¹¹ Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, took as exiles the rest of the people who remained in the city, the defectors who had declared their allegiance to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the population.

¹⁵ I will scatter you among the nations and purge you of your wickedness. ¹⁶ And when I have been dishonored among the nations because of you,^[a] you will know that I am the Lord.”

¹⁵ And when I scatter them among the nations, they will know that I am the Lord. ¹⁶ But I will spare a few of them from death by war, famine, or disease, so they can confess all their detestable sins to their captors. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

² Place a third of it at the center of your map of Jerusalem. After acting out the siege, burn it there. Scatter another third across your map and chop it with a sword. Scatter the last third to the wind, for I will scatter my people with the sword.

The Temple Destroyed

¹² On August 17 of that year,^[a] which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard and an official of the Babylonian king, arrived in Jerusalem.

⁹ Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, took as exiles to Babylon the rest of the people who remained in the city, those who had defected to him, and everyone else who remained.

Judah’s Inevitable Doom

15 Then the Lord said to me, “Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me pleading for these people, I wouldn’t help them. Away with them! Get them out of my sight! ² And if they say to you, ‘But where can we go?’ tell them, ‘This is what the Lord says:

²⁰ The few who survived were taken as exiles to Babylon, and they became servants to the king and his sons until the kingdom of Persia came to power.