A reading from the book of Second Kings.

And in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month,

Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came with all his army against Jerusalem and laid siege to it,

and they built siege works all around it. So the city was besieged till the 11th year of King Zedekiah.

On the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine was so severe in the city that besieged till the 11th year of King Zedekiah. On the ninth day of the fourth month,

the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.

Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled by night, by the way of the

gate between the two walls by the king's garden, and the Chaldeans were around the city,

and they went in the direction of the Araba. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho,

and all his army was scattered from him. Then they captured the king and brought him up to

the king of Babylon at Ribla, and they passed sentence on him. They slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah

and put out the eyes of Zedekiah

and bound him in chains and took him to Babylon. In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month,

that was the 19th year of King Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar, and the captain of the

bodyguard, a servant of the King of Babylon came to Jerusalem, and he burned the house of the Lord, and the king's house,

and all the houses of Jerusalem, every great house he burned down. And all the army of the

Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down the walls around Jerusalem,

and the rest of the people who were left in the city, and the deserters who had deserted to the

king of Babylon, together with the rest of the multitude.

Nebues Zeraden, the captain of the guard, carried into exile, but the captain of the guard left

some of the poorest of the land to be vine dressers and plowmen.

And the pillars of bronze that were in the house of the Lord, and the stands in the Bronze Sea

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