On the seventh day of the fifth month of Nebuchadnezzar’s nineteenth year as king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, who was the captain of the guard and an officer of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.
King Jehoiakin of Judah, his mother, officials, generals, and eunuchs surrendered to the king of Babylon. In the eighth year of his reign, the king of Babylon captured Jehoiakin.
On the tenth day of the tenth month of the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked Jerusalem with his entire army. They set up camp and built dirt ramps around the city walls.
On the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month of the thirty-seventh year of the imprisonment of King Jehoiakin of Judah, King Evil Merodach of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, freed King Jehoiakin of Judah from prison.
So he had the Babylonian king attack them and execute their best young men in their holy temple. He didn’t spare the best men or the unmarried women, the old people or the sick people. God handed all of them over to him.
But because our ancestors made the God of heaven angry, he handed them over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon (a Chaldean). So Nebuchadnezzar destroyed this temple and deported its people to Babylon.
“May the king live forever!” I said to the king. “Why shouldn’t I look sad when the city, the place where my ancestors are buried, is in ruins and its gates are burned down?”
This is what the Lord of Armies says: The fast in the fourth month, the fast in the fifth month, the fast in the seventh month, and the fast in the tenth month will become joyful and glad occasions as well as happy festivals for the nation of Judah. So love truth and peace.