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📚In his days Nebuchadnezzar 📖, king of Babylon, came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant for three years. Then he turned and rebelled against him. 2 📚And the LORD sent 📖 against him raiding bands of the Chaldeans 📖 and bands of the Syrians and bands of the Moabites and bands of the children of Ammon; and he sent them against Judah to destroy it, in accordance with the word of the LORD which he spoke through his servants the prophets 📖. 3 📚Surely this came on Judah at the command of the LORD, to remove them out of his sight, because of the sins of Manasseh 📖, for all that he did, 4 📚and also for the innocent blood that he shed. For he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, which the LORD would not pardon.24:4 2 Kings 21:16. The blood of those godly people cried from the ground for vengeance (compare Gen 4:10), and God could not ignore it. God is merciful and ready, yes, eager, to forgive when men repent and seek Him (Ex 34:6-7; Isa 55:7-8). But the people of Judah did not repent.⚜
5 📚Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of The Annals 📖 of the Kings of Judah? 6 📚So Jehoiakim 📖 slept 📖 with his ancestors, and his son Jehoiachin reigned in his place.
7 📚And the king of Egypt no longer came again out of his land, for the king of Babylon had taken all that had been in the possession of the king of Egypt from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates.
24:7 The territory mentioned here was not in Egypt itself but was controlled by Egypt.⚜
Judah’s evil king Jehoiachin, the first deportation of the Jews to Babylon
8 📚Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. And his mother’s name was Nehushta. She was the daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem. 9 And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, in everything just as his father had done.
10 📚At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against Jerusalem, and the city was besieged. 11 And Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came against the city, and his servants besieged it. 12 📚And Jehoiachin, the king of Judah, went out to the king of Babylon, he and his mother and his servants and his officials and his officers; and the king of Babylon took him in the eighth year 📖 of his reign. 13 📚And he carried out from there all the treasures of the house of the LORD and the treasures of the king’s house, and cut in pieces all the articles of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the LORD, as the LORD had said. 14 📚And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the officials and all the valiant warriors, ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths. No one remained except the poorest people of the land.
15 📚And he carried Jehoiachin away to Babylon, and he took into captivity the king’s mother and the king’s wives and his officers and the mighty men of the land, from Jerusalem to Babylon. 16 📚And the king of Babylon took captive to Babylon all the mighty men, seven thousand in number, and a thousand craftsmen and smiths, all who were strong and fit for war. 17 📚And the king of Babylon made Jehoiachin’s uncle Mattaniah king in his place, and changed his name to Zedekiah.
18 📚Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Hamutal. She was the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
24:18 597-586 B.C.⚜
19 📚And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, in everything just as Jehoiakim had done. 20 📚For through the anger 📖 of the LORD it came about that until he had cast them out of his presence, in Jerusalem and Judah, Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.