Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “The Lord, the God who rules over all, the God of Israel, ¹  says, ‘You must surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon. If you do, your life will be spared ²  and this city will not be burned down. Indeed, you and your whole family will be spared.

I, the Lord, promise that ¹  I will hand Pharaoh Hophra ²  king of Egypt over to his enemies who are seeking to kill him. I will do that just as surely as I handed King Zedekiah of Judah over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, his enemy who was seeking to kill him.’”

By the ninth day of the fourth month ¹  the famine in the city was so severe the residents ²  had no food.

So King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army and set up camp outside ¹  it. They built siege ramps all around it. He arrived on the tenth day of the tenth month in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign. ² 

Then ¹  I, the Lord, promise that ²  I will hand over King Zedekiah of Judah, his officials, and any of the people who survive the war, starvation, and disease. I will hand them over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and to their enemies who want to kill them. He will slaughter them with the sword. He will not show them any mercy, compassion, or pity.’

He did evil in the sight of ¹  the Lord, as Jehoiakim had done. ² 

They captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, ¹  where he ²  passed sentence on him.

He did what displeased the Lord ¹  just as Jehoiakim had done.

By the ninth day of the fourth month ¹  the famine in the city was so severe the residents ²  had no food.

King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army and set up camp outside it. ¹  They built siege ramps all around it. He arrived on the tenth day of the tenth month in the ninth year that Zedekiah ruled over Judah. ² 

“‘As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, surely in the city ¹  of the king who crowned him, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he broke – in the middle of Babylon he will die!

Say to them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: The prince will raise this burden in Jerusalem, ¹  and all the house of Israel within it.’ ² 

He took one of the seedlings ¹  of the land, placed it in a cultivated plot; ²  a shoot by abundant water, like a willow he planted it.

“‘As for you, profane and wicked prince of Israel, ¹  whose day has come, the time of final punishment,

that the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ¹  ‘The forces at your disposal ²  are now outside the walls fighting against King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and the Babylonians ³  who have you under siege. I will gather those forces back inside the city. ⁴ 

But in the seventh month ¹  Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah and grandson of Elishama who was a member of the royal family and had been one of Zedekiah’s chief officers, came with ten of his men to Gedaliah son of Ahikam at Mizpah. While they were eating a meal together with him there at Mizpah,

But the Babylonian army chased after the king. They caught up with him in the plains of Jericho, ¹  and his entire army deserted him.

Neither he nor the officials who served him nor the people of Judah paid any attention to what the Lord said through the prophet Jeremiah. ¹ 

They captured him and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah ¹  in the territory of Hamath and he passed sentence on him there.

He took one from the royal family, ¹  made a treaty with him, and put him under oath. ²  He then took the leaders of the land