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20 Surely it was because of the Lord’s wrath that all this fell upon Jerusalem and Judah, until he cast them from his presence. Then Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

The Final Siege of Jerusalem

25 In the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came up against Jerusalem. He laid siege to it and built a rampart around it. The city was under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. By the ninth day of the fourth month,[a] famine gripped the city, and the people of the land had no bread.

Then the city wall was breached, and all the soldiers fled toward the Arabah through the gate that was between the two walls near the king’s garden, while the Chaldeans[b] were surrounding the city. But the Chaldean army pursued the king. They caught him in the Arabah near Jericho. His whole army was scattered away from him. So they seized the king. They brought him to the king of Babylon in Riblah, and a sentence was pronounced on him. They slaughtered Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes, and then Zedekiah was blinded. They bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon.

Footnotes

  1. 2 Kings 25:3 The Hebrew text does not have the word fourth. Jeremiah 52:6 provides the number of the month.
  2. 2 Kings 25:4 The Chaldeans were the ethnic group that was ruling Babylon at this time.