Study Desk

The king stood by his pillar and made an agreement in the presence of the Lord to follow the Lord and obey his commands, rules, and laws with his whole being and to obey the words of the agreement written in this book.

The Levites taught the Israelites and were made holy for service to the Lord . Josiah said to them, "Put the Holy Ark in the Temple that David's son Solomon, the king of Israel, built. Do not carry it from place to place on your shoulders anymore. Now serve the Lord your God and his people Israel.

Prepare yourselves by your family groups for service, and do the jobs that King David and his son Solomon gave you to do.

Josiah gave the Israelites thirty thousand sheep and goats to kill for the Passover sacrifices, and he gave them three thousand cattle. They were all his own animals.

Conaniah, his brothers Shemaiah and Nethanel, and Hashabiah, Jeiel, and Jozabad gave the Levites five thousand sheep and goats and five hundred cattle for Passover sacrifices. These men were leaders of the Levites.

In the battle King Josiah was shot by archers. He told his servants, "Take me away because I am badly wounded."

So they took him out of his chariot and put him in another chariot and carried him to Jerusalem. There he died and was buried in the graves where his ancestors were buried. All the people of Judah and Jerusalem were very sad because he was dead.

The people of Judah chose Josiah's son Jehoahaz and made him king in Jerusalem in his father's place.

The king of Egypt made Jehoahaz's brother Eliakim the king of Judah and Jerusalem and changed his name to Jehoiakim. But Neco took his brother Jehoahaz to Egypt.

Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he was king in Jerusalem for eleven years. He did what the Lord his God said was wrong.

Nebuchadnezzar removed some of the things from the Temple of the Lord , took them to Babylon, and put them in his own palace.

The other things Jehoiakim did as king, the hateful things he did, and everything he was guilty of doing, are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah. And Jehoiakim's son Jehoiachin became king in his place.

Zedekiah did what the Lord his God said was wrong. The prophet Jeremiah spoke messages from the Lord , but Zedekiah did not obey.

The Lord , the God of their ancestors, sent prophets again and again to warn his people, because he had pity on them and on his Temple.

But they made fun of God's prophets and hated God's messages. They refused to listen to the prophets until, finally, the Lord became so angry with his people that he could not be stopped.

Nebuchadnezzar carried away to Babylon all the things from the Temple of God, both large and small, and all the treasures from the Temple of the Lord and from the king and his officers.

Nebuchadnezzar and his army set fire to God's Temple and broke down Jerusalem's wall and burned all the palaces. They took or destroyed every valuable thing in Jerusalem.

Nebuchadnezzar took captive to Babylon the people who were left alive, and he forced them to be slaves for him and his descendants. They remained there as slaves until the Persian kingdom defeated Babylon.

In the first year Cyrus was king of Persia, the Lord had Cyrus send an announcement to his whole kingdom. This happened so the Lord 's message spoken by Jeremiah would come true. He wrote:

This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: The Lord , the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has appointed me to build a Temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Now may the Lord your God be with all of you who are his people. You are free to go to Jerusalem.