Upon ascending to the throne, Nebuchadnezzar spoke to the gods, in his inaugural address, saying, “O merciful Marduk, may the house that I have built endure forever, may I be satiated with its splendor, attain old age therein, with abundant offspring, and receive therein tribute of the kings of all regions, from all mankind” and it would seem the gods heard his prayer in that, under his reign, Babylon became the most powerful city-state in the region and Nebuchadnezzar II himself the greatest warrior-king and ruler in the known world. He is portrayed in unflattering light in the Bible, most notably in the Book of Daniel and the Book of Jeremiah (where he is seen as an 'enemy of God’ and one whom the deity of the Israelites intends to make an example of or, conversely, the agent of God used as a scourge against the faithless followers of Yahweh). Those portraits notwithstanding, Nebuchadnezzar II was most certainly responsible for the so-called Babylonian Exile of the Jews and, so, for the formation of modern-day Judaism (in that, the temple destroyed, the Priestly class of the Levites of the Jews had to re-create their religion “in a foreign land” as recounted famously in Psalm 137 from the Bible, and elsewhere).