all around), and the king went by the way of the plain.

5 But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho: and all his army was scattered.

 6 And they took the king, and brought him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah, and went against him.

7 And they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes; and they gouged out Zedekiah's eyes, and bound him with two chains of bronze, and brought him to Babylon.

8 And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month (that was the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon), Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.

9 And he burned the house of the LORD, and the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; all the houses of the nobles he burned.

10 And the whole army of the Chaldeans, that was with the captain of the guard, brake down the walls of Jerusalem round about.

 11 And the rest of the people that were left in the city, and the rebels that had surrendered themselves to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the multitude, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took captive. 

12 But the captain of the guard left some of the poorest of the land to be vinedressers and husbandmen. 

13 And the Chaldeans broke in pieces the pillars of brass that were in the house of the LORD, and the stands and the brass sea that were in the house of the LORD: and they carried the brass to Babylon. 

14 And they took away the pots, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the incense bowls, and all the vessels of brass, wherewith they ministered. 

15 And the firepans and the basins, the pure gold, and the silver, in silver, the captain of the guard took away.

 16 And the two pillars, and the sea, and the basins, which Solomon had made for the house of the LORD: the brass of all these vessels was without weight. 

17 The height of one pillar was eighteen cubits, and on it was a capital of bronze, and the capital was three cubits high; and the network and the pomegranates all around the capital were of bronze; and the other pillar and its network were like it.

18 The captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and the three keepers of the threshold of the gate.

19 And he took from the city an eunuch who was set over the men of war, and five men of those who saw the king's face who were found in the city, and the scribe of the captain of the army who mustered the people in the land for war, who were found in the city.

20 And Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. 21 And the king of Babylon smote them, and slew them at Riblah in the land of Hamath: and Judah was carried away captive out of his land.

22 But as for the people that were left in the land of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, whom he had left, made Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, ruler over them.