IX. Historical Appendix^[a]

Chapter 52

Capture of Jerusalem. ¹ Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king; he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem.^(A) His mother’s name was Hamutal, daughter of Jeremiah from Libnah. ² He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, just as Jehoiakim had done. ³ Indeed, the things done in Jerusalem and in Judah so angered the Lord that he cast them out from his presence. Thus Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. ^4 (B)In the tenth month of the ninth year of his reign, on the tenth day of the month,^[b] Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and his entire army advanced against Jerusalem, encamped around it, and built siege walls on every side. ⁵ The siege of the city continued until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

⁶ On the ninth day of the fourth month, when famine had gripped the city and the people had no more bread, ⁷ the city walls were breached. All the soldiers fled and left the city by night through the gate between the two walls which was near the king’s garden. With the Chaldeans surrounding the city, they went in the direction of the Arabah. ⁸ But the Chaldean army pursued the king and overtook Zedekiah in the wilderness near Jericho; his whole army fled from him.

⁹ The king, therefore, was arrested and brought to Riblah, in the land of Hamath, to the king of Babylon, who pronounced judgment on him. ¹⁰ As Zedekiah looked on, the king of Babylon slaughtered his sons before his eyes! All the nobles of Judah were slaughtered at Riblah. ¹¹ And the eyes of Zedekiah he then blinded, bound him with chains, and the king of Babylon brought him to Babylon and kept him in prison until the day he died.

Destruction of Jerusalem. ¹² On the tenth day of the fifth month, this was in the nineteenth year^[c] of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, captain of the bodyguard, came to Jerusalem as the representative of the king of Babylon. ¹³ He burned the house of the Lord, the palace of the king, and all the houses of Jerusalem; every large building he destroyed with fire. ¹⁴ Then the Chaldean troops with the captain of the guard tore down all the walls that surrounded Jerusalem.

¹⁵ Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, led into exile the remnant of people left in the city, those who had deserted to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the artisans. ¹⁶ But Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, left behind some of the country’s poor as vinedressers and farmers.

¹⁷ The bronze pillars that belonged to the house of the Lord, and the wheeled carts and the bronze sea in the house of the Lord, the Chaldeans broke into pieces; they carried away all the bronze to Babylon. ¹⁸ They also took the pots, shovels, snuffers, bowls, pans, and all the bronze vessels used for service; ¹⁹ the basins, fire holders, bowls, pots, lampstands, pans, the sacrificial bowls made of gold or silver. Along with these furnishings the captain of the guard carried off ²⁰ the two pillars, the one sea and its base of twelve oxen cast in bronze, and the wheeled carts King Solomon had commissioned for the house of the Lord. The bronze from all these furnishings was impossible to weigh.

²¹ As for the pillars, each of them was eighteen cubits high and twelve cubits in diameter; each was four fingers thick and hollow inside. ²² A bronze capital five cubits high crowned the one pillar, and a network with pomegranates encircled the capital, all of bronze; and so for the other pillar, with pomegranates. ²³ There were ninety-six pomegranates on the sides, a hundred pomegranates surrounding the network.

²⁴ The captain of the guard also took Seraiah the high priest, Zephaniah the second priest, and the three keepers of the entrance. ²⁵ From the city he took one courtier, a commander of soldiers, and seven men in the personal service of the king still in the city, the scribe of the army commander who mustered the people of the land, and sixty of the common people remaining in the city. ²⁶ The captain of the guard, Nebuzaradan, arrested them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah, ²⁷ who had them struck down and executed in Riblah, in the land of Hamath.

Thus Judah was exiled from the land. ^28 [d]This is the number of people Nebuchadnezzar led away captive: in his seventh year, three thousand twenty-three people of Judah; ²⁹ in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, eight hundred thirty-two persons from Jerusalem; ³⁰ in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, deported seven hundred forty-five Judahites: four thousand six hundred persons in all.

Favor Shown to Jehoiachin.^{[e] 31 (C)}In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month, Evil-merodach, king of Babylon, in the inaugural year of his reign, raised up Jehoiachin, king of Judah, and released him from prison. ³² He spoke kindly to him and gave him a throne higher than the thrones of the other kings^[f] who were with him in Babylon. ³³ Jehoiachin took off his prison garb and ate at the king’s table as long as he lived. ³⁴ The allowance given him by the king of Babylon was a perpetual allowance, in fixed daily amounts, all the days of his life until the day of his death.

Chapter 23

Proper Use of the Tongue^[b]

²⁸ When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary secretly, saying, “The teacher is here and is asking for you.” ²⁹ As soon as she heard this, she rose quickly and went to him. ³⁰ For Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still where Martha had met him. ³¹ So when the Jews who were with her in the house comforting her saw Mary get up quickly and go out, they followed her, presuming that she was going to the tomb to weep there. ³² When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” ³³ When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, he became perturbed^[a] and deeply troubled, ³⁴ and said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Sir, come and see.” ³⁵ And Jesus wept.^{(A) 36} So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.” ³⁷ But some of them said, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?”

³⁸ So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across it. ³⁹ Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to him, “Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.” ⁴⁰ Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?” ⁴¹ So they took away the stone. And Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father,^[b] I thank you for hearing me. ⁴² I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me.”^{(B) 43} And when he had said this, he cried out in a loud voice,^[c] “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴ The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.”

Session of the Sanhedrin. ⁴⁵ Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him.^{(C) 46} But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. ⁴⁷ So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and said, “What are we going to do? This man is performing many signs.^{(D) 48} If we leave him alone, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come^[d] and take away both our land and our nation.” ^49 (E)But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year,^[e] said to them, “You know nothing, ⁵⁰ nor do you consider that it is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish.” ⁵¹ He did not say this on his own, but since he was high priest for that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, ⁵² and not only for the nation, but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God.^{[f] 53} So from that day on they planned to kill him.^(F)

⁵⁴ So Jesus no longer walked about in public among the Jews, but he left for the region near the desert, to a town called Ephraim,^[g] and there he remained with his disciples.

The Last Passover. ⁵⁵ Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before Passover to purify^[h] themselves.^{(G) 56} They looked for Jesus and said to one another as they were in the temple area, “What do you think? That he will not come to the feast?” ⁵⁷ For the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should inform them, so that they might arrest him.