The King James Version Bible

1 Esdras 1:44-53

  1. And reigned but three months and ten days in Jerusalem; and did evil before the Lord.

  2. So after a year Nabuchodonosor sent and caused him to be brought into Babylon with the holy vessels of the Lord;

  3. And made Zedechias king of Judea and Jerusalem, when he was one and twenty years old; and he reigned eleven years:

  4. And he did evil also in the sight of the Lord, and cared not for the words that were spoken unto him by the prophet Jeremy from the mouth of the Lord.

  5. And after that king Nabuchodonosor had made him to swear by the name of the Lord, he forswore himself, and rebelled; and hardening his neck, his heart, he transgressed the laws of the Lord God of Israel.

  6. The governors also of the people and of the priests did many things against the laws, and passed all the pollutions of all nations, and defiled the temple of the Lord, which was sanctified in Jerusalem.

  7. Nevertheless the God of their fathers sent by his messenger to call them back, because he spared them and his tabernacle also.

  8. But they had his messengers in derision; and, look, when the Lord spake unto them, they made a sport of his prophets:

  9. So far forth, that he, being wroth with his people for their great ungodliness, commanded the kings of the Chaldees to come up against them;

  10. Who slew their young men with the sword, yea, even within the compass of their holy temple, and spared neither young man nor maid, old man nor child, among them; for he delivered all into their hands.