2 Kings 24

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

¹This is the word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, which was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of 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.

⁶Then Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against Jehoiakim and bound him with bronze shackles to take him to Babylon.

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

⁵Then the king of Assyria invaded the whole land, marched up to Samaria, and besieged it for three years.

²concerning Egypt and the army of Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt, which was defeated at Carchemish on the Euphrates River by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah:

¹¹So when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched into the land, we said: ‘Come, let us go into Jerusalem to escape the armies of the Chaldeans and the Arameans.’ So we have remained in Jerusalem.”

²⁷For the Lord had said, “I will remove Judah from My sight, just as I removed Israel. I will reject this city Jerusalem, which I chose, and the temple of which I said, ‘My Name shall be there.’”

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.

¹²this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I am bringing such calamity upon Jerusalem and Judah that the news will reverberate in the ears of all who hear it.

¹³I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line used against Samaria and the plumb line used against the house of Ahab, and I will wipe out Jerusalem as one wipes out a bowl—wiping it and turning it upside down.

²⁸Therefore this is what the Lord says: Behold, I am about to deliver this city into the hands of the Chaldeans and of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who will capture it.

⁸Then the nations set out against him from the provinces on every side. They spread their net over him; he was trapped in their pit.

²⁶Nevertheless, the Lord did not turn away from the fury of His burning anger, which was kindled against Judah because of all that Manasseh had done to provoke Him to anger.

²⁷For the Lord had said, “I will remove Judah from My sight, just as I removed Israel. I will reject this city Jerusalem, which I chose, and the temple of which I said, ‘My Name shall be there.’”

²⁵So now, was it apart from the Lord that I have come up against this place to destroy it? The Lord Himself said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it.’”

²And he did evil in the sight of the Lord by following the abominations of the nations that the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

³For he rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed, and he raised up altars for Baal. He made an Asherah pole, as King Ahab of Israel had done, and he worshiped and served all the host of heaven.

⁵Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger; the staff in their hands is My wrath.

⁶I will send him against a godless nation; I will dispatch him against a people destined for My rage, to take spoils and seize plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets.

¹⁵But just as every good thing the Lord your God promised you has come to pass, likewise the Lord will bring upon you the calamity He has threatened, until He has destroyed you from this good land He has given you.

²⁰As for you, what you intended against me for evil, God intended for good, in order to accomplish a day like this—to preserve the lives of many people.

¹⁶Moreover, Manasseh shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end, in addition to the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, doing evil in the sight of the Lord.

¹⁰Thus innocent blood will not be shed in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, so that you will not be guilty of bloodshed.

³⁴Moreover, your skirts are stained with the blood of the innocent poor, though you did not find them breaking in. But in spite of all these things

³³Do not pollute the land where you live, for bloodshed pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land on which the blood is shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it.

³⁸They shed innocent blood—the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood.

¹Then the Lord said to me: “Even if Moses and Samuel should stand before Me, My heart would not go out to this people. Send them from My presence, and let them go!

²If they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ you are to tell them that this is what the Lord says: ‘Those destined for death, to death; those destined for the sword, to the sword; those destined for famine, to famine; and those destined for captivity, to captivity.’

⁸As for the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, the abominations he committed, and all that was found against him, they are indeed written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah. And his son Jehoiachin reigned in his place.

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.

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

²“This is what the Lord says: Stand in the courtyard of the house of the Lord and speak all the words I have commanded you to speak to all the cities of Judah who come to worship there. Do not omit a word.

¹⁸Therefore this is what the Lord says concerning Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah: “They will not mourn for him: ‘Alas, my brother! Alas, my sister!’ They will not mourn for him: ‘Alas, my master! Alas, his splendor!’

¹⁹He will be buried like a donkey, dragged away and thrown outside the gates of Jerusalem.

³⁰Therefore this is what the Lord says about Jehoiakim king of Judah: He will have no one to sit on David’s throne, and his body will be thrown out and exposed to heat by day and frost by night.

⁶Then Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against Jehoiakim and bound him with bronze shackles to take him to Babylon.

⁸As for the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, the abominations he committed, and all that was found against him, they are indeed written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah. And his son Jehoiachin reigned in his place.

⁵Pharaoh’s army had left Egypt, and when the Chaldeans who were besieging Jerusalem heard the report, they withdrew from Jerusalem.

⁶Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet:

²concerning Egypt and the army of Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt, which was defeated at Carchemish on the Euphrates River by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah:

¹⁸On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land—from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates—

⁵where it will turn from Azmon, join the Brook of Egypt, and end at the Sea.

¹²In that day the Lord will thresh from the flowing Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt, and you, O Israelites, will be gathered one by one.

²¹And Solomon reigned over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt. These kingdoms offered tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.

⁹Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months and ten days. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord.

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

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?

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

¹After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, as well as the officials of Judah and the craftsmen and metalsmiths from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon, the Lord showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the temple of the Lord.

²And the city was kept under siege until King Zedekiah’s eleventh year.

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.

²⁸These are the people Nebuchadnezzar carried away: in the seventh year, 3,023 Jews;

¹After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, as well as the officials of Judah and the craftsmen and metalsmiths from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon, the Lord showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the temple of the Lord.

¹This is the text of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets, and all the others Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

²(This was after King Jeconiah, the queen mother, the court officials, the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the metalsmiths had been exiled from Jerusalem.)

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.

²⁷On the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month of the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Judah’s King Jehoiachin, in the year Evil-merodach became king of Babylon, he released King Jehoiachin of Judah from prison.

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.

⁶The time will surely come when everything in your palace and all that your fathers have stored up until this day will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord.

¹⁷The time will surely come when everything in your palace and all that your fathers have stored up until this day will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord.

⁵I will give away all the wealth of this city—all its products and valuables, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah—to their enemies. They will plunder them, seize them, and carry them off to Babylon.

⁴⁸Solomon also made all the furnishings for the house of the Lord: the golden altar; the golden table on which was placed the Bread of the Presence;

⁴⁹the lampstands of pure gold in front of the inner sanctuary, five on the right side and five on the left; the gold flowers, lamps, and tongs;

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.

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.

²⁸These are the people Nebuchadnezzar carried away: in the seventh year, 3,023 Jews;

¹²But the captain of the guard left behind some of the poorest of the land to tend the vineyards and fields.

¹⁶The king of Babylon also brought into exile to Babylon all seven thousand men of valor and a thousand craftsmen and metalsmiths—all strong and fit for battle.

¹In the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was among the exiles by the River Kebar, the heavens opened and I saw visions of God.

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

¹⁰But Nebuzaradan left behind in the land of Judah some of the poor people who had no property, and at that time he gave them vineyards and fields.

¹⁶But Nebuzaradan captain of the guard left behind some of the poorest of the land to tend the vineyards and fields.

⁶He had been carried into exile from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon among those taken captive with Jeconiah king of Judah.

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.

²⁵In fact, I will hand you over to those you dread, who want to take your life—to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and to the Chaldeans.

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.

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.

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.

²⁸These are the people Nebuchadnezzar carried away: in the seventh year, 3,023 Jews;

¹⁴He carried into exile all Jerusalem—all the commanders and mighty men of valor, all the craftsmen and metalsmiths—ten thousand captives in all. Only the poorest people of the land remained.

²(This was after King Jeconiah, the queen mother, the court officials, the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the metalsmiths had been exiled from Jerusalem.)

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

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.

⁴Then Neco king of Egypt made Eliakim brother of Jehoahaz king over Judah and Jerusalem, and he changed Eliakim’s name to Jehoiakim. But Neco took Eliakim’s brother Jehoahaz and carried him off to Egypt.

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.

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.

¹¹Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years.

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

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

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.

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.

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

¹¹Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years.

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

²⁵And you, O profane and wicked prince of Israel, the day has come for your final punishment.’

¹²And he did evil in the sight of the Lord his God and did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke for the Lord.

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

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.

⁸But like the bad figs, so bad they cannot be eaten,’ says the Lord, ‘so will I deal with Zedekiah king of Judah, his officials, and the remnant of Jerusalem—those remaining in this land and those living in the land of Egypt.

⁹The coming of the lawless one will be accompanied by the working of Satan, with every kind of power, sign, and false wonder,

¹⁰and with every wicked deception directed against those who are perishing, because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them.

¹³He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God. But Zedekiah stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord, the God of Israel.

¹²And to Zedekiah king of Judah I spoke the same message: “Put your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon; serve him and his people, and live!

¹³Why should you and your people die by sword and famine and plague, as the Lord has decreed against any nation that does not serve the king of Babylon?

¹⁷because they have forsaken Me and burned incense to other gods, that they might provoke Me to anger with all the works of their hands. My wrath will be kindled against this place and will not be quenched.’

¹⁵But this king rebelled against Babylon by sending his envoys to Egypt to ask for horses and a large army. Will he flourish? Will the one who does such things escape? Can he break a covenant and yet escape?’

¹⁶‘As surely as I live,’ declares the Lord God, ‘he will die in Babylon, in the land of the king who enthroned him, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he broke.

¹¹The princes of Zoan are mere fools; Pharaoh’s wise counselors give senseless advice. How can you say to Pharaoh, “I am one of the wise, a son of eastern kings”?

¹²Where are your wise men now? Let them tell you and reveal what the Lord of Hosts has planned against Egypt.