6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria ^acaptured Samaria, ^band he carried the Israelites away to Assyria ^cand placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of ^dGozan, and in the cities of ^ethe Medes.

7 And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, ^fwho had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods 8 ^gand walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel, ^hand in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced. 9 And the people of Israel did secretly against the Lord their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their towns, ⁱfrom watchtower to fortified city. 10 They set up for themselves ^jpillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree, 11 and there they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the Lord carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the Lord to anger, 12 and they served idols, ^kof which the Lord had said to them, “You shall not do this.” 13 Yet the Lord ^lwarned Israel and Judah ^mby every prophet ⁿand every seer, saying, ^o“Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the Law that I commanded your fathers, and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”

14 But they would not listen, ^pbut were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God. 15 They despised his statutes ^qand his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after ^rfalse idols ^sand became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the ^tLord had commanded them that they should not do like them. 16 And they abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made for themselves metal images of ^utwo calves; and they ^vmade an Asherah and ^wworshiped all the host of heaven and served ^xBaal. 17 ^yAnd they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings¹ and used ^zdivination and ^aomens and ^bsold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. 18 Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but ^cthe tribe of Judah only.

19 ^dJudah also did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced. 20 And the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel and afflicted them ^eand gave them into the hand of plunderers, until he had cast them out of his sight.

21 ^fWhen he had torn Israel from the house of David, ^gthey made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. And Jeroboam drove Israel from following the Lord ^hand made them commit great sin. 22 The people of Israel walked in all the sins that Jeroboam did. They did not depart from them, 23 until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight, ⁱas he had spoken by all his servants the prophets. ^jSo Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day.

1 ^uAnd in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, ^vNebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem and laid siege to it. ^wAnd they built siegeworks all around it. 2 So the city was besieged till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. 3 On the ninth day of the fourth month ^xthe famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. 4 Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, by ^ythe king’s garden, and ^zthe Chaldeans were around the city. And they went in the direction of the ^aArabah. 5 But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho, and all his army was scattered from him. 6 Then they captured the king ^band brought him up to the king of Babylon at ^cRiblah, and they passed sentence on him. 7 They slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, ^dand put out the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him in chains and took him to Babylon.

8 ^eIn the fifth month, on ^fthe seventh day of the month—that was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon—Nebuzaradan, the captain of the bodyguard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. 9 ^gAnd he burned the house of the Lord ^hand the king’s house and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down. 10 And all the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, ⁱbroke down the walls around Jerusalem. 11 ^jAnd the rest of the people who were left in the city and the deserters who had deserted to the king of Babylon, together with the rest of the multitude, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile. 12 But the captain of the guard left ^ksome of the poorest of the land to be vinedressers and plowmen.

13 ^lAnd the pillars ^mof bronze that were in the house of the Lord, and ⁿthe stands and ^othe bronze sea that were in the house of the Lord, the Chaldeans broke in pieces and carried the bronze to Babylon. 14 ^pAnd they took away the pots and the shovels and the snuffers and the dishes for incense and all the vessels of bronze used in the temple service, 15 the fire pans also and the bowls. What was of gold the captain of the guard took away as gold, and what was of silver, as silver. 16 As for the two pillars, the one sea, and the stands that Solomon had made for the house of the Lord, ^qthe bronze of all these vessels was beyond weight. 17 ^rThe height of the one pillar was eighteen cubits,¹ and on it was a capital of bronze. The height of the capital was three cubits. A latticework and pomegranates, all of bronze, were all around the capital. And the second pillar had the same, with the latticework.

18 ^sAnd the captain of the guard took ^tSeraiah the chief priest and ^uZephaniah the second priest and the three keepers of the threshold; 19 and from the city he took an officer who had been in command of the men of war, and ^vfive men of the king’s council who were found in the city; and the secretary of the commander of the army, who mustered the people of the land; and sixty men of the people of the land, who were found in the city. 20 And Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at ^wRiblah. 21 And the king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death at ^wRiblah in the land of Hamath. ^xSo Judah was taken into exile out of its land.