r engines of war, but contrived
still different engines to oppose all the other withal, till indeed
there seemed to be an entire struggle between the Babylonians and the
people of Jerusalem, which had the greater sagacity and skill; the
former party supposing they should be thereby too hard for the other,
for the destruction of the city; the latter placing their hopes of
deliverance in nothing else but in persevering in such inventions in
opposition to the other, as might demonstrate the enemy's engines were
useless to them. And this siege they endured for eighteen months, until
they were destroyed by the famine, and by the darts which the enemy
threw at them from the towers.

2. Now the city was taken on the ninth day of the fourth month, in the
eleventh year of the reign of Zedekiah. They were indeed only generals
of the king of Babylon, to whom Nebuchadnezzar committed the care of the
siege, for he abode himself in the city of Riblah. The names of these
generals who ravaged and subdued Jerusalem, if any one desire to know
them, were these: Nergal Sharezer, Samgar Nebo, Rabsaris, Sorsechim,
and Rabmag. And when the city was taken about midnight, and the enemy's
generals were entered into the temple, and when Zedekiah was sensible
of it, he took his wives, and his children, and his captains, and his
friends, and with them fled out of the city, through the fortified
ditch, and through the desert; and when certain of the deserters had
informed the Babylonians of this, at break of day, they made haste
to pursue after Zedekiah, and overtook him not far from Jericho, and
encompassed him about. But for those friends and captains of Zedekiah
who had fled out of the city with him, when they saw their enemies near
them, they left him, and dispersed themselves, some one way, and some
another, and every one resolved to save himself; so the enemy took
Zedekiah alive, when he was deserted by all but a few, with his
children and his wives, and brought him to the king. When he was
come, Nebuchadnezzar began to call him a wicked wretch, and a
covenant-breaker, and one that had forgotten his former words, when he
promised to keep the country for him. He also reproached him for his
ingratitude, that when he had received the kingdom from him, who had
taken it from Jehoiachin, and given it to him, he had made use of the
power he gave him against him that gave it; "but," said he, "God is
great, who hated that conduct of thine, and hath bro