Then King Jehoiachin of Judah, his mother, his courtiers, his officials, and his eunuchs surrendered to the king of Babylon. So the king of Babylon took him captive in the eighth year of his reign.
So he deported Jehoiachin to Babylon, along with the king’s mother, the king’s wives, his officials and the notables of the land—he deported all as captives from Jerusalem to Babylon.
His prayer also, and how God was moved by his entreaty, all his sin and his unfaithfulness, and the sites on which he built high places and erected the Asherah poles and the carved images before he humbled himself, behold, they are written in the records of Hozai.
So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, “This is what Adonai, the God of the Hebrews, says: How long would you refuse to humble yourself before Me? Let My people go, so they may serve Me.
Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans. For you will no more be called tender and delicate.
(after Jeconiah the king, the queen-mother, the officers, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, and the craftsmen and the smiths, had to leave Jerusalem). The letter was sent
All her splendor has departed, from the daughter of Zion. Her princes are like stags that find no pasture. They have fled without strength before the pursuer.
Her uncleanness was in her skirts. She did not consider her future. Her demise was astonishing, there was no one to comfort her. “Adonai, see my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!”
The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground in silence. They threw dust on their heads and girded themselves with sackcloth. The maidens of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.
For the king of Babylon stands at the fork in the road, at the start of the two roads, to seek divination. He shakes the arrows, consults the idols, he looks in the liver.
Sigh silently, do not observe mourning for the dead, keep your turban fastened, and keep your sandals on your feet. Do not cover your upper lip or eat the bread of mourners.”
Your turbans will remain on your heads and your shoes on your feet—you will not lament or weep. But you will pine away in your iniquities and groan to each other.