Jeremiah 22
1Yahweh said, “Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak this word, there: 2‘Hear Yahweh’s word, king of Judah, who sits on David’s throne, you, your servants, and your people who enter in by these gates. 3Yahweh says: “Execute justice and righteousness, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong. Do no violence to the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow. Don’t shed innocent blood in this place. 4For if you do this thing indeed, then kings sitting on David’s throne will enter in by the gates of this house, riding in chariots and on horses, he, his servants, and his people. 5But if you will not hear these words, I swear by myself,” says Yahweh, “that this house will become a desolation.”’”
6For Yahweh says concerning the house of the king of Judah:
the head of Lebanon.
Yet surely I will make you a wilderness,
cities which are not inhabited.
everyone with his weapons,
and they will cut down your choice cedars,
and cast them into the fire.
8“Many nations will pass by this city, and they will each ask his neighbor, ‘Why has Yahweh done this to this great city?’ 9Then they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned the covenant of Yahweh their God, worshiped other gods, and served them.’”
Don’t bemoan him;
but weep bitterly for him who goes away,
for he will return no more,
and not see his native country.
and his rooms by injustice;
who uses his neighbor’s service without wages,
and doesn’t give him his hire;
and cuts out windows for himself;
with a cedar ceiling,
and painted with red.
Didn’t your father eat and drink,
and do justice and righteousness?
Then it was well with him.
so it was well, then.
Wasn’t this to know me?”
says Yahweh.
for shedding innocent blood,
for oppression, and for doing violence.”
saying, ‘Ah my brother!’ or, ‘Ah sister!’
They won’t lament for him,
saying ‘Ah lord!’ or, ‘Ah his glory!’
drawn and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.”
Lift up your voice in Bashan,
and cry from Abarim;
for all your lovers have been destroyed.
but you said, ‘I will not listen.’
This has been your way from your youth,
that you didn’t obey my voice.
and your lovers will go into captivity.
Surely then you will be ashamed
and confounded for all your wickedness.
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!
24“As I live,” says Yahweh, “though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet on my right hand, I would still pluck you from there.
25I would 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 with your mother who bore you into another country, where you were not born; and there you will die.
27But to the land to which their soul longs to return, there they will not return.”
Is he a vessel in which no one delights?
Why are they cast out, he and his offspring,
and cast into a land which they don’t know?
hear Yahweh’s word!
“Record this man as childless,
a man who will not prosper in his days;
for no more will a man of his offspring prosper,
sitting on David’s throne,
and ruling in Judah.”