2 Chronicles 36

¹¹For this is what the Lord says concerning Shallum son of Josiah, king of Judah, who succeeded his father Josiah but has gone forth from this place: “He will never return,

¹All the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in place of his father Amaziah.

¹⁵The sons of Josiah: Johanan was the firstborn, Jehoiakim the second, Zedekiah the third, and Shallum the fourth.

²⁵But the people of the land killed all those who had conspired against King Amon, and they made his son Josiah king in his place.

³⁰From Megiddo his servants carried his body in a chariot, brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own tomb. Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah, anointed him, and made him king in place of his father.

³¹Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah.

³³And Pharaoh Neco imprisoned Jehoahaz at Riblah in the land of Hamath so that he could not reign in Jerusalem, and he imposed on Judah a levy of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

¹⁰Do not weep for him who is dead; do not mourn his loss. Weep bitterly for him who is exiled, for he will never return to see his native land.

¹¹For this is what the Lord says concerning Shallum son of Josiah, king of Judah, who succeeded his father Josiah but has gone forth from this place: “He will never return,

³⁴Then Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim son of Josiah king in place of his father Josiah, and he changed Eliakim’s name to Jehoiakim. But Neco took Jehoahaz and carried him off to Egypt, where he died.

³⁵So Jehoiakim paid the silver and gold to Pharaoh Neco, but to meet Pharaoh’s demand he taxed the land and exacted the silver and the gold from the people, each according to his wealth.

³She brought up one of her cubs, and he became a young lion. After learning to tear his prey, he devoured men.

⁴When the nations heard of him, he was trapped in their pit. With hooks they led him away to the land of Egypt.

¹⁵The sons of Josiah: Johanan was the firstborn, Jehoiakim the second, Zedekiah the third, and Shallum the fourth.

³⁶Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. His mother’s name was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah; she was from Rumah.

³⁷And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, just as his fathers had done.

¹At the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came from the Lord:

¹³“Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, and his upper rooms without justice, who makes his countrymen serve without pay, and fails to pay their wages,

¹⁴who says, ‘I will build myself a great palace, with spacious upper rooms.’ So he cuts windows in it, panels it with cedar, and paints it with vermilion.

²¹King Jehoiakim and all his mighty men and officials heard his words, and the king sought to put him to death. But when Uriah found out about it, he fled in fear and went to Egypt.

²²Then King Jehoiakim sent men to Egypt: Elnathan son of Achbor along with some other men.

²⁷After the king had burned the scroll containing the words that Baruch had written at Jeremiah’s dictation, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah:

²⁸“Take another scroll and rewrite on it the very words that were on the original scroll, which Jehoiakim king of Judah has burned.

¹This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the days of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah:

¹¹So the Lord brought against them the military commanders of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh, put a hook in his nose, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon.

⁹behold, I will summon all the families of the north, declares the Lord, and I will send for My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, whom I will bring against this land, against its residents, and against all the surrounding nations. So I will devote them to destruction and make them an object of horror and contempt, an everlasting desolation.

¹In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.

²And the Lord delivered into his hand Jehoiakim king of Judah, along with some of the articles from the house of God. He carried these off to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, where he put them in the treasury of his god.

¹During Jehoiakim’s reign, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded. So Jehoiakim became his vassal for three years, until he turned and rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar.

²And the Lord sent Chaldean, Aramean, Moabite, and Ammonite raiders against Jehoiakim in order to destroy Judah, according to the word that the Lord had spoken through His servants the prophets.

⁵As for the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, along with all his accomplishments, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

⁶And Jehoiakim rested with his fathers, and his son Jehoiachin reigned in his place.

⁵When she saw that she had waited in vain, that her hope was lost, she took another of her cubs and made him a young lion.

⁶He prowled among the lions, and became a young lion. After learning to tear his prey, he devoured men.

¹³As the Lord had declared, Nebuchadnezzar also carried off all the treasures from the house of the Lord and the royal palace, and he cut into pieces all the gold articles that Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the Lord.

¹⁶Then I said to the priests and to all this people, “This is what the Lord says: Do not listen to the words of your prophets who prophesy to you, saying, ‘Look, very soon now the articles from the house of the Lord will be brought back from Babylon.’ They are prophesying to you a lie.

¹⁷Do not listen to them. Serve the king of Babylon and live! Why should this city become a ruin?

⁷King Cyrus also brought out the articles belonging to the house of the Lord that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the temple of his gods.

⁸Cyrus king of Persia had them brought out by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah.

³Within two years I will restore to this place all the articles of the house of the Lord that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon removed from here and carried to Babylon.

²And the Lord delivered into his hand Jehoiakim king of Judah, along with some of the articles from the house of God. He carried these off to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, where he put them in the treasury of his god.

²Under the influence of the wine, Belshazzar gave orders to bring in the gold and silver vessels that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king could drink from them, along with his nobles, his wives, and his concubines.

³Thus they brought in the gold vessels that had been taken from the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king drank from them, along with his nobles, his wives, and his concubines.

⁵As for the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, along with all his accomplishments, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

⁶And Jehoiakim rested with his fathers, and his son Jehoiachin reigned in his place.

¹⁶The successors of Jehoiakim: Jeconiah his son, and Zedekiah.

¹⁷The descendants of Jeconiah the captive: Shealtiel his son,

²⁴“As surely as I live,” declares the Lord, “even if you, Coniah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, were a signet ring on My right hand, I would pull you off.

²⁸Is this man Coniah a despised and shattered pot, a jar that no one wants? Why are he and his descendants hurled out and cast into a land they do not know?

¹¹and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.

¹²After the exile to Babylon: Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,

⁸Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Nehushta daughter of Elnathan; she was from Jerusalem.

⁹And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, just as his father had done.

¹Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made Zedekiah son of Josiah the king of Judah, and he reigned in place of Coniah son of Jehoiakim.

⁷Nebuchadnezzar also took to Babylon some of the articles from the house of the Lord, and he put them in his temple in Babylon.

¹In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.

²And the Lord delivered into his hand Jehoiakim king of Judah, along with some of the articles from the house of God. He carried these off to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, where he put them in the treasury of his god.

²Under the influence of the wine, Belshazzar gave orders to bring in the gold and silver vessels that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king could drink from them, along with his nobles, his wives, and his concubines.

¹⁸If they are indeed prophets and the word of the Lord is with them, let them now plead with the Lord of Hosts that the articles remaining in the house of the Lord, in the palace of the king of Judah, and in Jerusalem, not be taken to Babylon.

¹⁹For this is what the Lord of Hosts says about the pillars, the sea, the bases, and the rest of the articles that remain in this city,

²On the fifth day of the month—it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin—

¹⁸Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah.

¹⁹And Zedekiah did evil in the sight of the Lord, just as Jehoiakim had done.

¹In the fifth month of that same year, the fourth year, near the beginning of the reign of King Zedekiah of Judah, the prophet Hananiah son of Azzur, who was from Gibeon, said to me in the house of the Lord in the presence of the priests and all the people:

¹At the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord.

¹Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah.

²And Zedekiah did evil in the sight of the Lord, just as Jehoiakim had done.

²³but he did not humble himself before the Lord as his father Manasseh had done; instead, Amon increased his guilt.

²But he and his officers and the people of the land refused to obey the words that the Lord had spoken through Jeremiah the prophet.

³Yet King Zedekiah sent Jehucal son of Shelemiah and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maaseiah, to Jeremiah the prophet with the message, “Please pray to the Lord our God for us!”

¹⁴Then King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah the prophet and received him at the third entrance to the house of the Lord. “I am going to ask you something,” said the king to Jeremiah. “Do not hide anything from me.”

¹⁵“If I tell you,” Jeremiah replied, “you will surely put me to death. And even if I give you advice, you will not listen to me.”

³So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and told him, “This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? Let My people go, so that they may worship Me.

²²Josiah, however, did not turn away from him; instead, in order to engage him in battle, he disguised himself. He did not listen to Neco’s words from the mouth of God, but went to fight him on the Plain of Megiddo.

¹This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur son of Malchijah and the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah. They said,

²“Please inquire of the Lord on our behalf, since Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is waging war against us. Perhaps the Lord will perform for us something like all His past wonders, so that Nebuchadnezzar will withdraw from us.”

²And Zedekiah did evil in the sight of the Lord, just as Jehoiakim had done.

³For because of the anger of the Lord, all this happened in Jerusalem and Judah, until He finally banished them from His presence. And Zedekiah also rebelled against the king of Babylon.

¹¹Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

¹²“Now say to this rebellious house: ‘Do you not know what these things mean?’ Tell them, ‘Behold, the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem, carried off its king and officials, and brought them back with him to Babylon.

⁸Now do not stiffen your necks as your fathers did. Submit to the Lord and come to His sanctuary, which He has consecrated forever. Serve the Lord your God, so that His fierce anger will turn away from you.

¹³But exhort one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.

¹⁷Still, you lord it over My people and do not allow them to go.

⁴Or do you disregard the riches of His kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you to repentance?

⁵But because of your hard and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

⁶See how every prince of Israel within you has used his power to shed blood.

⁸O Lord, we are covered with shame—our kings, our leaders, and our fathers—because we have sinned against You.

¹⁰Then King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria. On seeing the altar in Damascus, King Ahaz sent Uriah the priest a model of the altar and complete plans for its construction.

¹¹And Uriah the priest built the altar according to all the instructions King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, and he completed it before King Ahaz returned.

⁹Now hear this, O leaders of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, who despise justice and pervert all that is right,

¹⁰who build Zion with bloodshed and Jerusalem with iniquity.

³Moreover, Ahaz burned incense in the Valley of Ben-hinnom and sacrificed his sons in the fire, according to the abominations of the nations that the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

⁷From the days of our fathers to this day, our guilt has been great. Because of our iniquities, we and our kings and priests have been delivered into the hands of the kings of the earth and subjected to the sword and to captivity, to pillage and humiliation, as we are this day.

¹⁵Again and again I have sent you all My servants the prophets, proclaiming: ‘Turn now, each of you, from your wicked ways, and correct your actions. Do not go after other gods to serve them. Live in the land that I have given to you and your fathers.’ But you have not inclined your ear or listened to Me.

¹³And now, because you have done all these things, declares the Lord, and because I have spoken to you again and again but you would not listen, and I have called to you but you would not answer,

³“From the thirteenth year of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah until this very day—twenty-three years—the word of the Lord has come to me, and I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened.

⁴And the Lord has sent all His servants the prophets to you again and again, but you have not listened or inclined your ear to hear.

⁴¹As Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it

⁴²and said, “If only you had known on this day what would bring you peace! But now it is hidden from your eyes.

⁴Yet I sent you all My servants the prophets again and again, saying: ‘Do not do this detestable thing that I hate.’

⁵But they did not listen or incline their ears; they did not turn from their wickedness or stop burning incense to other gods.

¹⁶So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the Lord, and He could no longer bear the misery of Israel.

¹²They have lied about the Lord and said: “He will not do anything; harm will not come to us; we will not see sword or famine.

¹³The prophets are but wind, for the word is not in them. So let their own predictions befall them.”

¹⁰And the couriers traveled from city to city through the land of Ephraim and Manasseh as far as Zebulun, but the people scorned and mocked them.

⁶³The men who were holding Jesus began to mock Him and beat Him.

⁶⁴They blindfolded Him and kept demanding, “Prophesy! Who hit You?”

⁸Anyone, then, who rejects this command does not reject man but God, the very One who gives you His Holy Spirit.

¹⁵Therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly; in an instant he will be shattered beyond recovery.

¹A Maskil of Asaph. Why have You rejected us forever, O God? Why does Your anger smolder against the sheep of Your pasture?

⁷From the days of our fathers to this day, our guilt has been great. Because of our iniquities, we and our kings and priests have been delivered into the hands of the kings of the earth and subjected to the sword and to captivity, to pillage and humiliation, as we are this day.

²⁰Consider Your covenant, for haunts of violence fill the dark places of the land.

⁵And as I listened, He said to the others, “Follow him through the city and start killing; do not show pity or spare anyone!

⁶Slaughter the old men, the young men and maidens, the women and children; but do not go near anyone who has the mark. Now begin at My sanctuary.” So they began with the elders who were before the temple.

³and now the Lord has fulfilled it; He has done just as He said. Because you people have sinned against the Lord and have not obeyed His voice, this thing has happened to you.

¹⁴Therefore the Lord has kept the calamity in store and brought it upon us. For the Lord our God is righteous in all He does; yet we have not obeyed His voice.

¹⁵But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked—becoming fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.

¹⁶They provoked His jealousy with foreign gods; they enraged Him with abominations.

⁷Nebuchadnezzar also took to Babylon some of the articles from the house of the Lord, and he put them in his temple in Babylon.

¹⁰In the spring, King Nebuchadnezzar summoned Jehoiachin and brought him to Babylon, along with the articles of value from the house of the Lord. And he made Jehoiachin’s relative Zedekiah king over Judah and Jerusalem.

¹⁷Moreover, the Chaldeans broke up the bronze pillars and stands and the bronze Sea in the house of the Lord, and they carried all the bronze to Babylon.

¹⁸They also took away the pots, shovels, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, dishes, and all the articles of bronze used in the temple service.

¹³Moreover, the Chaldeans broke up the bronze pillars and stands and the bronze Sea in the house of the Lord, and they carried the bronze to Babylon.

¹⁴They also took away the pots, shovels, wick trimmers, dishes, and all the articles of bronze used in the temple service.

¹³And Hezekiah received the envoys and showed them all that was in his treasure house—the silver, the gold, the spices, and the precious oil, as well as his armory—all that was found in his storehouses. There was nothing in his palace or in all his dominion that Hezekiah did not show them.

¹⁴Then the prophet Isaiah went to King Hezekiah and asked, “Where did those men come from, and what did they say to you?” “They came from a distant land,” Hezekiah replied, “from Babylon.”

³Thus they brought in the gold vessels that had been taken from the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king drank from them, along with his nobles, his wives, and his concubines.

¹A Psalm of Asaph. The nations, O God, have invaded Your inheritance; they have defiled Your holy temple and reduced Jerusalem to rubble.

⁶“As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

¹²Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, and the temple mount a wooded ridge.

¹How the gold has become tarnished, the pure gold has become dull! The gems of the temple lie scattered on every street corner.

⁴Do not trust in deceptive words, saying: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’

¹³He burned down the house of the Lord, the royal palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem—every significant building.

¹⁴And the whole army of the Chaldeans under the captain of the guard broke down all the walls around Jerusalem.

⁷All nations will serve him and his son and grandson, until the time of his own land comes; then many nations and great kings will enslave him.

¹In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord stirred the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia to send a proclamation throughout his kingdom and to put it in writing as follows:

²“This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, who has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, has appointed me to build a house for Him at Jerusalem in Judah.

²²In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord stirred the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia to send a proclamation throughout his kingdom and to put it in writing as follows:

⁴⁷Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart in all your abundance,

⁴⁸you will serve your enemies the Lord will send against you in famine, thirst, nakedness, and destitution. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.

¹¹Then Nebuzaradan captain of the guard carried into exile the people who remained in the city, along with the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon and the rest of the population.

¹⁰For this is what the Lord says: “When Babylon’s seventy years are complete, I will attend to you and confirm My promise to restore you to this place.

³⁴Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths all the days it lies desolate, while you are in the land of your enemies. At that time the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths.

³⁵As long as it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not receive during the Sabbaths when you lived in it.

¹¹And this whole land will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon for seventy years.

¹²But when seventy years are complete, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their guilt, declares the Lord, and I will make it an everlasting desolation.

²in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the sacred books, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years.

¹²Then the angel of the Lord said, “How long, O Lord of Hosts, will You withhold mercy from Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, with which You have been angry these seventy years?”

⁴³For the land will be abandoned by them, and it will enjoy its Sabbaths by lying desolate without them. And they will pay the penalty for their iniquity, because they rejected My ordinances and abhorred My statutes.

¹²But when seventy years are complete, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their guilt, declares the Lord, and I will make it an everlasting desolation.

¹In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord stirred the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia to send a proclamation throughout his kingdom and to put it in writing as follows:

²“This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, who has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, has appointed me to build a house for Him at Jerusalem in Judah.

¹⁰For this is what the Lord says: “When Babylon’s seventy years are complete, I will attend to you and confirm My promise to restore you to this place.

²¹So the land enjoyed its Sabbath rest all the days of the desolation, until seventy years were completed, in fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken through Jeremiah.

²⁸who says of Cyrus, ‘My shepherd will fulfill all that I desire,’ who says of Jerusalem, ‘She will be rebuilt,’ and of the temple, ‘Let its foundation be laid.’”

¹⁰This is what the Lord says: In this place you say is a wasteland without man or beast, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem that are deserted—inhabited by neither man nor beast—there will be heard again

¹¹the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of the bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those bringing thank offerings into the house of the Lord, saying: ‘Give thanks to the Lord of Hosts, for the Lord is good; His loving devotion endures forever.’ For I will restore the land from captivity as in former times, says the Lord.

²³Instead, you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven. The vessels from His house were brought to you, and as you drank wine from them with your nobles, wives, and concubines, you praised your gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you have failed to glorify the God who holds in His hand your very breath and all your ways.

³¹What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

³⁷You, O king, are the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given sovereignty, power, strength, and glory.

¹³I hereby decree that any volunteers among the Israelites in my kingdom, including the priests and Levites, may go up with you to Jerusalem.

²⁶who confirms the message of His servant and fulfills the counsel of His messengers, who says of Jerusalem, ‘She will be inhabited,’ and of the cities of Judah, ‘They will be rebuilt, and I will restore their ruins,’

²⁷who says to the depths of the sea, ‘Be dry, and I will dry up your currents,’

⁵Do not lift up your horn against heaven or speak with an outstretched neck.’”

⁶For exaltation comes neither from east nor west, nor out of the desert,