Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Today we finished our 25th and 26 books of the Bible. I'm giving you a high five in my head.

Between those two books, we read about the last five kings of Judah.

These five kings are often lumped together because they are the final turning point for Judah.

Josiah was the last good king, and he was a really good one.

But then all we have after him are these four bad kings.

There are a lot of J names in today's reading, but as always, it's not as important

that you remember their names as it is that you see God in these stories. But speaking of Jays,

some of them are apparently pronounced like a Y, so I'm going to give that my best shot.

After Josiah dies, his son Jehoahaz takes the throne. We read about him briefly on day

217. He's barely a blip on the

radar because he only reigns for three months before the Egyptian Pharaoh Niko, who killed his dad

Josiah, captures him and carts him off to Egypt where he dies in captivity. Now we're down to

three more kings. At the time, Egypt is dominating Judah. Pharaoh Niko appoints their new

king and even changes his name from Eliakim to Yeholyakim. Then Niko demands that Judah act as a vassal

nation to Egypt. We've talked about these vassal relationships before, where a weaker nation pays

money or tribute to a stronger nation for protection,

that they're often just being protected from the nation they're paying, kind of like the

mafia. But then Babylon shows up on the scene and dominates both Judah and Egypt, and Egypt goes

home with its tail between its legs. Then Judah becomes a vassal of Babylon, but at some point they rebel and Babylon

turns up the heat. They take Yehoia Kim captive, along with a lot of the holy vessels from the

temple, and now we're down to two more kings. Next on deck is Yehoia Kim's son, Yehoia Chin. Not confusing

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