1 And it came to be in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, that Neḇuḵaḏnetstsar sovereign of Baḇel and all his army came against Yerushalayim and encamped against it, and they built a siege wall against it all around.
2 And the city was besieged until the eleventh year of Sovereign Tsiḏqiyahu.
3 By the ninth of the month the scarcity of food had become so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.
4 Then the city wall was breached, and all the men of battle fled at night by way of the gate between two walls, which was by the sovereign’s garden, even though the Kasdites were still encamped all around against the city. And the sovereign went by way of the desert plain.
5 And the army of the Kasdites pursued the sovereign, and overtook him in the desert plains of Yeriḥo, and all his army was scattered from him.
6 And they seized the sovereign and brought him up to the sovereign of Baḇel at Riḇlah, and they pronounced sentence on him.
7 And they slaughtered the sons of Tsiḏqiyahu before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Tsiḏqiyahu, and bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Baḇel.
8 And in the fifth month, on the seventh of the month, which was the nineteenth year of Sovereign Neḇuḵaḏnetstsar sovereign of Baḇel, Neḇuzaraḏan the chief of the guard, a servant of the sovereign of Baḇel, came to Yerushalayim.
9 And he burned the House of 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 and the house of the sovereign, and all the houses of Yerushalayim – even every great house he burned with fire.
10 And all the army of the Kasdites who were with the chief of the guard broke down the walls of Yerushalayim all around.
11 And Neḇuzaraḏan the chief of the guard took into exile the rest of the people who were left in the city and the deserters who deserted to the sovereign of Baḇel, with the rest of the multitude.
12 But the chief of the guard left some of the poor of the land as vinedressers and farmers.
13 And the bronze columns that were in the House of 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄, and the stands and the bronze sea that were in the House of 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄, the Kasdites broke in pieces, and took their bronze away to Baḇel.
14 And they took the pots, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the ladles, and all the bronze utensils the kohenim used in the service.
15 And the chief of the guard took the fire holders and the basins which were of solid gold and solid silver.
16 The bronze of all these utensils was beyond measure – the two columns, the one sea, and the stands, which Shelomoh had made for the House of 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄.
17 The height of one column was eighteen ammah, and the capital on it was of bronze. And the height of the capital was three ammah, and the network and pomegranates all around the capital were all of bronze. And the second column was the same, with a network.
18 And the chief of the guard took Serayah the chief kohĕn, and Tsephanyahu the second kohĕn, and the three door-keepers.
19 And out of the city he took a certain eunuch who was appointed over the men of battle, and five men of those who saw the sovereign’s face who were found in the city, and the chief scribe 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.
20 And Neḇuzaraḏan, chief of the guard, took them and made them go to the sovereign of Baḇel at Riḇlah.
21 And the sovereign of Baḇel smote them and put them to death at Riḇlah in the land of Ḥamath. So he exiled Yahuḏah from its own land.
22 And he appointed Geḏalyahu son of Aḥiqam, son of Shaphan, over the people who were left in the land of Yahuḏah, whom Neḇuḵaḏnetstsar sovereign of Baḇel had left.
23 And all the commanders of the armies, they and their men, heard that the sovereign of Baḇel had appointed Geḏalyahu. And they came to Geḏalyahu at Mitspah, even Yishma’ĕl son of Nethanyah, and Yoḥanan son of Qarĕaḥ, and Serayah son of Tanḥumeth the Netophathite, and Ya’azanyahu the son of a Ma’aḵathite, they and their men.
24 And Geḏalyahu swore to them and their men, and said to them, “Do not be afraid of the servants of the Kasdites. Dwell in the land and serve the sovereign of Baḇel, and let it be well with you.”
25 And in the seventh month it came to be that Yishma’ĕl son of Nethanyah, son of Elishama, of the seed of the reign, came with ten men and smote Geḏalyahu that he died, and the Yahuḏim, and the Kasdites who were with him at Mitspah.
26 And all the people rose up, small and great, and the commanders of the armies, and went to Mitsrayim, for they were afraid of the Kasdites.
27 And it came to be in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Yahoyaḵin sovereign of Yahuḏah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh of the month, that Ewil-Meroḏaḵ sovereign of Baḇel, in the year that he began to reign, released Yahoyaḵin sovereign of Yahuḏah from prison,
28 and spoke kindly to him, and appointed his throne above the throne of the sovereigns who were with him in Baḇel,
29 and changed his prison garments. And he ate bread continually before the sovereign all the days of his life.
30 And as his allowance, a continual allowance was given to him from the sovereign, a quota for each day, all the days of his life.