Study Desk

With you I shatter the shepherd and his flock; with you I shatter the farmer and his oxen; with you I shatter the governors and officials.

One courier races to meet another, and messenger follows messenger, to announce to the king of Babylon that his city has been captured from end to end.

"Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has devoured me; he has crushed me. He has set me aside like an empty vessel; he has swallowed me like a monster; he filled his belly with my delicacies and vomited me out.

Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. His mother's name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah.

For because of the anger of the LORD, all this happened in Jerusalem and Judah, until He finally banished them from His presence. And Zedekiah also rebelled against the king of Babylon.

So in the ninth year of Zedekiah's reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his entire army. They encamped outside the city and built a siege wall all around it.

but the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, and all his army was separated from him.

There at Riblah the king of Babylon slaughtered Zedekiah's sons before his eyes, and he also killed all the officials of Judah.

Then he put out Zedekiah's eyes, bound him in bronze shackles and took him to Babylon, where he kept him in custody until his dying day.

He spoke kindly to Jehoiachin and set his throne above the thrones of the other kings with him in Babylon.

So Jehoiachin changed his prison clothes, and he dined regularly at the king's table for the rest of his days.

And the king of Babylon allotted to him a daily portion for the rest of his life, until the day of his death.

Is this nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see! Is there any sorrow like mine, which was inflicted on me, which the LORD made me suffer on the day of His fierce anger?

My transgressions are bound into a yoke, knit together by His hand; they have come upon my neck, and the Lord has broken my strength. He has handed me over to those I cannot withstand.

Zion stretches out her hands, but there is no one to comfort her. The LORD has decreed against Jacob that his neighbors become his foes. Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.

The LORD is righteous, for I have rebelled against His command. Listen, all you people; look upon my suffering. My young men and maidens have gone into captivity.

How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion with His cloud of anger! He has cast the glory of Israel from heaven to earth. He has abandoned His footstool in the day of His anger.

Without pity the Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob. In His wrath He has demolished the fortified cities of the Daughter of Judah. He brought to the ground and defiled her kingdom and its princes.

He has cut off every horn of Israel in His fierce anger and withdrawn His right hand at the approach of the enemy. He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire that consumes all around it.

He has bent His bow like an enemy; His right hand is positioned. Like a foe He has killed all who were pleasing to the eye; He has poured out His wrath like fire on the tent of the Daughter of Zion.