OET-RV 2 CHR Chapter 36

36 Then the people of Yehudah took Yoshiyah’s son Yehoahaz and made him king in Yerushalem to replace his father. 2 Yehoahaz was twenty-three when he became king, and he reigned from Yerushalem for only three months 3 before Egypt’s king deposed him and forced the country to pay an annual tribute of thirty kilograms of gold, and three tonnes of silver. 4 Egypt’s King Neko took Yehoahaz to Egypt, and then the king made his younger brother Elyakim king over Yehudah and Yerushalem, although he changed Elyakim’s name to Yehoyakim.[ref]

5 Yehoyakim was twenty-five when he became king and he reigned from Yerushalem for eleven years. He did many things that Yahweh had said were evil.[ref] 6 Babylonia’s King Nebuchadnezzar (Heb. Nevukadnetstsar) attacked and captured Yehoyakim and took him to Babylon in bronze chains,[ref] 7 along with some items from Yahweh’s temple that were taken to Babylon and placed in the king’s temple there.

8 The record of all the other things done by Yehoyakim while he was king and the disgusting activities he did was written on the scroll ‘The kings of Yisrael and Yehudah’, and his son Yehoyakin replaced him as king.

9 Yehoyakin was eighteen[fn] when he became king, and he reigned from Yerushalem for just ten days. He did many things that Yahweh had said were evil. 10 At the beginning of the next year, King Nebuchadnezzar sent soldiers to bring him to Babylon, bringing valuable items from the temple, and he made his younger brother Tsidkiyah king over Yehudah and Yerushalem.[ref]

11 Tsidkiyah was twenty-one when he became king, and he reigned from Yerushalem for eleven years.[ref] 12 He did many things that Yahweh had said were evil, in fact, he didn’t even humble himself when the prophet Yermeyah (Jeremiah) brought him a message from Yahweh. 13 He had become very stubborn and wouldn’t return to Yisrael’s god Yahweh, and he also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar who’d made him promise in front of God to be loyal.[ref] 14 In addition, all the leaders of the priests and the people of Yehudah became more and more unfaithful and doing disgusting things often done in other nations, then they defiled Yahweh’s residence which he had consecrated in Yerushalem.

15 So Yahweh, the god of their ancestors, sent many messages via his prophets because he felt compassion on his people, and on his residence, 16 but they mocked God’s messengers and rejected the messages—ridiculing his prophets until Yahweh became so angry that he couldn’t be stopped. 17 So Yahweh sent the Chaldean king against them, and they ran their young men through with the sword, even in the temple, and they didn’t spare any of the young men or women, or even those who were older or elderly—God allowed Nebuchadnezzar to thoroughly defeat them.[ref] 18 Then he took everything valuable, big or small, from God’s temple as well as from the king and his officials. 19 They set God’s temple on fire, and tore down some of the wall surrounding Yerushalem, burnt all its palaces, and destroyed everything valuable.[ref] 20 Anyone else who was still alive was taken to Babylon where they became servants to the king and his children, until the time when the Persians came to power. 21 That fulfilled God’s message that Yirmeyah had previously proclaimed, that the land would become desolate to make up for the Rest Days that had been ignored—that took seventy years. [ref]

22 During the first year that King Cyrus (Heb. Koresh) reigned over Persia, in order to further fulfil what Yahweh had said via the prophet Yirmeyah, Yahweh worked on the spirit of King Cyrus who then wrote this ruling and sent messengers to announce it throughout his kingdom: 23 “I, Persia’s King Cyrus, declare that Yahweh, the god of the heavens, has given me all these earthly kingdoms, and he’s given me the job of building a house for him in Yerushalem which is in Yehudah. To help with that, anyone who’s from there is allowed to return, and may their god Yahweh be with them and help them.[ref]