Nebuchadnezzar Besieges Jerusalem

(2 Chronicles 36:15–21, Jeremiah 39:1–10)

So in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his entire army. They encamped outside [the city] and built[fn] a siege wall all around it. 2 And the city was kept under siege until King Zedekiah’s eleventh year.

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By the ninth [day] of the [fourth] month,[fn] the famine in the city was so severe that the people of the land had no food. 4 Then the city was breached; and though the Chaldeans[fn] had surrounded the city, all the men of war fled by night by way of the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden.

They headed toward the Arabah,[fn] 5 but the army of the Chaldeans pursued [the king] and overtook him in the plains of Jericho, and his whole army deserted him. 6 The Chaldeans seized the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, where they pronounced judgment on him. 7 And they slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. Then they put out [his] eyes, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon.

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