Chronological Plan

¹In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant for three years; then he turned and revolted against him.

²And the LORD sent against him bands of Chaldeans, bands of Arameans, bands of Moabites, and bands of Ammonites. He sent them against Judah to destroy it, in accordance with the word of the LORD which He had spoken through His servants the prophets.

³It indeed came upon Judah at the command of the LORD, to remove them from His sight due to the sins of Manasseh, in accordance with everything that he had done,

⁴and also for the innocent blood which he shed, for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; and the LORD was unwilling to forgive.

⁵Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

⁶So Jehoiakim lay down with his fathers, and his son Jehoiachin became king in his place.

⁷Now the king of Egypt did not come out of his land again, because the king of Babylon had taken everything that belonged to the king of Egypt from the brook of Egypt to the river Euphrates.

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

⁹He did evil in the sight of the LORD, in accordance with all that his father had done.

¹⁰At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon went up to Jerusalem, and the city came under siege.

¹¹And Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon came to the city, while his servants were besieging it.

¹²Then Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he, his mother, his servants, his commanders, and his officials. And the king of Babylon took him prisoner in the eighth year of his reign.

¹³He also brought out from there all the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king’s house, and he smashed all the articles of gold that Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the LORD, just as the LORD had said.

¹⁴Then he led into exile all the people of Jerusalem and all the commanders and all the valiant warriors, ten thousand exiles, and all the craftsmen and the smiths. None were left except the poorest people of the land.

¹⁵So he led Jehoiachin into exile to Babylon; also the king’s mother, the king’s wives, and his officials and the leading men of the land, he led into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

¹⁶And all the valiant men, seven thousand, and the craftsmen and the smiths, a thousand, all strong and fit for war, these too the king of Babylon brought into exile to Babylon.

¹⁷Then the king of Babylon made his uncle Mattaniah king in his place, and changed his name to Zedekiah.

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

¹⁹He did evil in the sight of the LORD, in accordance with everything that Jehoiakim had done.

²⁰For it was due to the anger of the LORD that this happened in Jerusalem and Judah, until He cast them out of His presence. And Zedekiah revolted against the king of Babylon.

¹Now in the ninth year of his reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, camped against it, and built a siege wall all around it.

²So the city was under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

³On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.

⁴Then the city was broken into, and all the men of war fled by night by way of the gate between the two walls that were beside the king’s garden, though the Chaldeans were all around the city. And they went by way of the Arabah.

⁵But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho, and all his army was scattered from him.

⁶Then they captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, and he passed sentence on him.

⁷And they slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, then put out Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him with bronze shackles, and brought him to Babylon.

⁸Now on the seventh day of the fifth month, which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguards, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.

⁹And he burned the house of the LORD, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; even every great house he burned with fire.

¹⁰So all the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the bodyguards tore down the walls around Jerusalem.

¹¹Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the bodyguards, led into exile the rest of the people who were left in the city and the deserters who had deserted to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the people.

¹²But the captain of the bodyguards left some of the poorest of the land to be vinedressers and farmers.

¹³Now the Chaldeans smashed to pieces the bronze pillars which were in the house of the LORD, and the stands and the bronze Sea which were in the house of the LORD, and carried the bronze to Babylon.

¹⁴And they took away the pots, the shovels, the shears, the spoons, and all the bronze utensils which were used in temple service.

¹⁵The captain of the bodyguards also took away the firepans and the basins, what was fine gold and what was fine silver.

¹⁶The two pillars, the one Sea, and the stands which Solomon had made for the house of the LORD—the bronze of all these articles was too heavy to weigh.

¹⁷The height of the one pillar was eighteen cubits, and a bronze capital was on it; the height of the capital was three cubits, with latticework and pomegranates on the capital all around, all of bronze. And the second pillar was like these, same features with latticework.

¹⁸Then the captain of the bodyguards took Seraiah the chief priest and Zephaniah the second priest, with the three doorkeepers.

¹⁹And from the city he took one official who was overseer of the men of war, and five of the king’s advisers who were found in the city; and the scribe of the captain of the army who mustered the people of the land; and sixty men of the people of the land who were found in the city.

²⁰Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguards took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah.

²¹Then the king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah went into exile from its land.

²²Now as for the people who were left in the land of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had left, he appointed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan over them.

²³When all the captains of the forces, they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah governor, they came to Gedaliah at Mizpah, namely, Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, Johanan the son of Kareah, Seraiah the son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah the son of the Maacathite, they and their men.

²⁴And Gedaliah swore to them and their men and said to them, “Do not be afraid of the servants of the Chaldeans; live in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it will go well for you.”

²⁵But it happened in the seventh month, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the royal family, came with ten men and struck Gedaliah down so that he died along with the Jews and the Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah.

²⁶Then all the people, from the small to the great, and the captains of the forces set out and came to Egypt; for they were afraid of the Chaldeans.

²⁷Now it came about in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, that Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the year that he became king, released Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison;

²⁸and he spoke kindly to him and set his throne above the throne of the kings who were with him in Babylon.

²⁹So Jehoiachin changed his prison clothes, and had his meals in the king’s presence regularly all the days of his life;

³⁰and as his allowance, a regular allowance was given to him by the king, a portion for each day, all the days of his life.

¹Then the people of the land took Joahaz the son of Josiah and made him king in place of his father in Jerusalem.

²Joahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned for three months in Jerusalem.

³Then the king of Egypt deposed him in Jerusalem, and imposed a fine on the land of a hundred talents of silver and one talent of gold.

⁴The king of Egypt made Joahaz’s brother Eliakim king over Judah and Jerusalem, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. But Neco took his brother Joahaz and brought him to Egypt.

⁵Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem; and he did evil in the sight of the LORD his God.

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

⁷Nebuchadnezzar also brought some of the articles of the house of the LORD to Babylon, and he put them in his temple in Babylon.

⁸Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim and the abominations which he committed, and what was found against him, behold, they are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah. And his son Jehoiachin became king in his place.

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

¹⁰At the turn of the year King Nebuchadnezzar sent men and had him brought to Babylon with the valuable articles of the house of the LORD; and he made his relative Zedekiah king over Judah and Jerusalem.

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

¹²He did evil in the sight of the LORD his God; he did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet who spoke for the LORD.

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

¹⁴Furthermore, all the officials of the priests and the people were very unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations; and they defiled the house of the LORD which He had sanctified in Jerusalem.

¹⁵Yet the LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again by His messengers, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place;

¹⁶but they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD rose against His people, until there was no remedy.

¹⁷So He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or frail; He handed them all over to him.

¹⁸He brought all the articles of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king and his officers, to Babylon.

¹⁹Then they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all its fortified buildings with fire and destroyed all its valuable articles.

²⁰He took into exile those who had escaped from the sword to Babylon; and they were servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia,

²¹to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it kept the Sabbath until seventy years were complete.

²²Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia—in order to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah—the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia so that he sent a proclamation throughout his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying,

²³“This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: ‘The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all His people, may the LORD his God be with him; go up then!’ ”