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.
12. On the tenth day of the fifth month, this was in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, captain of the bodyguard, came to Jerusalem as the representative of the king of Babylon.
13. He burned the house of the Lord, the palace of the king, and all the houses of Jerusalem; every large building he destroyed with fire.
14. Then the Chaldean troops with the captain of the guard tore down all the walls that surrounded Jerusalem.
15. Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, led into exile the remnant of people left in the city, those who had deserted to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the artisans.