The Lord answered, ¹  “This will happen ²  because my people are foolish. They do not know me. They are like children who have no sense. ³  They have no understanding. They are skilled at doing evil. They do not know how to do good.”

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.