ding innocent blood, for Jehovah
has indeed sent me to you to tell you all these things."

Then the officials and all the people said to the priests and to the
prophets, "This man does not deserve to die, for he has spoken to us in
the name of Jehovah our God." Certain of the elders of the land rose and
said to the assembly of the people, "Micah prophesied in the days when
Hezekiah ruled over Judah, and said to the people of Judah, 'Jehovah of
hosts says:

"Zion shall be ploughed as a field,
Jerusalem shall become a ruin,
The temple-mount an overgrown hill."'

"Did Hezekiah and the people of Judah put him to death? Did they not
rather fear Jehovah and ask him to forgive them, so that he did not do
the evil things that he had threatened to do to them? But we are in
danger of doing great harm to ourselves?"

THE SAD FATE OF A GUILTY NATION

Jerusalem was taken in the eleventh year of the rule of Zedekiah, on the
ninth day of the fourth month. An opening was made through the walls,
and all the princes of the king of Babylon came and sat in the middle
gate. When Zedekiah, the ruler of Judah, and all the warriors saw them,
they fled and left the city by night by the way of the royal garden,
through the gate between the two walls, and went out toward the Arabah.
But the army of the Chaldeans followed them and captured Zedekiah on
the plains of Jericho. Then they brought him up to Nebuchadrezzar, king
of Babylon, who was then at Riblah in the land of Hamath. And the king
of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. And the king of
Babylon put to death all the nobles of Judah. Moreover, he put out
Zedekiah's eyes and bound him in chains to carry him to Babylon.

In the nineteenth year of the reign of Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon,
Nebuzaradan, the commander of the body-guard, an officer of the king of
Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He burned the temple of Jehovah and the
royal palace and all the houses in Jerusalem. All the soldiers of the
Chaldeans, who were with the commander of the body-guard, broke down the
walls around Jerusalem. The rest of the people who were left in the city
and the deserters who had gone over to the king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan
carried away captive. But he left some of the poorest of the people to
take care of the vineyards and farms.

The pillars of brass that were in the temple of Jehovah, and the stands
and the bronze sea that were in the temple of Jehov