The Exile Begins
(Devastation & Hope)

Delivered by:  Rev. T.J. Campo

Scripture text: 2 Kings 25:1-10, 27-30

 1Now in the ninth year of his reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, camped against it and built a siege wall all around it.  2So the city was under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. 3On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. 4Then the city was broken into, and all the men of war fled by night by way of the gate between the two walls beside the king's garden, though the Chaldeans were all around the city. And they went by way of the Arabah.  5But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho and all his army was scattered from him.  6Then they captured the king and brought him to the king of Babylon at Riblah, and he passed sentence on him. 7They slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, then put out the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him with bronze fetters and brought him to Babylon. 8Now on the seventh day of the fifth month, which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.  9He burned the house of the LORD, the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; even every great house he burned with fire. 10So all the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down the walls around Jerusalem. 27Now it came about in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, that Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the year that he became king, released Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison;  28and he spoke kindly to him and set his throne above the throne of the kings who were with him in Babylon.  29Jehoiachin changed his prison clothes and had his meals in the king's presence regularly all the days of his life;  30and for his allowance, a regular allowance was given him by the king, a portion for each day, all the days of his life.