¹⁶ “Thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, ^(A)I will bring calamity on this place and on its inhabitants—all the words of the book which the king of Judah has read—

¹¹ Yes, ^(A)all Israel has transgressed Your law, and has departed so as not to obey Your voice; therefore the curse and the oath written in the ^(B)Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against Him. ¹² And He has ^(C)confirmed His words, which He spoke against us and against our judges who judged us, by bringing upon us a great disaster; ^(D)for under the whole heaven such has never been done as what has been done to Jerusalem.

^13 (E)“As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us; ^(F)yet we have not made our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand Your truth. ¹⁴ Therefore the Lord has ^(G)kept the disaster in mind, and brought it upon us; for ^(H)the Lord our God is righteous in all the works which He does, though we have not obeyed His voice.

^15 (A)Therefore it shall come to pass, that as all the good things have come upon you which the Lord your God promised you, so the Lord will bring upon you ^(B)all harmful things, until He has destroyed you from this good land which the Lord your God has given you.

²⁴ “Thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, I will ^(A)bring calamity on this place and on its inhabitants, all the curses that are written in the ^(B)book which they have read before the king of Judah, ²⁵ because they have forsaken Me and burned incense to other gods, that they might provoke Me to anger with all the works of their hands. Therefore My wrath will be poured out on this place, and not be quenched.’ ” ’

The Fall and Captivity of Judah^(A)

25 Now it came to pass ^(B)in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came against Jerusalem and encamped against it; and they built a siege wall against it all around. ² So the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. ³ By the ninth day of the ^(C)fourth month the famine had become so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.

⁴ Then ^(D)the city wall was broken through, and all the men of war fled at night by way of the gate between two walls, which was by the king’s garden, even though the Chaldeans were still encamped all around against the city. And ^(E)the king^[a] went by way of the ^[b]plain.