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stripped city

Jeremiah 52:12-30 (JDV)

Jeremiah 52:12 On the tenth day of the fifth month – which was during the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon – Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guards, entered Jerusalem as the representative of the king of Babylon.
Jeremiah 52:13 He burned Yahveh’s temple, the king’s palace, all the houses of Jerusalem; he burned down all the great houses.
Jeremiah 52:14 The whole Chaldean army with the captain of the guards tore down all the walls surrounding Jerusalem.
Jeremiah 52:15 Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guards, deported some of the poorest of the people, as well as the rest of the people who remained in the city, the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the craftsmen.
Jeremiah 52:16 But Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guards, left some of the poorest of the land to be vintners and farmers.
Jeremiah 52:17 Now the Chaldeans broke into pieces the bronze pillars for Yahveh’s temple and the water carts and the bronze basin that were in Yahveh’s temple, and they carried all that bronze to Babylon.
Jeremiah 52:18 They also took the pots, shovels, wick trimmers, sprinkling basins, dishes, and all the bronze articles used in the temple service.
Jeremiah 52:19 The captain of the guards took away the bowls, fire-pans, sprinkling basins, pots, lamp-stands, pans, and drink offering bowls – whatever was gold or silver.
Jeremiah 52:20 As for the two pillars, the one basin, with the twelve bronze oxen under it, and the water carts that King Solomon had made for Yahveh’s temple, the weight of the bronze of all these articles was not countable.
Jeremiah 52:21 One pillar was 27 feet tall, had a circumference of 18 feet, was hollow – four fingers thick –
Jeremiah 52:22 and had a bronze capital on top of it. One capital, encircled by bronze grating and pomegranates, stood 7 1/2 feet high. The second pillar was the same, with pomegranates.
Jeremiah 52:23 Each capital had ninety-six pomegranates on the winds. All the pomegranates around the grating numbered one hundred.
Jeremiah 52:24 The captain of the guards also took away Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest of the second rank, and the three doorkeepers.
Jeremiah 52:25 From the city he took a court official who had been appointed over the warriors; seven trusted royal aides found in the city; the secretary of the commander of the army, who enlisted the people of the land for military duty; and sixty men from the common people who were found within the city.
Jeremiah 52:26 Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guards, took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah.
Jeremiah 52:27 The king of Babylon put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah went into exile from its land.
Jeremiah 52:28 These are the people Nebuchadnezzar deported: in the seventh year, 3,023 Jews;
Jeremiah 52:29 in his eighteenth year, 832 people from Jerusalem;
Jeremiah 52:30 in Nebuchadnezzar’s twenty-third year, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guards, deported 745 Jews. Altogether, 4,600 people were deported.

stripped city

The devastation of Jerusalem was unthinkable. It’s buildings and temple courts were stripped bare, its citizens deported, its officials captured and killed.

The chronicler of this disaster writes as though he is weeping at his parchment. Yes, it was allowed by God, but that does not mean that the Babylonian empire could escape justice when it was time to pay for what they did.

There are many injustices taking place all around us this day, and God’s Holy Spirit is aware of them all. Nothing is hidden from Him. Nothing will escape his judgment.

If you are experiencing injustice, betrayal, abandonment, abuse — you can be sure that our Lord knows it.

Lord, we choose to trust you through the times of injustice, and hope for restoration in the future.

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