Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work.

I'm Jensen Holt McNair.

As the book of Second Kings draws near its end, we should not be surprised by the events that transpire in today's passage.

The book has been headed down this path for a very long time.

Prophets have prophesied of what would come,

and today we will read about the devastation that they long foretold.

But that shouldn't take away from the recognition of the devastation that they long foretold. But that shouldn't take away from the recognition of the devastation that the people of Judah

now face. We knew it would come, but now we have to grapple with what this means for God's people.

This isn't just any story of defeat for any nation. In chapter 24, verse 20,

right before a detailing of the events of the exile, we read, it was because of the Lord's anger

that all this happened to Jerusalem and Judah, and in the end, he thrust them from his presence. God's people, the people he promised to

multiply, the people he promised to deliver into the promised land, the people he rescued from slavery,

the people he guided through the wilderness, the people he taught, protected, provided for,

and the people he chose to dwell among, through pillars of fire, clouds of smoke in a tabernacle, and eventually

in a temple, in their holy city, those people have been thrust from his presence. And exile begins. The king of Babylon keeps Jerusalem under siege

for two years. He starves them. And then he drives them out. He kills the vassal king Zedekiah

he had put in charge for rebelling against him. He kills his sons. He drags his people away into exile

in Babylon. Then his commanders come in. They burn the city. They take everything of worth out of

God's temple. They trample it. They burn it. The Lord no longer dwells with his people. His presence

has departed the temple and and now, in an outward

portrayal of this bitter truth, the Babylonians destroy what once was a sacred site for God's

people. They take the priests and the commanders and the men in charge. They bring them to Babylon,

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