2. In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, on the ninth day of the fourth month, they broke through the city walls.
3. Then all the commanding officers of the king of Babylon—Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, Sarsechim the chief officer, Nergal-sharezer the field commander—entered it and took their places at the middle gate with the rest of the officials of the king of Babylon.
4. When Judah’s King Zedekiah and his troops saw them, they tried to escape at night through the royal gardens and the gate between the two walls, toward the desert plain.
5. But the Babylonian army chased them down and caught Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. They arrested him and brought him before Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah in the land of Hamath. There the king put him on trial.
6. The king of Babylon slaughtered Zedekiah’s children at Riblah before his very own eyes, and the king of Babylon slaughtered all the officials of Judah.
7. Then he gouged out Zedekiah’s eyes, bound him in chains, and dragged him off to Babylon.
8. The Babylonians burned down the royal palace and the houses of the people, and they destroyed the Jerusalem walls.
9. Nebuzaradan the captain of the special guard rounded up the rest of the people who were left in the city, including those who had defected to the Babylonians, and deported them to Babylon.
10. But Nebuzaradan the captain of the special guard left some of the poorest people in the land of Judah. He gave them vineyards and fields at that time.
11. Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar gave orders concerning Jeremiah to Nebuzaradan the captain of the special guard:
12. "Find Jeremiah and look after him; don’t harm him but do whatever he asks from you."