¹ Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem ²  for eleven years. His mother’s name was Hamutal ³  daughter of Jeremiah, from Libnah.

It lasted until the ninth day of the fourth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year. ¹  On that day they broke through the city walls.

The city remained under siege until Zedekiah’s eleventh year.

“For the last twenty-three years, from the thirteenth year that Josiah son of Amon was ruling in Judah ¹  until now, the Lord has been speaking to me. I told you over and over again ²  what he said. ³  But you would not listen.

The Lord ¹  began to speak to him ²  in the thirteenth year that Josiah son of Amon ruled over Judah.

This whole area ¹  will become a desolate wasteland. These nations will be subject to the king of Babylon for seventy years.’ ² 

In the tenth year that Zedekiah was ruling over Judah the Lord spoke to Jeremiah. ¹  That was the same as the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar.

The Lord also spoke to him when Jehoiakim son of Josiah ruled over Judah, and he continued to speak to him until the fifth month of the eleventh year ¹  that Zedekiah son of Josiah ruled over Judah. That was when the people of Jerusalem ²  were taken into exile. ³ 

“‘But when the seventy years are over, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation ¹  for their sins. I will make the land of Babylon ²  an everlasting ruin. ³  I, the Lord, affirm it! ⁴ 

“For the Lord says, ‘Only when the seventy years of Babylonian rule ¹  are over will I again take up consideration for you. ²  Then I will fulfill my gracious promise to you and restore ³  you to your homeland. ⁴ 

On the tenth ¹  day of the fifth month, ²  in the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard ³  who served ⁴  the king of Babylon, arrived in Jerusalem.

In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, on the twenty-fifth ¹  day of the twelfth month, ²  Evil-Merodach, in the first year of his reign, pardoned ³  King Jehoiachin of Judah and released him from prison.