Jeremiah 52
The Pillars Broken Up and Carried to Babylon
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Zedekiah’s Reign and the Siege
52:1It was Zedekiah’s twenty-first year when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Amitaal daughter of Jeremiah, from Lobena.
52:4In the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his force came against Jerusalem. They enclosed her with a palisade and built around her with squared stones.
52:5The city came under confinement until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.
52:6On the ninth of the month, the famine grew severe in the city, and there were no loaves for the people of the land.
The City Breached
52:7The city was breached, and all the warriors went out at night by the gate between the wall and the outer wall beside the king’s garden, while the Chaldeans surrounded the city. They went by the road to Arabah,
52:8and the Chaldean force pursued the king and overtook him beyond Jericho. All his servants scattered away from him.
52:9They captured the king and brought him to the king of Babylon at Deblatha, and he spoke to him with judgment.
52:10The king of Babylon slaughtered Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes, and he slaughtered all Judah’s rulers at Deblatha.
52:11He blinded Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him in fetters. The king of Babylon brought him to Babylon and put him in a mill house until the day he died.
52:12In the fifth month, on the tenth of the month, Nebuzaradan, the chief guard who stood before the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.
The Burning of the House of the Lord
52:13He burned the Lord’s house, the king’s house, and all the city’s houses; every great house he burned with fire.
52:14The Chaldean force with the chief guard pulled down the whole wall of Jerusalem all around.
52:16The chief guard left the remaining people as vinedressers and farmers.
52:17The Chaldeans shattered the bronze pillars in the Lord’s house, the bases, and the bronze Sea in the Lord’s house. They took their bronze and carried it to Babylon.
The Vessels Carried Away
52:18And the rim, the bowls, the meat forks, and all the bronze utensils with which they performed service,
52:19and the saphphoth, the masmaroth, the pouring vessels, the lampstands, the incense bowls, and the ladles—those of gold, gold, and those of silver, silver—the chief guard took.
52:20The two pillars, the one Sea, and the twelve bronze calves beneath the Sea, which King Solomon made for the Lord’s house—their bronze was beyond weighing.
52:21As for the pillars, one pillar was thirty-five cubits high, and a cord of twelve cubits encircled it. Its thickness was four fingerbreadths all around,
52:22and a bronze cornice was on them. The projection of one cornice was five cubits in length, and a net and pomegranates surrounded the cornice, all of bronze. The second pillar had the same: eight pomegranates per cubit over the twelve cubits.
52:23There were ninety-six pomegranates on one side; all the pomegranates around the net numbered one hundred.
The Officers Taken to Riblah
52:24The chief guard took the first priest, the second priest, and the three men guarding the road,
52:25and one eunuch who supervised the warriors, seven prominent men in the king’s presence who were found in the city, the scribe of the forces who kept records for the people of the land, and sixty people from the people of the land found inside the city.
52:26Nebuzaradan, the chief guard, took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Deblatha,
52:27and the king of Babylon struck them at Deblatha in Aimath’s land.
Joakim Released in Babylon
52:31In the thirty-seventh year after Ioakim king of Judah had been deported, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fourth of the month, Oulaimaradach king of Babylon, in the year he became king, took up the head of Ioakim king of Judah and brought him out of the house where he was guarded.
52:32He spoke kindly to him and placed his throne above the thrones of the kings with him in Babylon.
52:33He changed his prison robe, and he ate bread continually before him all the days he lived.
52:34His allowance was given to him continually by the king of Babylon, from day to day until the day he died.
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Saints Translation · Liturgical reading edition · V1 · working draft awaiting specialist review.