3 On the ninth day of the month, the famine in the city got so bad that no food remained for the common people.
4 Then the enemy broke into the city. All the soldiers fled by night using the gate between the two walls near the King’s Garden. The Chaldeans were surrounding the city, so the soldiers ran toward the desert plain.
5 But the Chaldean army chased King Zedekiah and caught up with him in the Jericho plains. His entire army deserted him.
6 So the Chaldeans captured the king and brought him back to the Babylonian king, who was at Riblah. There his punishment was determined.
7 Zedekiah’s sons were slaughtered right before his eyes. Then he was blinded, put in bronze chains, and taken off to Babylon.
8 On the seventh day of the fifth month in the nineteenth year of Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan arrived at Jerusalem. He was the commander of the guard and an official of the Babylonian king.
9 He burned down the Lord’s temple, the royal palace, and all of Jerusalem’s houses. He burned down every important building.