The Living Bible (255 page)

Jeremiah
52

(Events told about in chapter 39.)

Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal (daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah).
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 But he was a wicked king, just as Jehoiakim had been.
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 Things became so bad at last that the Lord, in his anger, saw to it that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon until he and the people of Israel were ejected from the Lord’s presence in Jerusalem and Judah, and were taken away as captives to Babylon.

    
⁴
 In the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came with all his army against Jerusalem and built forts around it,
⁵
 and laid siege to the city for two years.
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 Then finally, on the ninth day of the fourth month, when the famine in the city was very serious, with the last of the food entirely gone,
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 the people in the city tore a hole in the city wall and all the soldiers fled from the city during the night, going out by the gate between the two walls near the king’s gardens (for the city was surrounded by the Chaldeans), and made a dash for it across the fields, toward Arabah.

    
⁸
 But the Chaldean soldiers chased them and caught King Zedekiah in some fields near Jericho—for all his army was scattered from him.
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 They brought him to the king of Babylon who was staying in the city of Riblah in the kingdom of Hamath, and there judgment was passed upon him.
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 He made Zedekiah watch while his sons and all the princes of Judah were killed before his eyes.
¹¹
 Then his eyes were gouged out, and he was taken in chains to Babylon and put in prison for the rest of his life.

    
¹²
 On the tenth day of the fifth month during the nineteenth year
*
of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, arrived in Jerusalem,
¹³
 and burned the Temple and the palace and all the larger homes,
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 and set the Chaldean army to work tearing down the walls of the city.
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 Then he took to Babylon, as captives, some of the poorest of the people—along with those who survived the city’s destruction, and those who had deserted Zedekiah and had come over to the Babylonian army, and the tradesmen who were left.
¹⁶
 But he left some of the poorest people to care for the crops as vinedressers and plowmen.

    
¹⁷
 The Babylonians dismantled the two large bronze pillars that stood at the entrance of the Temple, and the bronze laver and bronze bulls on which it stood, and carted them off to Babylon.
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 And he took along all the bronze pots and kettles, the ash shovels used at the altar, the snuffers, spoons, bowls, and all the other items used in the Temple.
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 He also took the firepans, the solid gold and silver candlesticks, and the cups and bowls.

    
²⁰
 The weight of the two enormous pillars, the laver, and twelve bulls was tremendous. They had no way of estimating it. (They had been made in the days of King Solomon.)
²¹
 For the pillars were each 27 feet high and 18 feet in circumference, hollow, with 3-inch walls.
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 The top 7
¹
/
2
feet of each column had bronze carvings, a network of bronze pomegranates.
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 There were 96 pomegranates on the sides, and on the network round about there were a hundred more.

    
^24-25
 The captain of the guard took along with him as his prisoners: Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah his assistant, the three chief Temple guards, one of the commanding officers of the army, seven of the king’s special counselors discovered in the city, the secretary of the general-in-chief of the Jewish army (who was in charge of recruitment), and sixty other men of importance found hiding.
²⁶
 He took them to the king of Babylon at Riblah,
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 where the king killed them all.

    
So it was that Judah’s exile was accomplished.

    
²⁸
 The number of captives taken to Babylon in the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign was 3,023.
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 Then, eleven years later, he took 832 more;
³⁰
 five years after that he sent Nebuzaradan, his captain of the guard, and took 745—a total of 4,600 captives in all.

    
³¹
 On February 25 of the thirty-seventh year of the imprisonment in Babylon of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, Evil-merodach, who became king of Babylon that year, was kind to King Jehoiachin and brought him out of prison.
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 He spoke pleasantly to him and gave him preference over all the other kings in Babylon;
³³
 he gave him new clothes and fed him from the king’s kitchen as long as he lived.
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 And he was given a regular allowance to cover his daily needs until the day of his death.

Lamentations

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2
 
3
 
4
 
5
 

Lamentations
1

Jerusalem’s streets, once thronged with people, are silent now. Like a widow broken with grief, she sits alone in her mourning. She, once queen of nations, is now a slave.

    
²
 She sobs through the night; tears run down her cheeks. Among all her lovers,
*
there is none to help her. All her friends are now her enemies.

    
³
 Why is Judah led away, a slave? Because of all the wrong she did to others, making them her slaves. Now she sits in exile far away. There is no rest, for those she persecuted have turned and conquered her.

    
⁴
 The roads to Zion mourn, no longer filled with joyous throngs who come to celebrate the Temple feasts; the city gates are silent, her priests groan, her virgins have been dragged away. Bitterly she weeps.

    
⁵
 Her enemies prosper, for the Lord has punished Jerusalem for all her many sins; her young children are captured and taken far away as slaves.

    
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 All her beauty and her majesty are gone; her princes are like starving deer that search for pasture—helpless game too weak to keep on running from their foes.

    
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 And now in the midst of all Jerusalem’s sadness she remembers happy bygone days. She thinks of all the precious joys she had before her mocking enemy struck her down—and there was no one to give her aid.

    
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 For Jerusalem sinned so horribly; therefore, she is tossed away like dirty rags. All who honored her despise her now, for they have seen her stripped naked and humiliated. She groans and hides her face.

    
⁹
 She indulged herself in immorality and refused to face the fact that punishment was sure to come. Now she lies in the gutter with no one left to lift her out. “O Lord,” she cries, “see my plight. The enemy has triumphed.”

    
¹⁰
 Her enemies have plundered her completely, taking everything precious she owns. She has seen foreign nations violate her sacred Temple—foreigners you had forbidden even to enter.

    
¹¹
 Her people groan and cry for bread; they have sold all they have for food to give a little strength. “Look, O Lord,” she prays, “and see how I’m despised.”

    
¹²
 Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow because of all the Lord has done to me in the day of his fierce wrath.

    
¹³
 He has sent fire from heaven that burns within my bones; he has placed a pitfall in my path and turned me back. He has left me sick and desolate the whole day through.

    
¹⁴
 He wove my sins into ropes to hitch me to a yoke of slavery. He sapped my strength and gave me to my enemies; I am helpless in their hands.

    
¹⁵
 The Lord has trampled all my mighty men. A great army has come at his command to crush the noblest youth. The Lord has trampled his beloved city as grapes in a winepress.

    
¹⁶
 For all these things I weep; tears flow down my cheeks. My Comforter is far away—he who alone could help me. My children have no future; we are a conquered land.

    
¹⁷
 Jerusalem pleads for help, but no one comforts her. For the Lord has spoken: “Let her neighbors be her foes! Let her be thrown out like filthy rags!”

    
¹⁸
 And the Lord is right, for we rebelled. And yet, O people everywhere, behold and see my anguish and despair, for my sons and daughters are taken far away as slaves to distant lands.

    
¹⁹
 I begged my allies
*
for their help. False hope—they could not help at all. Nor could my priests and elders—they were starving in the streets while searching through the garbage dumps for bread.

    
²⁰
 
See, O Lord, my anguish;
my heart is broken and my soul despairs, for I have terribly rebelled. In the streets the sword awaits me; at home, disease and death.

    
²¹
 
Hear my groans!
And there is no one anywhere to help. All my enemies have heard my troubles, and they are glad to see what you have done. And yet, O Lord, the time will surely come—for you have promised it—when you will do to them as you have done to me.

    
²²
 Look also on their sins, O Lord, and punish them as you have punished me, for my sighs are many and my heart is faint.