A Warning for Judah's Kings

1Thus said Yahweh: Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word, 2Say, Hear the word of Yahweh, king of Judah, who sits on the throne of David, you, and your servants, and your people who enter in by these gates. 3Thus says Yahweh: Execute justice and righteousness, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence, to the foreigner, the fatherless, nor the widow; neither shed innocent blood in this place. 4For if you do this thing indeed, then shall there enter in by the gates of this house kings sitting on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, he, and his servants, and his people. 5But if you will not hear these words, I swear by myself, says Yahweh, that this house shall become a desolation.

A Warning about the Palace

6For thus says Yahweh 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 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 shall pass by this city, and they shall say every man to his neighbor, Why has Yahweh done thus to this great city? 9Then they shall answer, Because they forsook the covenant of Yahweh their God, and worshiped other gods, and served them.

A Warning about Jehoahaz

10Don't weep for the dead, neither bemoan him; but weep bitterly for him who goes away; for he shall return no more, nor see his native country.

11For thus says Yahweh touching Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, [and] who went forth out of this place: He shall not return there any more. 12But in the place where they have led him captive, there shall he die, and he shall see this land no more.

A Warning about Jehoiakim

13Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his rooms by injustice; who uses his neighbor's service without wages, and doesn't give him his hire;

14who says, I will build me a wide house and spacious rooms, and cuts him out windows; and it is ceiling with cedar, and painted with vermilion.

15Shall you reign, because you strive to excel in cedar? Didn't your father eat and drink, and do justice and righteousness? then it was well with him.

16He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Wasn't this to know me? says Yahweh.

17But your eyes and your heart are not but for your covetousness, and for shedding innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it.

18Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah: they shall not lament for him, [saying], Ah my brother! or, Ah sister! They shall not lament for him, [saying] Ah lord! or, Ah his glory!

19He shall be buried with the burial of a donkey, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.

20Go up to Lebanon, and cry; and lift up your voice in Bashan, and cry from Abarim; for all your lovers are destroyed.

21I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said, I will not hear. This has been your way from your youth, that you didn't obey my voice.

22The wind shall feed all your shepherds, and your lovers shall go into captivity: surely then you will be ashamed and confounded for all your wickedness.

23Inhabitant of Lebanon, who makes your nest in the cedars, how greatly to be pitied you will be when pangs come on you, the pain as of a woman in travail!

A Warning for Jehoiachin

24As I live, says Yahweh, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet on my right hand, yet would I pluck you there; 25and I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of them of whom you are afraid, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans. 26I will cast you out, and your mother who bore you, into another country, where you were not born; and there you will die. 27But to the land whereunto their soul longs to return, there shall they not return.

28Is this man Coniah a despised broken vessel? is he a vessel in which none delights? why are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into the land which they don't know?

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

30Thus says Yahweh, Write you this man childless, a man who shall not prosper in his days; for no more shall a man of his seed prosper, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling in Judah.