24:1 How Things Start to Collapse
24 In his days Nebukadne’tstsar king of Babel went up and Yehoyaqim became his servant for three years, but he turned back and rebelled against him.
2Yahweh sent against him raiding gangs of the Kasdites [Chaldeans], raiding gangs from Aram, raiding gangs from Mo’ab, and raiding gangs of the Ammonites. He sent them against Judah to obliterate it, in accordance with Yahweh’s word which he spoke by means of his servants the prophets.
3Indeed, it was at Yahweh’s bidding that it happened to Judah, to remove them from before his face because of Menashsheh’s wrongdoings, in accordance with all that he did,
4and also the blood of people who were free of guilt that he had shed. He had filled Jerusalem with the blood of people free of guilt, and Yahweh was not willing to pardon.
5The rest of the things about Yehoyaqim and all that he did are written on the document about things of the time regarding the kings of Judah, aren’t they.
6Yehoyaqim lay down with his ancestors and his son Yehoyakin began to reign in place of him.
7The king of Egypt did not go out of his country again, because the king of Babel had taken all that had belonged to the king of Egypt from the Egyptian Wadi as far as the River Euphrates.
8Yehoyakin was eighteen years of age when he began to reign and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Nehushta bat Elnatan, from Jerusalem.
9He did what was bad in Yahweh’s eyes, in accordance with all that his father did.
10At that time the servants of Nebukadne’tstsar king of Babel went up to Jerusalem and the town came under siege.
11Nebukadne’tstsar king of Babel came against the town while his servants were besieging it,
12and Yehoyakin king of Judah went out to the king of Babel, he, his mother, his servants, his officials, and his courtiers. The king of Babel took him in the eighth year of his reign.
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24:13 The First Judahite Exile and the Final Siege
13He took away from there the treasures of Yahweh’s house and the treasures of the king’s house, and cut off all the gold objects that Solomon had made in Yahweh’s palace, as Yahweh had said.
14He exiled all Jerusalem, all the officials and all the forceful strong men, 10,000 exiles, and every craftsman and smith. No one remained apart from the poorest element of the people in the country.
15He exiled Yehoyakin to Babel, and the king’s mother, the king’s wives, his courtiers, and the country’s leaders he made go as exiles from Jerusalem to Babel,
16with all the forceful men, 7000 (and craftsman and smith, 1000), all of them the strong men doing battle. The king of Babel made them come as exiles to Babel.
17The king of Babel made Mattanyah, his uncle, king in place of him, and turned his name to Tsidqiyyahu [Zedekiah].
18 Tsidqiyyahu was twenty-one years of age when he began to reign and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal bat Yirmeyahu, from Libnah.
19He did what was bad in Yahweh’s eyes in accordance with all that Yehoyaqim had done,
20because of the fact that Yahweh’s anger was against Jerusalem and against Judah until he threw them out of his presence.
Tsidqiyyahu rebelled against the king of Babel, 25 and in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, Nebukadne’tstsar king of Babel came against Jerusalem, he and his entire force. He camped against it and built blockades all round. 2 The town came under siege until the eleventh year of King Tsidqiyyahu. 3 On the ninth of the month the famine had become overwhelming in the town and there was no bread for the people of the country. 4The town broke open, and all the men of battle in the night by way of the gateway between the double wall which was by the king’s garden, while the Kasdites were all round the town.
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25:4b The Destruction and the Second Judahite Exile
4bHe went by the steppe road,
5but the Kasdite force pursued after the king. They overtook him in the Jericho steppes when his entire force had scattered from him.
6They captured the king and took him up to the king of Babel at Riblah, and he pronounced a decision about him.
7Tsidqiyyahu’s sons they slaughtered before his eyes, Tsidqiyyahu’s eyes he gouged out, and he bound him with copper chains and brought him to Babel.
8In the fifth month, on the seventh of the month (i.e., the nineteenth year of King Nebukadne’tstsar king of Babel) Nebuzar’adan the chief of the guards, servant of the king of Babel, came to Jerusalem
9and burned Yahweh’s house, the king’s house, and all the houses in Jerusalem. Every house of a big person he burned in fire.
10The walls round Jerusalem, the entire Kasdite force that was with the chief of the guards demolished.
11The rest of the people who remained in the town and the people who had submitted (who had submitted to the king of Babel) and the rest of the horde, Nebuzar’adan the chief of the guards took into exile,
12but some of the poorest elements in the country the chief of the guards let remain as vinedressers and farm workers.
13The copper pillars that were in Yahweh’s house, and the stands and the copper sea that were in Yahweh’s house, the Kasdites broke up and carried their copper to Babel.
14The buckets, the shovels, the snuffers, the ladles, and all the copper articles with which they ministered, they took.
15The pans and the sprinklers, whatever was of gold and whatever was of silver, the chief of the guards took.
16The two pillars, the one sea, and the stands that Solomon made for Yahweh’s house—there was no weighing the copper in all these articles.
17The height of the one pillar was nine metres , with a copper capital on it; the height of the capital was one and a half metres, with a net with pomegranates on the capital all round, all of it copper, and like these was the second pillar with the net.
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25:18 Is it the End or Is There Hope?
18The chief of the guards took Serayah the head priest, Tsephanyahu the number two priest, and the three keepers of the threshold,
19and from the town he took a courtier who was appointee over the men of battle, and five people from the heads who were before the king, who were found in the town, the secretary of the army officer who mustered the people of the country, and sixty individuals from the people of the country who were found in the town.
20Nebuzar’adan the chief of the guards took them and made them go to the king of Babel at Riblah.
21The king of Babel struck them down and put them to death at Riblah, in the region of Hamat.
So Judah went into exile from upon its land, 22while the people that remained in the country of Judah whom Nebukadne’tstsar king of Babel allowed to remain—he appointed over them Gedalyahu ben Ahiqam son of Shaphan. 23All the officers of the forces, they and their men, heard that the king of Babel had appointed Gedalyahu, and they came to Gedalyahu at at The Watchtower, with Yishma’e’l ben Netanyah, Yohanan ben Qareah, Serayah ben Tanhumet the Netophatite, and Ya’azanyahu son of the Ma’akatite, and their men. 24Gedalyahu swore to them and to their men, and said, ‘Don’t be afraid of the Kasdites’ servants. Stay in the country. Serve the king of Babel. Things will be good for you’.
25But in the seventh month Yishma’e’l ben Netanyah son of Elishama, of royal descent, came with ten men with him, and struck down Gedalyahu and put him to death, him and the Judahites and the Kasdites who were with him at The Watchtower.
26And all the people, young and old, and the officers over the forces, set off and came to Egypt, because they were afraid of the Kasdites.
27 But in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Yehoyakin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh of the month, Ewil-merodak king of Babel, in the year he began to reign, lifted up the head of Yehoyakin king of Judah from the jailhouse.
28 He spoke of good things with him, gave him a seat above the seat of the kings who were with him in Babel,
29 and changed his jail clothes. He ate bread before him regularly for his entire life.
30 His provision was given him as a regular provision from the king, a day’s allocation on its day, for his entire life.
