First Reading
2 Kings 25:1-12
Read this as the first big movement of the day. Notice what God is doing, who is speaking, and what part of the story or teaching should stay with you.
1And it happened in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, the tenth day of the month, that Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon came, he and all his army against Jerusalem: and they surrounded it: end raised works round about it.
2And the city was shut up and besieged till the eleventh year of king Sedecias,
3The ninth day of the month: and a famine prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land.
4And a breach was made into the city: and all the men of war fled in the night between the two walls by the king's garden, (now the Chaldees besieged the city round about,) and Sedecias fled by the way that leadeth to the plains of the wilderness.
5And the army of the Chaldees pursued after the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho: and all the warriors that were with him were scattered, and left him:
6So they took the king, and brought him to the king of Babylon to Reblatha, and he gave judgment upon him.
7And he slew the sons of Sedecias before his face, and he put out his eyes, and bound him with chains, and brought him to Babylon.
8In the fifth month, the seventh day of the month, that is, the nineteenth year of the king of Babylon, came Nabuzardan commander of the army, a servant of the king of Babylon, into Jerusalem.
9And he burnt the house of the Lord, and the king's house, and the houses of Jerusalem, and every house he burnt with fire.
10And all the army of the Chaldees, which was with the commander of the troops, broke down the walls of Jerusalem round about.
11And Nabuzardan the commander of the army, carried away the rest of the people that remained in the city, and the fugitives that had gone over to the king of Babylon, and the remnant of the common people.
12But of the poor of the land he left some dressers of vines and husbandmen.