⁹ “Say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Will it thrive? Will it not be uprooted and stripped of its fruit so that it withers? All its new growth will wither. It will not take a strong arm or many people to pull it up by the roots.^(A)

¹⁵ But the king rebelled^(A) against him by sending his envoys to Egypt^(B) to get horses and a large army.^(C) Will he succeed? Will he who does such things escape? Will he break the treaty and yet escape?^(D)

¹⁶ “‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, he shall die^(E) in Babylon, in the land of the king who put him on the throne, whose oath he despised and whose treaty he broke.^{(F) 17} Pharaoh^(G) with his mighty army and great horde will be of no help to him in war, when ramps^(H) are built and siege works erected to destroy many lives.^(I)

¹⁰ It has been planted,^(A) but will it thrive? Will it not wither completely when the east wind strikes it—wither away in the plot where it grew?^(B)’”

⁷ Then the city wall was broken through, and the whole army fled.^(A) They left the city at night through the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden, though the Babylonians^[a] were surrounding the city. They fled toward the Arabah,^{[b] 8} but the Babylonian^[c] army pursued King Zedekiah and overtook him in the plains of Jericho. All his soldiers were separated from him and scattered, ⁹ and he was captured.^(B)

He was taken to the king of Babylon at Riblah^(C) in the land of Hamath,^(D) where he pronounced sentence on him. ¹⁰ There at Riblah the king of Babylon killed the sons^(E) of Zedekiah before his eyes; he also killed all the officials of Judah. ¹¹ Then he put out Zedekiah’s eyes, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon, where he put him in prison till the day of his death.^(F)