1Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king; he was king for eleven years in Jerusalem: and his mother's name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
2And he did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as Jehoiakim had done.
3And because of the wrath of the Lord this came about in Jerusalem and Judah, till he had sent them away from before him: and Zedekiah took up arms against the king of Babylon.
4And in the ninth year of his rule, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, came against Jerusalem with all his army and took up his position before it, building earthworks all round it.
5So the town was shut in by their forces till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.
6In the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the store of food in the town was almost gone, so that there was no food for the people of the land.
7Then an opening was made in the wall of the town, and all the men of war went in flight out of the town by night through the doorway between the two walls which was by the king's garden; (now the Chaldaeans were stationed round the town:) and they went by the way of the Arabah.
