19. The commander of the guard took whatever gold or silver he could find as well: the small bowls, the fire pans, the sprinkling bowls, the pots, the lampstands, the basins, and the offering bowls.
20. There was too much bronze to be weighed: two columns, the bronze Sea and the twelve bronze bulls that held it up, and the stands, all of which Solomon had made for the Lord’s temple.
21. Each column was about twenty-seven feet high and eighteen feet around. They were hollow, but the bronze was about three inches thick.
22. Each had a capital of bronze above it that towered seven and a half feet high, and each had an ornate design of bronze pomegranates around it. The second column was the same, also with pomegranates.
23. There were ninety-six pomegranates on the sides, a total of one hundred pomegranates around the ornate design.
24. The commander of the guard also took Seraiah the high priest, Zephaniah the deputy priest, and the three doorkeepers.
25. From the city, he took a eunuch who was appointed over the army and the seven royal advisors who remained in the city. He also took the scribe of the commander of the army in charge of military conscription and sixty military personnel who were found in the city.
26. Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah.
27. The king of Babylon struck them and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. And Judah went away from its land into exile.
28. This is the number of people whom Nebuchadnezzar deported: In the seventh year, 3,023 Judeans.
29. In the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, he took 832 people from Jerusalem.
30. In the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar, he dispatched Nebuzaradan commander of the guard, who deported 745 Judeans. Altogether, 4,600 were taken captive.
31. Judah’s King Jehoiachin had been in exile for thirty-seven years when Awil-merodach became king in Babylon. He took note of Jehoiachin’s plight and released him from prison on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month of that very year.