Jeremiah 22
1 This is what the LORD says: “Go down to the house of the king of Judah and speak this word there.
2 Say: ‘Hear the word of the LORD, king of Judah, who sits on David’s throne—you, your servants, and your people who enter through these gates.
3 This is what the LORD says: “Practice justice and righteousness. Rescue the one who has been robbed from the oppressor’s hand. Do not mistreat or abuse the foreigner living among you, the orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.
4 For if you truly do this, kings sitting on David’s throne will enter through the gates of this house, riding in chariots and on horses—he, his servants, and his people.
5 But if you do not heed these words, I swear by myself,” declares the LORD, “that this house will become a ruin.”
6 For this is what the LORD says about the house of the king of Judah: “You are like Gilead to me, like the summit of Lebanon; yet I will make you a wilderness, cities where no one lives.
7 I will appoint destroyers against you, each with his weapons. They will cut down your finest cedars and throw them into the fire.
8 Many nations will pass by this city and say to one another, ‘Why has the LORD done this to this great city?’
9 And they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD their God and bowed down to other gods and served them.’
10 Do not weep for the dead or mourn for him. Weep bitterly for the one who is going away, because he will never return or see the land where he was born.”’”
11 For this is what the LORD says about Shallum son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned in place of his father Josiah and went away from this place: “He will never return here.
12 He will die in the place where they took him captive, and he will never see this land again.”
13 Woe to the one who builds his house without justice and his upper rooms without fairness, who makes his neighbor work for nothing and does not pay him his wages!
14 He says, “I will build myself a spacious house, with large upper rooms.” He cuts windows into it, panels it with cedar, and paints it red.
15 Are you a king because you compete in cedar? Did your father not eat and drink and practice justice and righteousness? Then all went well with him.
16 He judged the cause of the poor and needy, and then all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?” declares the LORD.
17 But your eyes and your heart are set only on dishonest gain, on shedding innocent blood, and on oppression and violence.
18 Therefore this is what the LORD says about Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah: “They will not lament for him, saying, ‘Alas, my brother!’ or ‘Alas, my sister!’ They will not lament for him, saying, ‘Alas, master!’ or ‘Alas, Your Majesty!’
19 He will be buried like a donkey—dragged away and thrown outside the gates of Jerusalem.”
20 Go up to Lebanon and cry out; raise your voice in Bashan and cry out from Abarim, for all your lovers have been shattered.
21 I spoke to you in your times of prosperity, but you said, “I will not listen.” This has been your way since your youth: you have not listened to my voice.
22 The wind will shepherd all your shepherds, and your lovers will go into captivity. Then you will be ashamed and humiliated because of all your wickedness.
23 You who live in Lebanon and nest among the cedars, how you will groan when pains come upon you, anguish like that of a woman in labor!
24 “As surely as I live,” declares the LORD, “even if Coniah son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were a signet ring on my right hand, I would tear you off from there.
25 I will hand you over to those who seek your life, to those you fear, to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and to the Chaldeans.
26 I will hurl you and your mother, who gave birth to you, into another land where you were not born, and there you will die.
27 But the land to which they long to return—they will not return there.
28 Is this man Coniah a despised, shattered pot, an object no one wants? Why have he and his offspring been hurled away and thrown into a land they did not know?
29 O land, land, land, hear the word of the LORD!
30 This is what the LORD says: “Record this man as childless, a man who will not prosper in his days, for none of his offspring will prosper enough to sit on David’s throne and rule again in Judah.”
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