A Warning for Judah’s Kings
1 The Lord said, “Go down to the house of the king of Judah and speak this word there: 2 ‘Hear the word of the Lord, king of Judah, who sits on the throne of David–you, your servants, and your people who enter in by these gates. 3 This is what the Lord says: Execute justice and righteousness, and deliver him who is robbed from the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong. Do no violence to the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow. Do not shed innocent blood in this place.
4 If you do this, then kings sitting on the throne of David will indeed enter in by the gates of this house, riding in chariots and on horses, he, his servants and his people. 5 But if you will not hear these words, I swear by myself,” says the Lord, “that this house will become a desolation.’ ”
A Warning about the Palace
6 For the Lord says concerning the house of the king of Judah:
“You are Gilead to me,
the head of Lebanon,
yet surely I will make you a wilderness,
cities which are not inhabited.
7 I will prepare destroyers against you,
everyone with his weapons,
and they will cut down your choice cedars
and cast them into the fire.
8 “Many nations will pass by this city, and they will each ask his neighbor, ‘Why has the Lord done this to this great city?’ 9 Then they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord their God, worshiped other gods and served them.’ ”
A Warning about Jehoahaz
10 Do not weep for the dead.
Do not bemoan him,
but weep bitterly for him who is exiled,
for he will never return,
or see his native country.
11 For the Lord says concerning Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, and who went out of this place, “He will not return there ever again. 12 But he will die in the place where they have led him captive. He will never see this land again.”
A Warning about Jehoiakim
13 “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness
and his rooms by injustice,
who uses his neighbor’s service without wages
and does not give him his hire,
14 who says, ‘I will build myself a big house with spacious rooms,’
and cuts out windows for himself,
with a cedar ceiling
and painted with red.
15 Do you reign, because you strive to excel in cedar?
Did your father not eat and drink?
He acted with justice and righteousness,
and it went well with him.
16 He judged the cause of the poor and needy,
so it was well, then.
Is this not what it means to know me?” says the Lord.
17 But your eyes and your heart are set on nothing
except your own covetousness,
for shedding innocent blood,
for oppression and for doing violence.”
18 Therefore the Lord says concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah:
“They will not lament for him,
saying, ‘Alas, my brother!’ or, ‘Alas, my sister!’
They will not lament for him,
saying ‘Alas, my lord!’ or, ‘Alas, his glory!’
19 He will be buried with the burial of a donkey,
drawn and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.
20 Go up to Lebanon and cry.
Raise your voice in Bashan
and cry from Abarim,
for all your lovers have been destroyed.
21 I spoke to you in your prosperity,
but you said, ‘I will not listen.’
This has been your way from your youth,
that you did not obey my voice.
22 The wind will feed all your shepherds,
and your lovers will go into captivity.
Surely then you will be ashamed
and confounded for all your wickedness.
23 Inhabitant of Lebanon,
who makes your nest in the cedars,
how greatly pitied you will be
when pangs come on you,
the pain as of a woman in labor!”
A Warning for Jehoiachin
24 “As surely as I live,” says the Lord, “though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet on my right hand, I would still uproot you from there. 25 I would give you into the hand of those who seek your life and into the hand of those you fear, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of the Chaldeans. 26 I will cast you out with your mother who bore you, into another country where you were not born, and there you will die. 27 But to the land to which they long to return, there they will not return.”
28 Is this man Coniah a despised broken vessel?
Is he a vessel in which no one delights?
Why are they cast out, he and his offspring
and cast into a land which they do not know?
29 O earth, earth, earth,
hear the word of the Lord!
30 The Lord says,
“Record this man as childless,
a man who will not prosper in his days,
for no longer will a man of his offspring prosper,
sitting on the throne of David
and ruling in Judah.”