Immerse: Prophets - Flipbook - Page 320
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IMMERSE
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PROPHETS
51:60–52:13
says the King, whose name is
the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says:
“The thick walls of Babylon will be leveled to the ground,
and her massive gates will be burned.
The builders from many lands have worked in vain,
for their work will be destroyed by fire!”
The prophet Jeremiah gave this message to Seraiah son of Neriah and
grandson of Mahseiah, a staff officer, when Seraiah went to Babylon with
King Zedekiah of Judah. This was during the fourth year of Zedekiah’s
reign. Jeremiah had recorded on a scroll all the terrible disasters that would
soon come upon Babylon—all the words written here. He said to Seraiah,
“When you get to Babylon, read aloud everything on this scroll. Then say,
‘Lord, you have said that you will destroy Babylon so that neither people
nor animals will remain here. She will lie empty and abandoned forever.’
When you have finished reading the scroll, tie it to a stone and throw it into
the Euphrates River. Then say, ‘In this same way Babylon and her people
will sink, never again to rise, because of the disasters I will bring upon her.’”
This is the end of Jeremiah’s messages.
Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned
in Jerusalem eleven years. His mother was Hamutal, the daughter of Jer
emiah from Libnah. But Zedekiah did what was evil in the Lord’s sight,
just as Jehoiakim had done. These things happened because of the Lord’s
anger against the people of Jerusalem and Judah, until he finally banished
them from his presence and sent them into exile.
Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. So on January 15, during
the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon led
his entire army against Jerusalem. They surrounded the city and built siege
ramps against its walls. Jerusalem was kept under siege until the eleventh
year of King Zedekiah’s reign.
By July 18 in the eleventh year of Zedekiah’s reign, the famine in the city
had become very severe, and the last of the food was entirely gone. Then a
section of the city wall was broken down, and all the soldiers fled. Since the
city was surrounded by the Babylonians, they waited for nightfall. Then
they slipped through the gate between the two walls behind the king’s
garden and headed toward the Jordan Valley.
But the Babylonian troops chased King Zedekiah and overtook him on
