2 Kings 25
The Temple Burned, and a Captive King Given a Seat at the Table
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The Siege of Jerusalem
25:1In the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, Nabouchodonosor king of Babylon came with all his force against Jerusalem. He camped against it and built an enclosing wall against it all around.
25:2The city remained under siege until King Sedekias’s eleventh year.
25:3On the ninth of the month the famine grew severe in the city, and there were no loaves for the people of the land.
The Flight and Capture of Sedekias
25:4The city was breached, and all the men of war went out by night by way of the gate between the walls, the one belonging to the king’s garden, with the Chaldeans surrounding the city. He went by the way of the Araba.
25:5The Chaldean force pursued the king and overtook him in Araboth Jericho, and all his force scattered away from him.
25:6They seized the king and brought him to the king of Babylon at Deblatha, and he pronounced judgment upon him.
25:7He slaughtered Sedekias’s sons before his eyes. He blinded Sedekias’s eyes, bound him with fetters, and brought him to Babylon.
The Burning of the House of the Lord
25:8In the fifth month, on the seventh of the month, in the nineteenth year of Nabouchodonosor king of Babylon, Nabouzardan, the chief cook who stood before the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.
25:9He set fire to the Lord’s house, the king’s house, and all Jerusalem’s houses; every house was set ablaze by
25:10the chief cook.
25:11Nabouzardan, the chief cook, removed the rest of the people left in the city, those who had gone over to the king of Babylon, and the remaining support.
25:12The chief cook left some of the land’s poor as vinedressers and as gabin.
The Vessels Carried to Babylon
25:13The Chaldeans shattered the bronze pillars in the Lord’s house, the mechonoth, and the bronze sea in the Lord’s house, and carried their bronze to Babylon.
25:14He took the cauldrons, the iamin, the bowls, the incense dishes, and all the bronze utensils with which they ministered.
25:15The chief cook took the firepans and the gold and silver bowls,
25:16the two pillars, the one sea, and the mechonoth which Solomon made for the Lord’s house. The bronze of all the objects had no reckoned weight.
25:17One pillar was eighteen cubits high, with the bronze chothar upon it. The chothar was three cubits high, with sabacha and pomegranates around the chothar, all bronze. The second pillar was the same, with the sabacha.
The Officers Put to Death at Deblatha
25:18The chief cook took Saraias the first priest, Sophonias, son of the second rank, and the three doorpost guards,
25:19and from the city he took one eunuch who supervised the warriors, five men who saw the king’s face who were found in the city, the scribe of the commander of the force who drew up the people of the land, and sixty men of the people of the land found in the city.
25:20Nabouzardan, the chief cook, took them and led them to the king of Babylon at Deblatha.
25:21The king of Babylon struck them and put them to death at Deblatha in Aimath’s land. Judah was deported from its land.
Godolias Appointed and Slain
25:22As for the people remaining in Judah’s land whom Nabouchodonosor king of Babylon had left, he appointed over them Godolias son of Achikam son of Saphan.
25:23All the commanders of the force, they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Godolias. They came to Godolias at Massephath: Ishmael son of Nathanias, Joanan son of Karee, Saraias son of Thanemath the Netophathite, and Jezonias son of the Machathi, they and their men.
25:24Godolias swore to them and their men and said, ‘Do not fear the passing of the Chaldeans. Settle in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall go well for you.’
25:25In the seventh month Ishmael son of Nathanias son of Elisama, of the kings’ offspring, came with ten men. He struck Godolias, and he died, and the Judeans and Chaldeans who were with him at Massephath.
25:26All the people, from small to great, and the commanders of the forces arose and entered Egypt, for they feared the Chaldeans.
Joakim Released in Babylon
25:27In the thirty-seventh year of the deportation of Joakim king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh of the month, Euilmarodach king of Babylon, in the year of his reign, lifted the head of Joakim king of Judah and brought him out of his prison house.
25:28He spoke kindly to him and placed his throne above the thrones of the kings who were with him in Babylon,
25:29and he changed his prison garments, and he ate bread continually before him all the days of his life.
25:30His table provision was given to him continually from the king’s house, each day’s portion on its day, all the days of his life.
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Saints Translation · Liturgical reading edition · V1 · working draft awaiting specialist review.