1 The people of the land took Jehoahaz, Josiah’s son, and made him the next king in Jerusalem.
2 Jehoahaz was 23 years old when he became king, and he ruled for three months in Jerusalem.
3 The king of Egypt removed him from office in Jerusalem. The Egyptian king imposed a fine on the land totaling one hundred kikkars of silver and one kikkar of gold.
4 Then the king of Egypt made Jehoahaz’s brother Eliakim king of Judah and Jerusalem, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. Neco took his brother Jehoahaz prisoner and carried him off to Egypt.
5 Jehoiakim was 25 years old when he became king, and he ruled for eleven years in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the Lord’s eyes.
6 Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar attacked him, bound him with bronze chains, and took him to Babylon.
7 Nebuchadnezzar also took some equipment from the Lord’s temple to Babylon and placed them in his own temple there.
8 The rest of Jehoiakim’s deeds, including his detestable practices and all that was charged against him, are written in the official records of Israel’s and Judah’s kings. His son Jehoiachin succeeded him as king.
9 Jehoiachin was 18 years old when he became king, and he ruled for three months in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the Lord’s eyes.
10 In the springtime, King Nebuchadnezzar sent for him to be brought to Babylon, along with valuable equipment from the Lord’s temple. Then he made Zedekiah his uncle the next king of Judah and Jerusalem.
11 Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king, and he ruled for eleven years in Jerusalem.
12 He did what was evil in the Lord his God’s eyes and didn’t submit before the prophet Jeremiah, who spoke for the Lord.
13 Moreover, he rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, despite the solemn pledge Nebuchadnezzar had forced him to swear in God’s name. He became stubborn and refused to turn back to the Lord, Israel’s God.
14 All the leaders of the priests and the people also grew increasingly unfaithful, following all the detestable practices of the nations. They polluted the Lord’s temple that God had dedicated in Jerusalem.
15 Time and time again, the Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent word to them through his messengers because he had compassion on his people and his dwelling.
16 But they made fun of God’s messengers, treating God’s words with contempt and ridiculing God’s prophets to such an extent that there was no hope of warding off the Lord’s rising anger against his people.
17 So God brought the Babylonian king against them. The king killed their young men with the sword in their temple’s sanctuary, and showed no pity for young men or for virgins, for the old or for the feeble. God handed all of them over to him.
18 Then the king hauled everything off to Babylon, every item from God’s temple, both large and small, including the treasures of the Lord’s temple and those of the king and his officials.
19 Next the Babylonians burned God’s temple down, demolished the walls of Jerusalem, and set fire to all its palaces, destroying everything of value.
20 Finally, he exiled to Babylon anyone who survived the killing so that they could be his slaves and the slaves of his children until Persia came to power.
21 This is how the Lord’s word spoken by Jeremiah was carried out. The land finally enjoyed its sabbath rest. For as long as it lay empty, it rested, until seventy years were completed.
22 In the first year of Persia’s King Cyrus, to carry out the Lord’s promise spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord moved Persia’s King Cyrus to issue the following proclamation throughout his kingdom, along with a written decree:
23 This is what Persia’s King Cyrus says: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the earth’s kingdoms and has instructed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Whoever among you belong to God’s people, let them go up, and may the Lord their God be with them!