Impending Judgment

¹Thus says the Lord : Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak this word there,

²and say: Hear the word of the Lord , O king of Judah who sits on the throne of David, you and your servants and your people who enter by these gates.[#Isa 9:7; Lk 1:32]

³Thus says the Lord : Execute justice and righteousness, and deliver the robbed out of the hand of the oppressor. And do no wrong or violence to the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place.[#Jer 21:12; #Jer 22:17]

⁴For if you indeed do these things, then kings sitting on the throne of David will enter by the gates of this house, riding in chariots and on horses, he and his servants and his people.[#Jer 17:25]

⁵But if you will not obey these words, I swear by Myself, says the Lord , that this house will become a desolation.[#Ge 22:16; Heb 6:13]

⁶For thus says the Lord to the king’s house of Judah:

You are Gilead to Me,

and the peak of Lebanon;

yet surely I will make you a wilderness

and cities which are not inhabited.

⁷I will prepare destroyers against you,

everyone with his weapons;

and they shall cut down your choice cedars

and cast them into the fire.

⁸Many nations will pass by this city, and every man will say to his neighbor, “Why has the Lord done thus to this great city?”[#1Ki 9:8–9; 2Ch 7:20–22]

⁹Then they will answer, “Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God, and worshipped other gods, and served them.”[#2Ki 22:17; 2Ch 34:25]

¹⁰Do not weep for the dead nor bemoan him,[#Ecc 4:2]

but weep constantly for him who goes away;

for he will return no more

nor see his native country.

¹¹For thus says the Lord concerning Shallum the son of Josiah king of Judah, who became king instead of Josiah his father, who went from this place: He will not return any more,[#1Ch 3:15; 2Ch 36:1–4]

¹²but will die in the place where they have led him captive and will see this land no more.[#2Ki 23:34; Jer 22:18]

¹³Woe to him who builds his house with unrighteousness

and his chambers with injustice,

who uses his neighbor’s services without wages,

and gives him nothing for his work,

¹⁴who says, “I will build myself a roomy house[#Isa 5:8–9]

and large chambers,”

and cuts out its windows,

paneling it with cedar

and painting it with vermilion.

¹⁵Do you reign

because you compete in cedar?

Did not your father eat and drink

and do justice and righteousness,

and then it was well with him?

¹⁶He judged the cause of the poor and needy;[#Ps 72:1–4, 12–13]

then it was well with him.

Is not this what it means to know Me?

says the Lord .

¹⁷But your eyes and your heart

are intent only on your covetousness

and on shedding innocent blood

and on oppression and violence.

¹⁸Therefore thus says the Lord concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah:

They will not lament for him, saying,

“Ah, my brother!” or, “Ah, sister!”

They will not lament for him, saying,

“Ah, lord!” or, “Ah, his glory!”

¹⁹He will be buried with the burial of a donkey,

drawn and cast out

beyond the gates of Jerusalem.

²⁰Go up to Lebanon and cry out,

and lift up your voice in Bashan,

and cry out from Abarim,

for all your lovers are destroyed.

²¹I spoke to you in your prosperity,

but you said, “I will not listen!”

This has been your manner from your youth,

that you have not obeyed My voice.

²²The wind will sweep away all your shepherds,

and your lovers shall go into captivity;

surely then you will be ashamed and humiliated

for all your wickedness.

²³O inhabitant of Lebanon,[#Jer 22:6]

who makes your nest in the cedars,

how you will groan when pangs come upon you,

the pain as of a woman in labor!

²⁴As I live, says the Lord , though Koniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet on My right hand, yet would I pluck you from there.[#Jer 37:1; #SS 8:6]

²⁵And I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life and into the hand of those whose face you fear, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of the Chaldeans.[#2Ki 24:15–16; Jer 21:7]

²⁶I will cast you and your mother that bore you out into another country where you were not born, and there you shall die.[#2Ki 24:8, 15]

²⁷But to the land where they desire to return, they will not return there.

²⁸Is this man Koniah a despised broken jar?[#Ps 31:12]

Is he a vessel in which is no desire?

Why are he and his seed cast out

and thrown into a land which they had not known?

²⁹O land, land, land,[#Jer 7:4]

hear the word of the Lord !

³⁰Thus says the Lord :

Write down this man childless,

a man who will not prosper in his days;

for no man of his seed shall prosper,

sitting on the throne of David

and ruling any more in Judah.