First Reading
2 Kings 25:1-12
In the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and encamped against it; and they built forts against it around it. So the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. On the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread 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, which was by the king's garden (now the Chaldeans were against the city around it); and the king went by the way of the Arabah. But the Chaldean army 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 carried him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they passed judgment on him. They killed Zedekiah's sons before his eyes, then put out Zedekiah's eyes, bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon. Now in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He burned the LORD's house, the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem. He burned every great house with fire. All the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down the walls around Jerusalem. Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive the rest of the people who were left in the city and those who had deserted to the king of Babylon-all the rest of the multitude. But the captain of the guard left some of the poorest of the land to work the vineyards and fields.