“So they took the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he pronounced judgment on him.  Then the king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. And he killed all the princes of Judah in Riblah.  He also put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in bronze fetters, took him to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death.” – Jeremiah 52 

After eliminating the last Assyrian holdouts, King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon warred against Egypt over control of the Levant.  Repeated Judean defiance resulted in the sacking of Jerusalem.  Cyaxares of Medea found his Anatolian designs curtailed by the powerful kingdom of Lydia.