2 Kings 25:2-9

Holman Christian Standard Bible

² The city was under siege until King Zedekiah’s eleventh year.

³ By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that the people of the land had no food.^{(A) 4} Then the city was broken into,^(B) and all the warriors fled^(C) by night by way of the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden,^(D) even though the Chaldeans surrounded the city. As the king made his way along the route to the Arabah,^{(E) 5} the Chaldean army pursued him and overtook him in the plains of Jericho. Zedekiah’s entire army was scattered from him.^{(F) 6} The Chaldeans seized the king^(G) and brought him up to the king of Babylon^(H) at Riblah,^(I) and they passed sentence on him. ⁷ They slaughtered Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes. Finally, the king of Babylon blinded Zedekiah, bound him in bronze chains, and took him to Babylon.^(J)

Jerusalem Destroyed

⁸ On^(K) the seventh day of the fifth month, which was the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the commander of the guards, a servant of the king of Babylon, entered Jerusalem.^{(L) 9} He burned the Lord’s temple,^(M) the king’s palace,^(N) and all the houses of Jerusalem; he burned down^(O) all the great houses.