¹⁹ “Thus says the Lord of hosts: The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall be seasons of joy and gladness and cheerful festivals for the house of Judah; therefore love truth and peace.”^(A)

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.^(A)

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

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

³ and to ask the priests of the house of the Lord of hosts and the prophets, “Should I mourn and practice abstinence in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?”^(A)

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

²⁵ But in the seventh month, Ishmael son of Nethaniah son of Elishama, of the royal family, came with ten men; they struck down Gedaliah so that he died, along with the Judeans and Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah.^(A)

³ On the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine became so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.^{(A) 4} Then a breach was made in the city wall;^[a] the king with all the soldiers fled^[b] by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, by the King’s Garden, though the Chaldeans were all around the city. They went in the direction of the Arabah.^(B)