2 Kings 25:1-13

Complete Jewish Bible

25 so in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, N’vukhadnetzar king of Bavel marched against Yerushalayim with his entire army. He set up camp against it and built siege towers against it on every side. ² The city remained under siege into the eleventh year of King Tzidkiyahu.

³ On the ninth day of the [fourth] month, when the famine in the city was so severe that there was no food for the people of the land, ⁴ they broke through into the city. All the soldiers [fled] by night through the gate between the two walls, near the king’s garden. Because the Kasdim were surrounding the city, the king took the route through the ‘Aravah. ⁵ But the army of the Kasdim went in pursuit of the king and overtook him on the plains near Yericho; all his troops deserted him. ⁶ Then they took the king and brought him up to the king of Bavel in Rivlah, where they passed judgment on him. ⁷ They slaughtered his sons before his eyes. Then they put out Tzidkiyahu’s eyes, bound him in chains and carried him off to Bavel.

⁸ In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which was also the nineteenth year of King N’vukhadnetzar, king of Bavel, N’vuzar’adan, the commander of the guard and an officer of the king of Bavel, entered Yerushalayim. ⁹ He burned down the house of Adonai, the royal palace and all the houses in Yerushalayim — every notable person’s house he burned to the ground. ¹⁰ The whole army of the Kasdim, who were with the commander of the guard, broke down the walls of Yerushalayim on every side. ¹¹ N’vuzar’adan the commander of the guard then deported the remaining population of the city, the deserters who had defected to the king of Bavel and the rest of the common people. ¹² But the commander of the guard left behind some of the poor people of the land to be vineyard-workers and farmers.

¹³ The Kasdim smashed the bronze columns in the house of Adonai, also the trolleys and bronze Sea that were in the house of Adonai, and carried their bronze to Bavel.