16. But they kept ridiculing God’s messengers, despising His words, and scoffing at His prophets, until the Lord’s wrath was so stirred up against His people that there was no remedy.
17. So He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their choice young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary. He had no pity on young men or young women, elderly or aged; He handed them all over to him.
18. He took everything to Babylon — all the articles of God’s temple, large and small, the treasures of the Lord’s temple, and the treasures of the king and his officials.
19. Then the Chaldeans burned God’s temple. They tore down Jerusalem’s wall, burned down all its palaces, and destroyed all its valuable articles.
20. He deported those who escaped from the sword to Babylon, and they became servants to him and his sons until the rise of the Persian kingdom.