it, and erected towers against the walls.  But so strong were the fortifications that the inhabitants were able to stand a siege of eighteen months.  At the end of this time they were driven to desperation, and fought with the energy of despair.  They could resist battering rams, but they could not resist famine and pestilence.  After dreadful sufferings, the besieged found the soldiers of Chaldaea within their Temple, a breach in the walls having been made, and the stubborn city was taken by assault.  The few who were spared were carried away captive to Babylon with what spoil could be found, and the Temple and the walls were levelled to the ground.  The predictions of the prophets were fulfilled,—­the holy city was a heap of desolation.  Zedekiah, with his wives and children, had escaped through a passage made in the wall, at a corner of the city which the Chaldeans had not been able to invest, and made his way toward Jericho, but was overtaken and carried in chains to Riblah, where Nebuchadnezzar was encamped.  As he had broken a solemn oath to remain faithful, a severe judgment was pronounced upon him.  His courtiers and his sons were executed in his sight, his own eyes were put out, and then he was taken to Babylon, where he was made to work like a slave in a mill.  Thus ended the dynasty of David, in the year 588 B.C., about the time that Draco gave laws to Athens, and Tarquinius Priscus was king of Rome.

As for Jeremiah, during the siege of the city he fell into the power of the nobles, who beat him and imprisoned him in a dungeon.  The king was not able to release him, so low had the royal power sunk in that disastrous age; but he secretly befriended him, and asked his counsel.  The princes insisted on his removal to a place where no succor could reach him, and he was cast into a deep well from which the water was dried up, having at the bottom only slime and mud.  From this pit of misery he was rescued by one of the royal guards, and once again he had a secret interview with Zedekiah, and remained secluded in the palace until the city fell.  He was spared by the conqueror in view of his fidelity and his earnest efforts to prevent the rebellion, and perhaps also for his lofty character, the last of the great statesmen of Judah and the most distinguished man of the city.  Nebuchadnezzar gave him the choice, to accompany him to Babylon with the promise of high favor at his court, or remain at home among the few that were not deemed of sufficient importance to carry away.  Jeremiah preferred to remain amid the ruins of his country; for although Jerusalem was destroyed, the mountains and valleys remained, and the humble classes—­the peasants—­were left to cultivate the neglected vineyards and cornfields.

From Mizpeh, the city which he had selected as his last resting-place, Jeremiah was carried into Egypt, and his subsequent history is unknown.  According to tradition he was stoned to death by his fellow-exiles in Egypt.  He died as he had lived, a martyr for the truth, but left behind a great name and fame.  None of the prophets was more venerated in after-ages.  And no one more than he resembled, in his sufferings and life, that greater Prophet and Sage who was led as a lamb to the slaughter, that the world through him might be saved.