5. The city remained under siege until Zedekiah’s eleventh year.
6. By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine in the city was so severe the residents had no food.
7. They broke through the city walls, and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night. They went through the gate between the two walls that is near the king’s garden. (The Babylonians had the city surrounded.) Then they headed for the Jordan Valley.
8. But the Babylonian army chased after the king. They caught up with Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, and his entire army deserted him.
9. They captured him and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the territory of Hamath and he passed sentence on him there.
10. The king of Babylon had Zedekiah’s sons put to death while Zedekiah was forced to watch. He also had all the nobles of Judah put to death there at Riblah.
11. He had Zedekiah’s eyes put out and had him bound in chains. Then the king of Babylon had him led off to Babylon and he was imprisoned there until the day he died.
12. On the tenth day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard who served the king of Babylon, arrived in Jerusalem.
13. He burned down the Lord’s temple, the royal palace, and all the houses in Jerusalem, including every large house.