¹⁵ And Yahweh, the God of their ancestors,^[a] had repeatedly and persistently sent to them by the hand of his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. ¹⁶ But they were mocking the messengers of God and despising his words and scoffing at his prophets until the wrath of Yahweh rose against his people until there was no remedy.

The Destruction of Jerusalem

¹⁷ Therefore he brought against them the king of the Chaldeans, and he killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary. He showed no mercy on a young man, a virgin, the elderly, or decrepit. He delivered all into his hand. ¹⁸ And all the vessels of the house of God, the great and the small, the storehouses of the house of Yahweh, and the storehouses of the king and his princes, these all he brought to Babylon. ¹⁹ And they burned the house of God. And they shattered the walls of Jerusalem and burned its citadels with fire and destroyed all the vessels of its treasuries. ²⁰ And he took those who escaped the sword^[b] to Babylon. And they became servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, ²¹ to fulfill the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land has enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days of desolation it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.