Jeremiah 22

CAB^{(i) 1} Thus says the Lord: Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and you shall speak there this word, ² and you shall say, Hear the word of the Lord, O king of Judah, that sit on the throne of David; you, your house, your people, and those that go in at these gates. ³ Thus says the Lord: Execute judgment and justice, and rescue the spoiled out of the hand of him that wrongs him; and oppress not the stranger, the orphan, or widow, and sin not, and shed no innocent blood in this place. ⁴ For if you will indeed perform this word, then shall there enter in by the gates of this house kings sitting upon the throne of David, and riding on chariots and horses; they, their servants, and their people. ⁵ But if you will not perform these words, by Myself have I sworn, says the Lord, that this house shall be brought to desolation. ⁶ For thus says the Lord concerning the house of the king of Judah: You are Gilead to Me, and the head of Lebanon. Yet surely I will make you a desert, even cities that shall not be inhabited; ⁷ and I will bring upon you a destroying man, and his axe; and they shall cut down your choice cedars, and cast them into the fire. ⁸ And nations shall pass through this city, and each shall say to his neighbor, Why has the Lord done thus to this great city? ⁹ And they shall say, Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord their God, and worshipped strange gods, and served them. ¹⁰ Weep not for the dead, nor lament for him: weep bitterly for him that goes away; for he shall return no more, nor see his native land. ¹¹ For thus says the Lord concerning Shallum the son of Josiah, who reigns in the place of Josiah his father, who has gone forth out of this place; He shall not return here anymore. ¹² But in that place where I have carried him captive, there shall he die, and shall see this land no more. ¹³ Woe to him that builds his house by unrighteousness, and his upper chambers by injustice, who uses his neighbor's service without wages, and gives him nothing for his work. ¹⁴ You have built for yourself a well-proportioned house, with airy chambers, fitted with windows, and paneled with cedar, and painted with vermilion. ¹⁵ Shall you reign because you are provoked with your father Ahaz? They shall not eat, and they shall not drink: it is better for you to execute justice and righteousness. ¹⁶ They understood not, they judged not the cause of the afflicted, nor the cause of the poor — is not this your not knowing Me? Says the Lord. ¹⁷ Behold, your eyes are not good, nor your heart, but they go after your covetousness, and after the innocent blood to shed it, and after acts of injustice and slaughter, to commit them. ¹⁸ Therefore thus says the Lord concerning Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, even concerning this man: they shall not lament for him, saying, Ah brother! Neither shall they weep for him, saying, Alas Lord. ¹⁹ He shall be buried with the burial of a donkey; he shall be dragged roughly along and cast outside the gate of Jerusalem. ²⁰ Go up to Lebanon and cry; and utter your voice to Bashan, and cry aloud to the extremity of the sea: for all your lovers are destroyed. ²¹ I spoke to you on occasion of your trespass, but you said, I will not hearken. This has been your way from your youth, you have not hearkened to My voice. ²² The wind shall tend all your shepherds, and your lovers shall go into captivity; for then shall you be ashamed and disgraced because of all your lovers. ²³ O inhabitant of Lebanon, making your nest in the cedars, you shall groan heavily, when pangs as of a travailing woman have come upon you. ²⁴ As I live, says the Lord, though Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet ring upon My right hand, yet would I pluck you off; ²⁵ and I will deliver you into the hands of them that seek you life, before whom you are afraid, into the hands of the Chaldeans. ²⁶ And I will cast you out, and your mother that bore you, into a land where you were not born; and there you shall die. ²⁷ But they shall by no means return to the land which they long for in their souls. ²⁸ Jeconiah is dishonored as a good for nothing vessel; for he is thrown out and cast forth into a land which he knew not. ²⁹ O earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord! ³⁰ Write this man down as childless; for by no means shall his seed ever grow up to sit on the throne of David, or be as a prince yet in Judah.