OET-RV 2KI Chapter 25

25 In the ninth year of Tsedkiyyah’s reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, the Babylonian King Nevukadnetstsar brought all his army to Yerushalem. They made their camp outside the city, and then built attack structures all around it 2 and besieged the city for two years. 3 The people didn’t have enough to eat and the famine became severe. 4 Then the Babylonians began breaking into the city, but the local fighters sneaked out at night through a gate between two walls near the king’s garden and escaped down to the desert plain. 5 However, the Babylonian soldiers chased after the king and they overtook him on the Yericho plains, and his army scattered. 6 King Tsedkiyyah was captured and taken to the Babylonian king at Rivlah, where he was sentenced— 7 He was forced to watch as his sons were slaughtered, then his eyes were gouged out and he was taken to Babylon restrained with two bronze chains.

8 On the seventh day of the fifth month of Babylonian King Nevukadnetstsar’s nineteenth year as king, his servant Nevuzaradan, who was his chief bodyguard, went to Yerushalem. 9 He set fire to Yahweh’s temple and the palace, and all of Yerushalem’s houses, so no important building remained. 10 Then the army under the command of Nevuzaradan tore down the walls surrounding Yerushalem. 11 He exiled all the rest of the people from the city, all the surrendered soldiers, and the rest of the population, 12 but he let some of the poorest people remain on the land to look after the vineyards and as farmers.

13 The Babylonians smashed the bronze pillars and the bases and the bronze ‘sea’ from the temple, and took all the bronze to Babylon. 14 They also took the pots and shovels, the snuffers and spoons, and all the bronze utensils used in the temple activities. 15 They took the fire-pans and the gold and silver bowls. 16 The bronze from the two pillars, the ‘sea’, and the bases that had been made for the temple by Shelomoh (Solomon) was too heavy to be weighed. 17 Each pillar was over eight metres high, plus a bronze capital on top that was over a metre high. They were decorated with latticework with bronze pomegranates all around.

18 Nevuzaradan exiled to Babylon the high priest Serayah, the second priest Tsefanyah, and the three temple entrance guards. 19 From the city, he took one official who was a military inspector, five of the king’s advisors, and the army commander’s secretary in charge of recruitment, plus sixty other important men. 20 Nevuzaradan took them all to the Babylonian king at Rivlah 21 in the Hamat region, but the king had them all executed there.

So the large majority of the people of Yehudah were exiled out of their country. 22 From those who the Babylonian King Nevukadnetstsar allowed to remain, he appointed Gedalyah (son of Shafan’s son Ahikam) over them. 23 When all the army captains and their men heard that the Babylonian king had appointed Gedalyah, and they came to Gedaliah at Mitspah. This was Netanyah’s son Yishmael, Kareah’s son Yohanan, Tanhumet’s son Serayah the Netofatite, and the Maakatite’s son Yaazanyah,along with their men. 24 Gedaliah made an agreement with them and their men, telling them, “Don’t be afraid of the Babylonian officials. Stay in the land and serve the Babylonian king, and he’ll be good to you.” 25 But in the seventh month, Yishmael (the son of Netanyah, the son of Elishama who was a descendant of King David) brought ten men with him and attacked Gedalyah, and killed him, along with the Judeans and the Chaldeans who were with him at Mitspah. 26 After that, all the people, with or without any official status, along with the army commanders fled to Egypt because they were afraid of what the Babylonians might do to them.

27 Thirty-seven years after Yehudah’s King Yehoyakin had been exiled to Babylon, Evil-Merodak had just become the new king of Babylon and he released Yehoyakin from prison on the 27th of the twelfth month. 28 He spoke kindly to Yehoyakin and honoured him more than the other kings who’d been taken to Babylon. 29 He was allowed to change out of his prison clothes, and was permitted to eat at the king’s table for the rest of his life, 30 as well as being given a daily monetary allowance.