Ezra 4:12

³At the same time Tattenai, the governor beyond the River, came to them, with Shetharbozenai and their companions, and asked them, “Who gave you a decree to build this house and to finish this wall?”

¹³He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God; but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart against turning to the LORD, the God of Israel.

⁹Then we asked those elders, and said to them thus, “Who gave you a decree to build this house, and to finish this wall?”

³For through the LORD’s anger this happened in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence. Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

³⁴“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, like a hen gathers her own brood under her wings, and you refused!

¹³Therefore subject yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether to the king, as supreme, ¹⁴or to governors, as sent by him for vengeance on evildoers and for praise to those who do well. ¹⁵For this is the will of God, that by well-doing you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.

²⁰You say (but they are but vain words), ‘There is counsel and strength for war.’ Now on whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?

¹²“Say now to the rebellious house, ‘Don’t you know what these things mean?’ Tell them, ‘Behold, the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem, and took its king, and its princes, and brought them to him to Babylon. ¹³He took one of the royal offspring,^[+] and made a covenant with him. He also brought him under an oath, and took away the mighty of the land, ¹⁴that the kingdom might be brought low, that it might not lift itself up, but that by keeping his covenant it might stand. ¹⁵But he rebelled against him in sending his ambassadors into Egypt, that they might give him horses and many people. Will he prosper? Will he who does such things escape? Will he break the covenant, and still escape?

¹⁶“‘As I live,’ says the Lord GOD, ‘surely in the place where the king dwells who made him king, whose oath he despised, and whose covenant he broke, even with him in the middle of Babylon he will die. ¹⁷Pharaoh with his mighty army and great company won’t help him in the war, when they cast up mounds and build forts to cut off many persons. ¹⁸For he has despised the oath by breaking the covenant; and behold, he had given his hand, and yet has done all these things. He won’t escape.

¹⁹“Therefore the Lord GOD says: ‘As I live, I will surely bring on his own head my oath that he has despised and my covenant that he has broken. ²⁰I will spread my net on him, and he will be taken in my snare. I will bring him to Babylon, and will enter into judgment with him there for his trespass that he has trespassed against me. ²¹All his fugitives in all his bands will fall by the sword, and those who remain will be scattered toward every wind. Then you will know that I, the LORD, have spoken it.’

²They began to accuse him, saying, “We found this man perverting the nation, forbidding paying taxes to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king.”

³Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” He answered him, “So you say.”

⁴Pilate said to the chief priests and the multitudes, “I find no basis for a charge against this man.”

⁵But they insisted, saying, “He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee even to this place.”

¹⁵that search may be made in the book of the records of your fathers. You will see in the book of the records, and know that this city is a rebellious city, and hurtful to kings and provinces, and that they have started rebellions within it in the past. That is why this city was destroyed.