1Thus said Yahweh: Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word,
2and 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 said Yahweh: Do justice and righteousness, and rescue the one who is robbed from the hand of the oppressor; and do not wrong or do violence to the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.
4For if you indeed do this word, then through the gates of this house shall enter kings sitting for David on his throne, riding in chariots and on horses — he, and his servants, and his people.
5But if you do not hear these words, by myself I have sworn — declares Yahweh — that this house shall become a desolation.
6For thus said Yahweh concerning the house of the king of Judah: You are Gilead to me, the summit of Lebanon; yet surely I will make you a wilderness, cities uninhabited.
7And I will consecrate destroyers against you, each with his weapons; and they will cut down the choicest of your cedars and cast them onto the fire.
8And many nations will pass by this city, and each will say to his neighbor: For what reason did Yahweh do thus to this great city?
9And they will say: Because they forsook the covenant of Yahweh their God, and bowed down to other gods and served them.
10Do not weep for the dead, and do not mourn for him; weep bitterly for the one who goes away, for he will return no more and will not see the land of his birth.
11For thus said Yahweh concerning Shallum son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned in place of Josiah his father, who went out from this place: He will not return here again.
12For in the place to which they exiled him, there he will die, and he will not see this land again.
13Woe to him who builds his house without righteousness, and his upper rooms without justice, who makes his neighbor work for nothing and does not give him his wages.
14who says, ‘I will build myself a spacious house with roomy upper chambers,’ and he cuts out for himself windows, paneling it with cedar and painting it with vermilion.
15Do you reign because you compete in cedar? Your father — did he not eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it went well for him.
16He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Is this not the knowing of me? — declares Yahweh.
17But your eyes and your heart are on nothing except your unjust gain, and on shedding innocent blood, and on oppression and on violence — to do it.
18Therefore thus said Yahweh concerning Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah: They will not lament for him, ‘Alas, my brother!’ or ‘Alas, sister!’ They will not lament for him, ‘Alas, lord!’ or ‘Alas, his majesty!’
19With the burial of a donkey he will be buried — dragged off and thrown out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.
20Go up to Lebanon and cry out, and in Bashan raise your voice; cry out from Abarim, for all your lovers are broken.
21I spoke to you in your times of ease; you said, ‘I will not listen.’ This has been your way from your youth — that you have not obeyed my voice.
22All your shepherds the wind will shepherd, and your lovers will go into captivity; then indeed you will be ashamed and humiliated because of all your evil.
23O dweller in Lebanon, nested among the cedars, how you will groan when pangs come upon you, writhing like a woman in labor!
24As I live — declares Yahweh — though Coniah son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were a signet ring on my right hand, yet from there I would tear you off.
25And I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life, into the hand of those before whom you dread, into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.
26And I will hurl you and your mother who bore you into another land, where you were not born, and there you will die.
27But to the land to which they long to return, there they will not return.
28Is this man Coniah a despised, shattered vessel, an object no one wants? Why are he and his offspring hurled out and cast into a land they do not know?
29O land, land, land — hear the word of Yahweh!
30Thus said Yahweh: Write this man down as childless, a man who will not prosper in his days; for none of his offspring will prosper, sitting on the throne of David and ruling again in Judah.
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