Old/New Testament
24 During the reign of King Jehoiakim, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked Jerusalem. Jehoiakim surrendered and paid him tribute for three years, but then rebelled. 2 And the Lord sent bands of Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites against Judah in order to destroy the nation, just as the Lord had warned through his prophets that he would. 3-4 It is clear that these disasters befell Judah at the direct command of the Lord. He had decided to wipe Judah out of his sight because of the many sins of Manasseh, for he had filled Jerusalem with blood, and the Lord would not pardon it.
5 The rest of the history of the life of Jehoiakim is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Judah. 6 When he died, his son Jehoiachin became the new king. 7 (The Egyptian Pharaoh never returned after that, for the king of Babylon occupied the entire area claimed by Egypt—all of Judah from the brook of Egypt to the Euphrates River.)
8-9 New king of Judah: Jehoiachin
His age at the beginning of his reign: 18 years old
Length of reign: 3 months, in Jerusalem
Mother’s name: Nehushta (daughter of Elnathan, a citizen of Jerusalem)
10 During his reign the armies of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon besieged the city of Jerusalem. 11 Nebuchadnezzar himself arrived during the siege, 12 and King Jehoiachin, all of his officials, and the queen mother surrendered to him. The surrender was accepted, and Jehoiachin was imprisoned in Babylon during the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign.
13 The Babylonians carried home all the treasures from the Temple and the royal palace; and they cut apart all the gold bowls which King Solomon of Israel had placed in the Temple at the Lord’s directions. 14 King Nebuchadnezzar took ten thousand captives from Jerusalem, including all the princes and the best of the soldiers, craftsmen, and smiths. So only the poorest and least skilled people were left in the land. 15 Nebuchadnezzar took King Jehoiachin, his wives and officials, and the queen mother, to Babylon. 16 He also took seven thousand of the best troops and one thousand craftsmen and smiths, all of whom were strong and fit for war. 17 Then the king of Babylon appointed King Jehoiachin’s great-uncle,[a] Mattaniah, to be the next king; and he changed his name to Zedekiah.
18-19 New king of Judah: Zedekiah
His age at the beginning of his reign: 21 years old
Length of reign: 11 years, in Jerusalem
Mother’s name: Hamutal (daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah)
Character of his reign: evil, like that of Jehoiakim
20 So the Lord finally, in his anger, destroyed the people of Jerusalem and Judah. But now King Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
25 Then King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon mobilized his entire army and laid siege to Jerusalem, arriving on March 25 of the ninth year of the reign of King Zedekiah of Judah. 2 The siege continued into the eleventh year of his reign.
3 The last food in the city was eaten on July 24, 4-5 and that night the king and his troops made a hole in the inner wall and fled out toward the Arabah through a gate that lay between the double walls near the king’s garden. The Babylonian troops surrounding the city took out after him and captured him in the plains of Jericho, and all his men scattered. 6 He was taken to Riblah, where he was tried and sentenced before the king of Babylon. 7 He was forced to watch as his sons were killed before his eyes; then his eyes were put out, and he was bound with chains and taken away to Babylon.
8 General Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal bodyguard, arrived at Jerusalem from Babylon on July 22 of the nineteenth year of the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar. 9 He burned down the Temple, the palace, and all the other houses of any worth. 10 He then supervised the Babylonian army in tearing down the walls of Jerusalem. 11 The remainder of the people in the city and the Jewish deserters who had declared their allegiance to the king of Babylon were all taken as exiles to Babylon. 12 But the poorest of the people were left to farm the land.
13 The Babylonians broke up the bronze pillars of the Temple and the bronze tank and its bases and carried all the bronze to Babylon. 14-15 They also took all the pots, shovels, firepans, snuffers, spoons, and other bronze instruments used for the sacrifices. The gold and silver bowls, with all the rest of the gold and silver, were melted down to bullion. 16 It was impossible to estimate the weight of the two pillars and the great tank and its bases—all made for the Temple by King Solomon—because they were so heavy. 17 Each pillar was 27 feet high, with an intricate bronze network of pomegranates decorating the 4-1/2-foot capitals at the tops of the pillars.
18 The general took Seraiah, the chief priest, his assistant Zephaniah, and the three Temple guards to Babylon as captives. 19 A commander of the army of Judah, the chief recruiting officer, five of the king’s counselors, and sixty farmers, all of whom were discovered hiding in the city, 20 were taken by General Nebuzaradan to the king of Babylon at Riblah, 21 where they were put to the sword and died.
So Judah was exiled from its land.
22 Then King Nebuchadnezzar appointed Gedaliah (the son of Ahikam and grandson of Shaphan) as governor over the people left in Judah. 23 When the Israeli guerrilla forces learned that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah as governor, some of these underground leaders and their men joined him at Mizpah. These included Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah; Johanan, the son of Kareah; Seraiah, the son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite; and Jaazaniah, son of Maachathite, and their men.
24 Gedaliah vowed that if they would give themselves up and submit to the Babylonians, they would be allowed to live in the land and would not be exiled. 25 But seven months later, Ishmael, who was a member of the royal line, went to Mizpah with ten men and killed Gedaliah and his court—both the Jews and the Babylonians.
26 Then all the men of Judah and the guerrilla leaders fled in panic to Egypt, for they were afraid of what the Babylonians would do to them.
27 King Jehoiachin was released from prison on the twenty-seventh day of the last month of the thirty-seventh year of his captivity.
This occurred during the first year of the reign of King Evil-merodach of Babylon. 28 He treated Jehoiachin kindly and gave him preferential treatment over all the other kings who were being held as prisoners in Babylon. 29 Jehoiachin was given civilian clothing to replace his prison garb, and for as long as he lived, he ate regularly at the king’s table. 30 The king also gave him a daily cash allowance for the rest of his life.
5 Afterwards Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish religious holidays. 2 Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was Bethesda Pool, with five covered platforms or porches surrounding it. 3 Crowds of sick folks—lame, blind, or with paralyzed limbs—lay on the platforms (waiting for a certain movement of the water, 4 for an angel of the Lord came from time to time and disturbed the water, and the first person to step down into it afterwards was healed).[a]
5 One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him and knew how long he had been ill, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”
7 “I can’t,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to help me into the pool at the movement of the water. While I am trying to get there, someone else always gets in ahead of me.”
8 Jesus told him, “Stand up, roll up your sleeping mat and go on home!”
9 Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up the mat and began walking!
But it was on the Sabbath when this miracle was done. 10 So the Jewish leaders objected. They said to the man who was cured, “You can’t work on the Sabbath! It’s illegal to carry that sleeping mat!”
11 “The man who healed me told me to,” was his reply.
12 “Who said such a thing as that?” they demanded.
13 The man didn’t know, and Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. 14 But afterwards Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Now you are well; don’t sin as you did before,[b] or something even worse may happen to you.”
15 Then the man went to find the Jewish leaders and told them it was Jesus who had healed him.
16 So they began harassing Jesus as a Sabbath breaker.
17 But Jesus replied, “My Father constantly does good, and I’m following his example.”[c]
18 Then the Jewish leaders were all the more eager to kill him because in addition to disobeying their Sabbath laws, he had spoken of God as his Father, thereby making himself equal with God.
19 Jesus replied, “The Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing, and in the same way. 20 For the Father loves the Son, and tells him everything he is doing; and the Son will do far more awesome miracles than this man’s healing. 21 He will even raise from the dead anyone he wants to, just as the Father does. 22 And the Father leaves all judgment of sin to his Son, 23 so that everyone will honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. But if you refuse to honor God’s Son, whom he sent to you, then you are certainly not honoring the Father.
24 “I say emphatically that anyone who listens to my message and believes in God who sent me has eternal life, and will never be damned for his sins, but has already passed out of death into life.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.