1. Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: and his mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
2. And he did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.
3. For through the anger of Jehovah did it come to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
4. And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and encamped against it; and they built forts against it round about.
5. So the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah.
6. In the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was sore in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.
7. Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled, and went forth out of the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king’s garden; (now the Chaldeans were against the city round about;) and they went toward the Arabah.
8. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him.