1. Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king; he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal, daughter of Jeremiah from Libnah.
2. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, just as Jehoiakim had done.
3. Indeed, the things done in Jerusalem and in Judah so angered the Lord that he cast them out from his presence. Thus Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
4. In the tenth month of the ninth year of his reign, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and his entire 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. All the soldiers fled 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 wilderness near Jericho; 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 judgment on him.
10. As Zedekiah looked on, the king of Babylon slaughtered his sons before his eyes! All the nobles of Judah were slaughtered at Riblah.
11. And the eyes of Zedekiah he then blinded, bound him with chains, and the King of Babylon brought him to Babylon and kept him in prison until the day he died.