A Warning to Judah’s Kings

1Thus says YHWH: “Go down to the house of the king of Judah and speak there this word. 2And you shall say, ‘Hear the word of YHWH, O king of Judah, who sits on the throne of David—you and your servants and your people who enter at these gates. 3Thus says YHWH: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver the one plundered, from the hand of the oppressor. And do no wrong, and do no violence to the sojourner and the fatherless and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.

4For if you⁺ will indeed carry out this word, then shall enter in 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. 5And if you⁺ do not hear these words, I swear by Myself, a declaration of YHWH, that this house will become as a desolation!’”

A Warning about the Palace

6For thus says YHWH to the house of the king of Judah:

“You are Gilead to Me,

the head of Lebanon;

if not, I will make you a desert,

with cities not inhabited.

7And I will prepare against you destroyers,

and each man with his weapons;

and they will cut down your choice cedars,

and cast them into the fire.

8And many nations will pass by this city, and each man will say to his neighbor, ‘Upon what has YHWH done thus to this great city?

9And they will say, ‘Upon that they have forsaken the covenant of YHWH their God and bowed down to other gods and served them.’”

A Warning about Shallum

10Do not weep for the one who is dead,

and do not bemoan him.

Weep bitterly for the one going away,

because he will not return again

and see the land of his birth.

11For thus says YHWH concerning Shallum† son of Josiah king of Judah, the one reigning in place of Josiah his father, who went forth from this place: “He shall not return here anymore. 12But in the place where they have led him captive, there he shall die, and this land he shall not see anymore.”

A Warning about Jehoiakim

13“Woe to the one building his house by unrighteousness

and his chambers by injustice,

who by his neighbor gains service for nothing

and for his work gives nothing to him,

14the one saying, ‘I will build for myself a large house,

and with spacious upper rooms,

and he cuts out windows for it,

and paneling it with cedar

and painting it with vermilion.’

15Shall you reign because you enclose yourself† in cedar?

Did your father not 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.

Is this not to know Me?”

A declaration of YHWH.

17“Yet your eyes and your heart are on nothing

for but upon your dishonest gain,

and upon to shed innocent blood,

and upon oppression,

and upon to do violence!”

18Therefore thus says YHWH concerning Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah:

“They shall not lament for him,

‘Alas my brother! Alas, my sister!’

They shall not lament for him,

‘Alas, my master! Alas, his majesty!’

19With the burial of a donkey he shall be buried,

dragged 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,

you said, ‘I will not listen.’

This is your way from your youth,

that you would not listen to My voice.

22The wind will shepherd all your shepherds,

and your lovers will go into captivity;

surely then you will feel shame and be humiliated

from all your evil.

23O dweller of Lebanon,†

nesting in the cedars—

how you will groan when pains come upon you,

writhing like a woman in labor!”

A Warning to Coniah

24“As I live,” a declaration of YHWH, “Even If Coniah† son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet on My right hand, yet from there I would tear you off, 25and I would give you into the hand of those seeking your soul, and into the hand of those whose face you fear, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans!† 26And I will cast you out—and your mother who gave birth to you—upon another land, where you were not born there; and there you⁺ shall die. 27And upon the land to which they are lifting up their souls to return there, to there they shall not return.

28Is this man Coniah a despised and broken vessel,

or a vessel in which is no pleasure?

Why are they cast out, he and his seed,

and cast into a land that they do not know?

29O earth, earth, earth,

hear the word of YHWH!

30Thus says YHWH:

“Enroll this man as childless,

a man who shall not prosper in his days;

indeed, none of his seed shall prosper

to sit on the throne of David

or to rule anymore in Judah.”