² He^[a] sent against him bands of the Chaldeans, bands of the Arameans, bands of the Moabites, and bands of the Ammonites; he sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by his servants the prophets.^(A)

³ Surely this came upon Judah at the command of the Lord, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, for all that he had committed,^(A)

¹² King Jehoiachin of Judah gave himself up to the king of Babylon: himself, his mother, his servants, his officers, and his palace officials. The king of Babylon took him prisoner in the eighth year of his reign.^(A)

Capture of Jerusalem

¹³ He carried off all the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king’s house; he cut in pieces all the vessels of gold in the temple of the Lord that King Solomon of Israel had made, all this as the Lord had foretold.^{(B) 14} He carried away all Jerusalem, all the officials, all the warriors, ten thousand captives, all the artisans and the smiths; no one remained except the poorest people of the land.^{(C) 15} He carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon; the king’s mother, the king’s wives, his officials, and the elite of the land, he took into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon.^{(D) 16} The king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon all the men of valor, seven thousand, the artisans and the smiths, one thousand, all of them strong and fit for war.^(E)

⁶ These are the people of the province who came up out of the captivity of those exiles whom King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had carried into exile; they returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his town.^(A)

Four Young Israelites at the Babylonian Court

1 In the third year of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.^{(A) 2} The Lord gave King Jehoiakim of Judah into his power, as well as some of the vessels of the house of God. These he brought to the land of Shinar,^[a] and he placed the vessels in the treasury of his gods.^(B)

³ Then the king commanded his palace master Ashpenaz to bring some of the Israelites of the royal family and of the nobility: