Friday of the 12th Week in Ordinary Time

1 And in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezʹzar king of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem, and laid siege to it; and they built siegeworks against it round about. 2 So the city was besieged till the eleventh year of King Zedekiʹah. 3 On 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. 4 Then a breach was made in the city; the king with all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, by the king’s garden, though the Chaldeʹans were around the city. And they went in the direction of the Arabah. 5 But the army of the Chaldeʹans 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, and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, who passed sentence upon him. 7 They slew the sons of Zedekiʹah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiʹah, and bound him in fetters, and took him to Babylon. 8 In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month—which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezʹzar, king of Babylon—Nebuʹzaradʹan, the captain of the bodyguard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. 9 And he burned the house of the LORD, and the king’s house and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down. 10 And all the army of the Chaldeʹans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down the walls around Jerusalem. 11 And 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, Nebuʹzaradʹan the captain of the guard carried into exile. 12 But the captain of the guard left some of the poorest of the land to be vinedressers and plowmen.