The Daily Audio Bible
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31 Jehoahaz was 23 years old when he became king, and he was king for 3 months in Jerusalem. His mother was Hamutal, daughter of Jeremiah from Libnah. 32 He did what the Lord considered evil, as his ancestors had done. 33 Pharaoh Necoh made him a prisoner at Riblah in the territory of Hamath during his reign [a] in Jerusalem and fined the country 7,500 pounds of silver and 75 pounds of gold.
34 Then Pharaoh Necoh made Josiah’s son Eliakim king in place of his father Josiah and changed Eliakim’s name to Jehoiakim. He took Jehoahaz away to Egypt, where he died. 35 Jehoiakim gave Pharaoh the silver and the gold. But he had to tax the country to pay the silver Pharaoh had demanded. He taxed each person according to his wealth so that he could get the silver and gold from the people of the land and give it to Pharaoh Necoh.
King Jehoiakim of Judah(A)
36 Jehoiakim was 25 years old when he began to rule, and he was king for 11 years in Jerusalem. His mother was Zebidah, daughter of Pedaiah from Rumah. 37 Jehoiakim did what the Lord considered evil, as his ancestors had done.
24 During Jehoiakim’s reign King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked ⌞Judah⌟, and Jehoiakim became subject to him for three years. Then Jehoiakim turned against him and rebelled.
2 The Lord sent raiding parties of Babylonians, Arameans, Moabites, and Ammonites against Jehoiakim to destroy Judah as the Lord had predicted through his servants the prophets. 3 Without a doubt, this happened to Judah because the Lord had commanded it to happen. He wanted to remove the people of Judah from his sight because of Manasseh’s sins—everything he had done, 4 including the innocent blood he had shed. He had a lot of innocent people in Jerusalem killed, and the Lord refused to forgive him.
5 Isn’t everything else about Jehoiakim—everything he did—written in the official records of the kings of Judah? 6 Jehoiakim lay down in death with his ancestors, and his son Jehoiakin succeeded him as king.
7 The king of Egypt didn’t leave his own country again because the king of Babylon had taken all the territory from the River of Egypt to the Euphrates River. This territory had belonged to the king of Egypt.
King Jehoiakin of Judah(B)
8 Jehoiakin was 18 years old when he began to rule as king. He was king for three months in Jerusalem. His mother was Nehushta, daughter of Elnathan from Jerusalem. 9 Jehoiakin did what the Lord considered evil, as his father had done.
10 At that time the officers of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked Jerusalem. (The city was blockaded.) 11 King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon arrived while his officers were blockading the city. 12 King Jehoiakin of Judah, his mother, officials, generals, and eunuchs surrendered to the king of Babylon. In the eighth year of his reign, the king of Babylon captured Jehoiakin. 13 He also took away all the treasures in the Lord’s temple and the royal palace. As the Lord had predicted, Nebuchadnezzar stripped the gold off all the furnishings that King Solomon of Israel had made for the Lord’s temple. 14 He captured all Jerusalem, all the generals, all the soldiers (10,000 prisoners), and all the craftsmen and smiths. Only the poorest people of the land were left. 15 He took Jehoiakin to Babylon as a captive. He also took the king’s mother, wives, eunuchs, and the leading citizens of the land from Jerusalem as captives to Babylon. 16 The king of Babylon brought all 7,000 of the prominent landowners, 1,000 craftsmen and smiths, and all the men who could fight in war as captives to Babylon.
King Zedekiah of Judah(C)
17 The king of Babylon made King Jehoiakin’s Uncle Mattaniah king in his place and changed Mattaniah’s name to Zedekiah. 18 Zedekiah was 21 years old when he began to rule, and he ruled for 11 years in Jerusalem. His mother was Hamutal, daughter of Jeremiah from Libnah. 19 Zedekiah did what the Lord considered evil, as Jehoiakim had done.
20 The Lord became angry with Jerusalem and Judah and threw the people out of his sight.
Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
The Fall of Jerusalem(D)
25 On the tenth day of the tenth month of the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked Jerusalem with his entire army. They set up camp and built dirt ramps around the city walls. 2 The blockade of the city lasted until Zedekiah’s eleventh year as king. 3 On the ninth day of the fourth [b] month, the famine in the city became so severe that the common people had no food.
4 The enemy broke through the city walls that night. All Judah’s soldiers left on the road of the gate between the two walls beside the king’s garden. While the Babylonians were attacking the city from all sides, the king took the road to the plain ⌞of Jericho⌟. 5 The Babylonian army pursued King Zedekiah and caught up with him in the plain of Jericho. His entire army had deserted him. 6 The Babylonians captured the king, brought him to the king of Babylon at Riblah, and passed sentence on him. 7 They slaughtered Zedekiah’s sons as he watched, and then they blinded Zedekiah. They put him in bronze shackles and took him to Babylon.
8 On the seventh day of the fifth month of Nebuchadnezzar’s nineteenth year as king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, who was the captain of the guard and an officer of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. 9 He burned down the Lord’s temple, the royal palace, and all the houses in Jerusalem. Every important building was burned down. 10 The entire Babylonian army that was with the captain of the guard tore down the walls around Jerusalem.
11 Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, captured the few people left in the city, those who surrendered to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the population. 12 The captain of the guard left some of the poorest people in the land to work in the vineyards and on the farms.
13 The Babylonians broke apart the bronze pillars of the Lord’s temple, the stands, and the bronze pool in the Lord’s temple. They shipped the bronze to Babylon. 14 They took the pots, shovels, snuffers, dishes, and all the bronze utensils used in the temple service. 15 The captain of the guard took all of the incense burners and bowls that were made of gold or silver. 16 The bronze from the two pillars, the pool, and the stands that Solomon had made for the Lord’s temple couldn’t be weighed. 17 One pillar was 27 feet high and had a bronze capital on it that was 4½ feet high. The filigree and the pomegranates around the capital were all made of bronze. The second pillar and its filigree were the same.
18 The captain of the guard took the chief priest Seraiah, the second priest Zephaniah, and the 3 doorkeepers. 19 From the city he also took an army commander, 5 men who had access to the king whom he found in the city, the scribe who was in charge of the militia, and 60 of the common people whom he found in the city. 20 Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. 21 The king of Babylon executed them at Riblah in the territory of Hamath. So the people of Judah were captives when they left their land.
22 King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon appointed Gedaliah, son of Ahikam and grandson of Shaphan, to govern the remaining people in the land of Judah. 23 When all the army commanders and their men heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah, they went to Gedaliah at Mizpah. They were Ishmael (son of Nethaniah), Johanan (son of Kareah), Seraiah (son of Tanhumeth from Netophah), and Jaazaniah from Beth Maacah and their men. 24 Gedaliah swore an oath to them and their men. He said, “Don’t be afraid of the Babylonian officers. Live in this country, serve the king of Babylon, and you will prosper.”
25 In the seventh month Ishmael (son of Nethaniah and grandson of Elishama, a descendant of the kings) went with ten men to kill Gedaliah and the Judeans and Babylonians who were with him at Mizpah. 26 Then people of all classes and the army commanders left for Egypt because they were afraid of the Babylonians.
King Jehoiakin Released from Prison(E)
27 On the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month of the thirty-seventh year of the imprisonment of King Jehoiakin of Judah, King Evil Merodach of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, freed King Jehoiakin of Judah from prison. 28 He treated him well and gave him a special position higher than the other kings who were with him in Babylon. 29 Jehoiakin no longer wore prison clothes, and he ate his meals in the king’s presence as long as he lived. 30 The king of Babylon gave him a daily food allowance as long as he lived.
17 “After that, I returned to Jerusalem. While I was praying in the temple courtyard, I fell into a trance 18 and saw the Lord. He told me, ‘Hurry! Get out of Jerusalem immediately. The people here won’t accept your testimony about me.’
19 “I said, ‘Lord, people here know that I went from synagogue to synagogue to imprison and whip those who believe in you. 20 When Stephen, who witnessed about you, was being killed, I was standing there. I approved of his death and guarded the coats of those who were murdering him.’
21 “But the Lord told me, ‘Go! I’ll send you on a mission. You’ll go far away to people who aren’t Jewish.’ ”
22 Up to that point the mob listened. Then they began to shout, “Kill him! The world doesn’t need a man like this. He shouldn’t have been allowed to live this long!”
23 The mob was yelling, taking off their coats, and throwing dirt into the air. 24 So the officer ordered the soldiers to take Paul into the barracks and told them to question Paul as they whipped him. The officer wanted to find out why the people were yelling at Paul like this. 25 But when the soldiers had Paul stretch out ⌞to tie him to the whipping post⌟ with the straps, Paul asked the sergeant who was standing there, “Is it legal for you to whip a Roman citizen who hasn’t had a trial?”
26 When the sergeant heard this, he reported it to his commanding officer. The sergeant asked him, “What are you doing? This man is a Roman citizen.”
27 The officer went to Paul and asked him, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?”
Paul answered, “Yes.”
28 The officer replied, “I paid a lot of money to become a Roman citizen.”
Paul replied, “But I was born a Roman citizen.”
29 Immediately, the soldiers who were going to question Paul stepped away from him. The officer was afraid when he found out that he had tied up a Roman citizen.
Paul in Front of the Jewish Council
30 The officer wanted to find out exactly what accusation the Jews had against Paul. So the officer released Paul the next day and ordered the chief priests and the entire Jewish council to meet. Then the officer brought Paul and had him stand in front of them.
23 Paul stared at the Jewish council and said, “Brothers, my relationship with God has always given me a perfectly clear conscience.”
2 The chief priest Ananias ordered the men standing near Paul to strike him on the mouth. 3 Then Paul said to him, “God will strike you, you hypocrite! You sit there and judge me by Moses’ Teachings and yet you break those teachings by ordering these men to strike me!”
4 The men standing near Paul said to him, “You’re insulting God’s chief priest!”
5 Paul answered, “Brothers, I didn’t know that he is the chief priest. After all, Scripture says, ‘Don’t speak evil about a ruler of your people.’ ”
6 When Paul saw that some of them were Sadducees and others were Pharisees, he shouted in the council, “Brothers, I’m a Pharisee and a descendant of Pharisees. I’m on trial because I expect that the dead will come back to life.”
7 After Paul said that, the Pharisees and Sadducees began to quarrel, and the men in the meeting were divided. 8 (The Sadducees say that the dead won’t come back to life and that angels and spirits don’t exist. The Pharisees believe in all these things.) 9 The shouting became very loud. Some of the experts in Moses’ Teachings were Pharisees who argued their position forcefully. They said, “We don’t find anything wrong with this man. Maybe a spirit or an angel actually spoke to him!”
10 The quarrel was becoming violent, and the officer was afraid that they would tear Paul to pieces. So the officer ordered his soldiers to drag Paul back to the barracks.
2 Why do the nations gather together?
Why do their people devise useless plots?
2 Kings take their stands.
Rulers make plans together
against the Lord and against his Messiah [a] by saying,
3 “Let’s break apart their chains
and shake off their ropes.”
4 The one enthroned in heaven laughs.
The Lord makes fun of them.
5 Then he speaks to them in his anger.
In his burning anger he terrifies them by saying,
6 “I have installed my own king on Zion, my holy mountain.”
7 I will announce the Lord’s decree.
He said to me:
“You are my Son.
Today I have become your Father.
8 Ask me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance
and the ends of the earth as your own possession.
9 You will break them with an iron scepter.
You will smash them to pieces like pottery.”
10 Now, you kings, act wisely.
Be warned, you rulers of the earth!
11 Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
12 Kiss the Son, or he will become angry
and you will die on your way
because his anger will burst into flames.
Blessed is everyone who takes refuge in him.
13 Whoever gives an answer before he listens is stupid and shameful.
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