1Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to rule. He ruled for eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hamutal, daughter of Jeremiah from Libnah. 2Zedekiah did what Jehovah considered evil, as Jehoiakim had done. 3Jehovah became angry at Jerusalem and Judah and threw the people out of his sight. Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. 4On the tenth day of the tenth month of the ninth year of Zedekiah's reign, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked Jerusalem with his entire army. They set up camp and built dirt ramps around the city walls. 5The blockade of the city lasted until Zedekiah's eleventh year as king. 6On the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine in the city became so severe that the common people had no food. 7The enemy broke through the city walls, and all Judah's soldiers fled. They left the city at night through the gate between the two walls beside the king's garden. While the Babylonians were attacking the city from all sides, they took the road to the plain of Jericho. 8The Babylonian army pursued King Zedekiah and caught up with him in the plain of Jericho. His entire army had deserted him. 9The Babylonians captured the king and brought him to the king of Babylon at Riblah in Hamath. The king of Babylon passed sentence on him there. 10The king of Babylon slaughtered Zedekiah's sons as Zedekiah watched. He also slaughtered all the officials of Judah at Riblah. 11Then he blinded Zedekiah and put him in bronze shackles. The king of Babylon took him to Babylon and put him in a prison, where he stayed until he died. 12On the tenth day of the fifth month of Nebuchadnezzar's nineteenth year as king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, who was the captain of the guard and an officer of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. 13He burned down Jehovah’s Temple, the royal palace, and all the houses in Jerusalem. Every important building was burned down. 14The entire Babylonian army that was with the captain of the guard tore down the walls around Jerusalem. 15Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, captured the few people left in the city, those who surrendered to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the population. 16Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, left some of the poorest people in the land to work in the vineyards and on the farms. 17The Babylonians broke apart the copper pillars of Jehovah’s Temple, the stands, and the copper pool in Jehovah’s Temple. They shipped all the copper to Babylon. 18they took the pots, shovels, snuffers, bowls, dishes, and all the copper utensils used in the Temple service. 19The captain of the guard also took pans, incense burners, bowls, pots, lamp stands, dishes, and the bowls used for wine offerings. The captain of the guard took all of the trays and bowls that were made of gold or silver. 20The copper from the two pillars, the pool, and the twelve copper bulls under the stands that King Solomon had made for Jehovah’s Temple could not be weighed. 21One pillar was twenty-seven feet high and eighteen feet in circumference. It was three inches thick and hollow. 22The crown that was on it was seven and one half feet high with filigree and pomegranates around it. They were all made of copper. The second pillar was the same. It also had pomegranates. 23There were ninety-six pomegranates on the sides. The total number of pomegranates on the surrounding filigree was one hundred. 24The captain of the guard took the chief priest Seraiah, the second priest Zephaniah, and the three doorkeepers. 25From the city he also took an army commander, seven men who had access to the king whom he found in the city, the scribe who was in charge of the militia, and sixty common people whom he found in the city. 26Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. 27The king of Babylon executed them at Riblah in the territory of Hamath. So the people of Judah were captives as they left their land. 28These are the people whom Nebuchadnezzar took captive: In his seventh year as king, he took three thousand and twenty-three Jews. 29In his eighteenth year, Nebuchadnezzar took eight hundred and thirty-two people from Jerusalem. 30In Nebuchadnezzar's twenty-third year as king, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, took away seven hundred and forty-five Jews. In all, four thousand six hundred people were taken away. 31On the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month of the thirty-seventh year of the imprisonment of King Jehoiakin of Judah, King Evil Merodach of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, freed King Jehoiakin of Judah and released him from prison. 32He treated him well and gave him a special position higher than the other kings who were with him in Babylon. 33Jehoiakin no longer wore prison clothes, and he ate his meals in the king's presence as long as he lived. 34The king of Babylon gave him a daily food allowance as long as he lived.