Jeremiah
Chapter 52

1

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

2

He did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD, just as Jehoiakim had done.

3

Indeed, what was done in Jerusalem and in Judah so angered the LORD that he cast them out from his presence. Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

4

² In the tenth month of the ninth year of his reign, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and his whole army advanced against Jerusalem, encamped around it, and built siege walls on every side.

5

The siege of the city continued until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

6

On the ninth day of the fourth month, when famine had gripped the city and the people had no more bread,

7

the city walls were breached. Then all the soldiers took to flight and left the city by night through the gate between the two walls which was near the king's garden. With the Chaldeans surrounding the city, they went in the direction of the Arabah.

8

But the Chaldean army pursued the king and overtook Zedekiah in the desert near Jericho, while his whole army fled from him.

9

The king, therefore, was arrested and brought to Riblah, in the land of Hamath, to the king of Babylon, who pronounced sentence on him.

10

As Zedekiah looked on, the king of Babylon slew his sons as well as all the princes of Judah at Riblah.

11

Then he blinded Zedekiah, bound him with fetters, and had him brought to Babylon and kept in prison until the day of his death.

12

³ On the tenth day of the fifth month (this was in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon), Nebuzaradan, captain of the bodyguard, came to Jerusalem as the representative of the king of Babylon.

13

He burned the house of the LORD, the palace of the king, and all the houses of Jerusalem; every large building he destroyed with fire.

14

And the Chaldean troops who were with the captain of the guard tore down all the walls that surrounded Jerusalem.

15

Then Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, led into exile the rest of the people left in the city, and those who had deserted to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the artisans.

16

But some of the country's poor, Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, left behind as vinedressers and farmers.

17

The bronze pillars that belonged to the house of the LORD, and the wheeled carts and the bronze sea in the house of the LORD, the Chaldeans broke into pieces; they carried away all the bronze to Babylon.

18

They took also the pots, the shovels, the snuffers, the bowls, the pans, and all the bronze vessels used for service.

19

The basins also, the fire holders, the bowls, the pots, the lampstands, the pans, the sacrificial bowls which were of gold or silver, these too the captain of the guard carried off,

20

as well as the two pillars, the one sea, and the twelve oxen of bronze under the sea, and the wheeled carts which King Solomon had made for the house of the LORD. The bronze of all these furnishings could not be weighed.

21

Each of the pillars was eighteen cubits high and twelve cubits in diameter; each was four fingers thick, and hollow inside.

22

A bronze capital five cubits high surmounted the one pillar, and a network with pomegranates encircled the capital, all of brass; and so for the other pillar. The pomegranates. . .

23

there were ninety-six pomegranates. There were a hundred pomegranates, all around the network.

24

The captain of the guard also took Seraiah, the high priest, Zephaniah, the second priest, and the three keepers of the entry.

25

And from the city he took one courtier, a commander of soldiers, and seven men in the personal service of the king who were present in the city, and the scribe of the army commander who mustered the people of the land, and sixty of the common people who were in the city.

26

The captain of the guard, Nebuzaradan, arrested these and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah,

27

who had them struck down and put to death in Riblah, in the land of Hamath. Thus was Judah exiled from her land.

28

⁴ This is the number of the people whom Nebuchadnezzar led away captive: in his seventh year, three thousand and twenty-three people of Judah;

29

in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, eight hundred and thirty-two persons from Jerusalem;

30

in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, exiled seven hundred and forty-five people of Judah: four thousand six hundred persons in all.

31

⁵ In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month, Evil-merodach, king of Babylon, in the inaugural year of his reign, took up the case of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, and released him from prison.

32

⁶ He spoke kindly to him and gave him a throne higher than that of the other kings who were with him in Babylon.

33

Jehoiachin took off his prison garb and ate at the king's table as long as he lived.

34

The allowance given him by the king of Babylon was a perpetual allowance, in fixed daily amounts, all the days of his life until the day of his death.

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Footnotes

¹ [1-34] This supplement to the Book of Jeremiah was taken by the final editor from 2 Kings 24:18-25, 30 and placed here in order to show the fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecies. In part this repeats the history given in Jer 39-41; the history of Gedaliah in 2 Kings 25:22-26 however, has not been reproduced here.

² [4] In the tenth month of the ninth year of his reign, on the tenth day of the month: January 15, 588 B.C. Cf Jeremiah 39:1.

³ [12] On the tenth day of the fifth month . . . nineteenth year: the tenth of Ab-July/August in 587 B.C.

⁴ [28-30] These verses are missing in the Greek text and have not been taken from 2 Kings 25 but from some other source using a different system of chronology. Besides the deportations of 598 and 587 B.C., mention is made here of a final one that took place in the year 582/1, possibly as a sequel to the murder of Gedaliah; cf Jeremiah 41:2.

⁵ [31-34] In the year 561/0 B.C., Jehoiachin was released from prison by Nebuchadnezzar's successor Awel-Marduk (Evil-merodach), who reigned only two years. Babylonian records confirm the fact that Jehoiachin and his family were supported at public expense.

⁶ [32] The other kings: who had also been brought as captives to Babylon.

New American Bible Copyright © 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC. All rights reserved. Neither this work nor any part of it may be reproduced, distributed, performed or displayed in any medium, including electronic or digital, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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