2 Chronicles 36:11-21

Joahaz, Jehoiakim, Then Jehoiachin Rule

¹¹Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem. ¹²He did evil in the sight of the Lord his God; he did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet who spoke for the Lord. ¹³He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear allegiance by God. But he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord God of Israel. ¹⁴Furthermore, all the officials of the priests and the people were very unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations; and they defiled the house of the Lord which He had sanctified in Jerusalem.

¹⁵Yet the Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again by His messengers, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place; ¹⁶but they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against His people, until there was no remedy. ¹⁷So He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or frail; He handed them all over to him. ¹⁸He brought all the articles of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and his officers, to Babylon. ¹⁹Then they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all its fortified buildings with fire and destroyed all its valuable articles. ²⁰He took into exile those who had escaped from the sword to Babylon; and they were servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, ²¹to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it kept the Sabbath until seventy years were complete.

Cyrus Permits Return