[1] In his days, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came up and Jehoiakim was
his servant for three years; then he took up arms against him. [2] And the
Lord sent against him bands of the Chaldaeans and of the Edomites and of
the Moabites and of the children of Ammon; sending them against Judah for
its destruction, as he had said by his servants the prophets. [3] Only by
the word of the Lord did this fate come on Judah, to take them away from
before his face; because of the sins of Manasseh and all the evil he did;
[4] And because of the death of those who had done no wrong, for he made
Jerusalem full of the blood of the upright; and the Lord had no forgiveness
for it. [5] Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and all he did, are they
not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah? [6] So
Jehoiakim went to rest with his fathers; and Jehoiachin his son became king
in his place. [7] And the king of Egypt did not come out of his land again,
for the king of Babylon had taken all his country, from the stream of Egypt
to the river Euphrates. [8] Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he
became king, he was ruling in Jerusalem for three months, and his mother's
name was Nehushta, the daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem. [9] He did evil
in the eyes of the Lord, as his father had done. [10] At that time the
armies of Nebuchadnezzar came up to Jerusalem and the town was shut in on
every side. [11] And Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came there, while his
servants were shutting in the town; [12] Then Jehoiachin, king of Judah,
went out to the king of Babylon, with his mother and his servants and his
chiefs and his unsexed servants; and in the eighth year of his rule the
king of Babylon took him. [13] And he took away all the stored wealth of
the Lord's house, and the goods from the king's store-house, cutting up all
the gold vessels which Solomon, king of Israel, had made in the house of
the Lord, as the Lord had said. [14] And he took away all the people of
Jerusalem and all the chiefs and all the men of war, ten thousand
prisoners; and all the expert workmen and the metal-workers; only the
poorest sort of the people of the land were not taken away. [15] He took
Jehoiachin a prisoner to Babylon, with his mother and his wives and his
unsexed servants and the great men of the land; he took them all as
prisoners from Jerusalem to Babylon. [16] And all the men of war, seven
thousand of them, and a thousand expert workmen and metal-workers, all of
them strong and able to take up arms, the king of Babylon took away as
prisoners into Babylon. [17] And the king of Babylon made Mattaniah, his
father's brother, king in place of Jehoiachin, changing his name to
Zedekiah. [18] Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and
he was king in Jerusalem for eleven years; his mother's name was Hamutal,
daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. [19] He did evil in the eyes of the Lord,
as Jehoiakim had done. [20] And because of the wrath of the Lord, this came
about in Jerusalem and Judah, till he had sent them all away from before
him: and Zedekiah took up arms against the king of Babylon.
