Jeremiah 22

¹Thus says Yahweh: “Go down to the house of the king of Judah and you must speak this word there.

²And you must say, ‘Hear the word of Yahweh, O king of Judah, who sits on the throne of David, you, and your servants, and your people who enter through these gates.

³Thus says Yahweh, “Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver the one who has been seized from the hand of the oppressor. And you must not oppress the immigrant, the orphan, and the widow. And you must not shed innocent blood in this place.

⁴And if you indeed obey this word, then kings who sit for David on his throne will enter through the gates of this house, riding in chariots and on horses, he, and his servants, and his people.[#Hebrew “chariot”]

⁵But if you do not obey these words, I swear by myself,” declares Yahweh, “that this house will become a site of ruins.” ’ ”[#Literally “a declaration of”]

⁶For thus says Yahweh concerning the house of the king of Judah,

“You are like Gilead to me,

Surely I will make you a desert,

⁷And I will consecrate against you destroyers,

and they will cut down your choicest cedars,

⁸And many nations will pass by this city and they will say each one to his neighbor, ‘Why has Yahweh done in this manner to this great city?’[#Literally “Over what”]

⁹Then they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned the covenant of Yahweh their God, and bowed down in worship to other gods, and served them.’ ”

¹⁰You must not weep for the dead person,

Weep bitterly for the one who goes away,

¹¹For thus says Yahweh concerning Shallum, the son of Josiah, the king of Judah, who reigned as king in place of Josiah his father, who went out from this place: “He will not return here again.

¹²But in the place where they have deported him, there he will die, and he will not see this land again.

¹³Woe to the one who builds his house without righteousness,

His fellow countryman, he works for nothing,

¹⁴Who says ‘I will build for myself

and he cuts windows for it,

¹⁵Do you reign as king because you are competing in cedar?

and he did justice and righteousness,

¹⁶He judged the legal cause of the needy and the poor,

¹⁷“But there is nothing in your eyes and your heart

and on shedding the blood of the innocent,

¹⁸Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, the king of Judah:[#Literally “To thus”]

“They will not lament for him,

They will not lament for him,

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

²⁰Go up to Lebanon and cry out,

and cry out from Abarim,

²¹I spoke to you in the times you were secure,[#Literally “in your security”]

This was your way from your youth,

²²All your shepherds will shepherd the wind,

Yes, then you will be ashamed and humiliated

²³Inhabitants of Lebanon,[#Hebrew “Inhabitant”]

how you will groan when labor pains come to you,

²⁴“As I live,” declares Yahweh, “surely if Coniah, the son of Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, were the seal on my right hand, surely from there I would wrench you off.[#Literally “a declaration of”]

²⁵And I would give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of those from whom you are frightened by their presence, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.

²⁶And I will throw you and your mother who gave birth to you to another country where you were not born, and there you will die.

²⁷As for the land to which they are longing to return, they will not return.[#Literally “lifting their inner self”]

²⁸Is this man Coniah a despised, shattered vessel?

Why are he and his offspring thrown far,

²⁹O land, land, land, hear the word of Yahweh.

³⁰Thus says Yahweh:

“Record this man as childless,

for no man from his offspring will succeed him,