12:12 “The prince 1 who is among them will raise his belongings 2 onto his shoulder in darkness, and will go out. He 3 will dig a hole in the wall to leave through. He will cover his face so that he cannot see the land with his eyes. 12:13 But I will throw my net over him, and he will be caught in my snare. I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans 4 (but he will not see it), 5 and there he will die. 6 12:14 All his retinue – his attendants and his troops – I will scatter to every wind; I will unleash a sword behind them.
12:15 “Then they will know that I am the Lord when I disperse them among the nations and scatter them among foreign countries. 12:16 But I will let a small number of them survive the sword, famine, and pestilence, so that they can confess all their abominable practices to the nations where they go. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”
1 sn The prince is a reference to Zedekiah.
2 tn The words “his belongings” are not in the Hebrew text but are implied.
3 tc The MT reads “they”; the LXX and Syriac read “he.”
4 tn Or “Babylonians” (NCV, NLT).
5 sn He will not see it. This prediction was fulfilled in 2 Kgs 25:7 and Jer 52:11, which recount how Zedekiah was blinded before being deported to Babylon.
6 sn There he will die. This was fulfilled when King Zedekiah died in exile (Jer 52:11).