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He says the son of Joachim, Jehoiachin, who is also Jeconiah, having reigned after his father, was relocated to Babylon along with the rest, as stated before. And he says Daniel and the three youths were of the present captivity. And he says this man was the husband of Susanna; and the account is plausible. And they confirm that Susanna was the daughter of Hilkiah the high priest, the one who found the book in the time of Josiah. Her brother was Jeremiah, as he says, and reasonably so. From these he says Jeconiah was born, whom the divine evangelist Matthew mentions. And he says the son of Jeconiah was Shealtiel, and of Shealtiel, Zerubbabel, and thus the genealogy of the savior descends from the priestly and royal tribe down to Joseph the just and the holy virgin and Theotokos. But he forbids that Shealtiel was born of Zedekiah, whom he also calls Jeconiah, as having become 261 an abomination to God; and reasonably so. But since the time of the four generations is divided into 68 years from the first year of Nebuchadnezzar to the first year of Cyrus, in which Zerubbabel led the redemption of the captivity, some rather suppose this Shealtiel to be the son of Jeconiah himself and Susanna, so that they might show Zerubbabel to be about twenty years old at the time of the recall. As the 19th king of Judah, Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim, also called Jehoiachin, reigned for 3 months, but others say 3 years, as also the holy Hippolytus. And it was the year of the world 4875. In his third year, he says, the first deportation occurred under Nebuchadnezzar, who moved him to Babylon with 10 thousand men, among whom he says Daniel and the three youths were also carried away. He says this one was Jehoiakim, the husband of Susanna. As the 20th king of Judah, Zedekiah reigned for 11 years. And it was the year of the world 4876. Africanus numbers the 70 years of the captivity from the first year of Zedekiah. In the 5th year of Zedekiah, and the 4th of the world, the great prophet Ezekiel began to prophesy. In the same fourth year of the captivity of Jehoiakim, Zedekiah declared to the captives in Babylon that after 70 years they would depart from Babylon according to the prophecy of Jeremiah.

Hananiah the false prophet, opposing Jeremiah, dies, at which time Ezekiel is prophesying in Babylon. In Jerusalem there were manumissions of slaves. Jeremiah, seeing the sons of Jonadab son of Rechab who had entered Jerusalem during the siege of Zedekiah not drinking wine nor living under a roof because of their father’s command, reproached the Jews for disobeying God and not even obeying their creator as these men obeyed their father. 262 Jeremiah the prophet, having gone out to a city of Benjamin to buy a field, was arrested by a certain Irijah, and was handed over to Zedekiah and confined in the prison. There, while prophesying the things that would happen to the city and the nation, he was thrown into a cistern. Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, a servant of Zedekiah, drew him up from the cistern, having prevailed upon the king. Zedekiah was brought to him and, having learned certain things from him for salvation, did not obey. And he was kept in the courtyard until the city was taken. KINGS OF THE CHALDEANS As the 17th king of the Chaldeans, Nebuchadnezzar reigned for 23 years. And it was the year of the world 4888. It is worthwhile to set forth a few things concerning Nebuchadnezzar and his father from Berossus, who says thus: When his father Nabopolassar heard that the satrap appointed in both Egypt and the regions around Coele-Syria and Phoenicia had become a rebel, being unable himself to endure hardship any longer, he entrusted certain parts of his force to his son Nebuchadnezzar and sent him against him. And Nebuchadnezzar, having engaged the rebel and drawn up in battle array, both defeated him and brought the country under their own rule from the beginning. And it happened that his father Nabopolassar, having fallen ill, departed this life, having reigned for 21 years. And Nebuchadnezzar, having learned of his father’s death not long after, having set in order the things