¹⁹ “Thus says the Lord of hosts: The fast of the ^(A)fourth month and the fast of the ^(B)fifth and the fast of the ^(C)seventh and the fast of the ^(D)tenth shall be to the house of Judah ^(E)seasons of joy and gladness and cheerful feasts. Therefore love ^(F)truth and peace.

² In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city.

¹⁶ These are the things that you shall do: ^(A)Speak the truth to one another; ^(B)render in your gates judgments ^(C)that are true and make for peace;

⁵ “Say to all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in ^(A)the fifth month and in ^(B)the seventh, for these ^(C)seventy years, ^(D)was it ^(E)for me that you fasted?

^3 (A)saying to the priests of the house of the Lord of hosts and ^(B)the prophets, “Should I weep and ^(C)abstain in ^(D)the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?”

^4 (A)And in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem, and laid siege to it. And they built siegeworks all around it.

^25 (A)But in the seventh month, ^(B)Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, son of Elishama, of the royal family, came with ten men and struck down Gedaliah and put him to death along with the Jews and the Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah.

³ On the ninth day of the fourth month ^(A)the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. ⁴ Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, by ^(B)the king's garden, and ^(C)the Chaldeans were around the city. And they went in the direction of the ^(D)Arabah.