Jeremiah, 22

1. The LORD told me this: Go down to the palace of the king of Judah and there deliver this message: 2. You shall say: Listen to the word of the LORD, king of Judah, who sit on the throne of David, you, your ministers, and your people that enter by these gates! 3. Thus says the LORD: Do what is right and just. Rescue the victim from the hand of his oppressor. Do not wrong or oppress the resident alien, the orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. 4. If you carry out these commands, kings who succeed to the throne of David will continue to enter the gates of this palace, riding in chariots or mounted on horses, with their ministers, and their people. 5. But if you do not obey these commands, I swear by myself, says the LORD: this palace shall become rubble. 6. For thus says the LORD concerning the palace of the king of Judah: Though you be to me like Gilead, like the peak of Lebanon, I will turn you into a waste, a city uninhabited. 7. Against you I will send destroyers, each with his axe: They shall cut down your choice cedars, and cast them into the fire. 8. Many people will pass by this city and ask one another: "Why has the LORD done this to so great a city?" 9. And the answer will be given: "Because they have deserted their covenant with the LORD, their God, by worshiping and serving strange gods." 10. Weep not for him who is dead, mourn not for him! Weep rather for him who is going away; never again will he see the land of his birth. 11. Thus says the LORD concerning Shallum, son of Josiah, king of Judah, who succeeded his father as king. He has left this place never to return. 12. Rather, he shall die in the place where they exiled him; this land he shall not see again. 13. Woe to him who builds his house on wrong, his terraces on injustice; Who works his neighbor without pay, and gives him no wages. 14. Who says, "I will build myself a spacious house, with airy rooms," Who cuts out windows for it, panels it with cedar, and paints it with vermillion. 15. Must you prove your rank among kings by competing with them in cedar? Did not your father eat and drink? He did what was right and just, and it went well with him. 16. Because he dispensed justice to the weak and the poor, it went well with him. Is this not true knowledge of me? says the LORD. 17. But your eyes and heart are set on nothing except on your own gain, On shedding innocent blood, on practicing oppression and extortion. 18. Therefore, thus says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, king of Judah: They shall not lament him, "Alas! my brother"; "Alas! sister." They shall not lament him, "Alas, Lord! alas, Majesty!" 19. The burial of an ass shall he be given, dragged forth and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem. 20. Scale Lebanon and cry out, in Bashan lift up your voice; Cry out from Abarim, for all your lovers are crushed. 21. I spoke to you when you were secure, but you answered, "I will not listen." This has been your way from your youth, not to listen to my voice. 22. The wind shall shepherd all your shepherds, your lovers shall go into exile. Surely then you shall be ashamed and confounded because of all your wickedness. 23. You who dwell on Lebanon, who nest in the cedars, How you shall groan when pains come upon you, like the pangs of a woman in travail! 24. As I live, says the LORD, if you, Coniah, son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, are a signet ring on my right hand, I will snatch you from it. 25. I will deliver you into the hands of those who seek your life; the hands of those whom you fear; the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and the Chaldeans. 26. I will cast you out, you and the mother who bore you, into a different land from the one you were born in; and there you shall die. 27. Neither of them shall come back to the land for which they yearn. 28. Is this man Coniah a vessel despised, to be broken up, an instrument that no one wants? Why are he and his descendants cast out? why thrown into a land they know not? 29. O land, land, land, hear the word of the LORD-- 30. Thus says the LORD: Write this man down as one childless, who will never thrive in his lifetime! No descendant of his shall achieve a seat on the throne of David as ruler again over Judah.