The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah 22 Prophecy against the royal house of Judah

 The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah 22

Prophecy against the royal house of Judah

1 Thus says the Lord: Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and declare there this word.

2 And say: Hear the word of the Lord, O king of Judah, you who sit on the throne of David, you and your servants and your people who enter through these gates.

3 Thus says the Lord: Execute justice and righteousness, and deliver the oppressed from the hand of the oppressor; do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow; do not do violence, nor shed innocent blood in this place.

4 For if you truly obey this word, then kings who sit on the throne of David will enter through the gates of this house, riding on chariots and horses, they and their servants and their people.

5 But if you do not listen to these words, I have sworn by myself, declares the Lord, that this house will become a desolation.

6 For this is what the Lord says concerning the house of the king of Judah: “You are like Gilead to me, and the head of Lebanon; but I will surely make you a desert and uninhabited cities.

7 For I have prepared destroyers against you, each with his weapons; they will cut down your choice cedars and throw them into the fire.

8 Many nations will pass by this city, and each will say to his neighbor, ‘Why has the Lord done this to this great city?’

9 They will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God and have bowed down to other gods and served them.’

10 Do not weep for the dead or mourn for them; weep bitterly for him who departs, for he will never return, nor will he see the land of his birth.”

11 For thus says the Lord concerning Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned in place of Josiah his father, who went out from this place: He shall not return there again.

12 But in the place where they have taken him captive he shall die, and shall never see this land again.

13 Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by injustice, who uses his neighbor’s service without wages, and does not give him the wages of his labor;

14 Who says, “I will build myself a spacious house, and large rooms,” and he cuts out windows for it, and it is paneled with cedar and painted with vermilion.

15 Will you reign because you enclose yourself in cedar? Did not your father eat and drink, and exercise justice and righteousness? Therefore it went well with him.

16 He judged the cause of the afflicted and needy; then it went well with him. Is not this what it means to know me? Thus says the Lord.

17 But their eyes and your heart are set only on your greed, and on shedding innocent blood, and on oppression and violence, to carry it out.

18 Therefore thus says the Lord concerning Jehoiachin, son of Josiah, king of Judah: They shall not mourn for him, saying, “Alas, my brother!” or “Alas, my sister!” Nor shall they mourn for him, saying, “Alas, Lord!” or “Alas, Majestic One!”

19 They shall bury him like a donkey’s grave, dragging him away and throwing him far outside the gates of Jerusalem.

20 Go up to Lebanon and cry out, and lift up your voice in Bashan, and cry out from Abarim, for your lovers are broken.

21 I spoke to myself of your prosperity, but you said, “I will not listen.” This is your way from your youth, for you have never listened to my voice.

22 The wind will sweep away all your shepherds, and your lovers will go into captivity: surely then you will be confounded and ashamed because of all your wickedness.

23 O you who dwell in Lebanon and make your nest in the cedars! How afflicted you will be when pains and sorrows come upon you, like those of a woman in labor!

24 As I live, says the Lord, even if Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet ring on my right hand, I would still pull you from there.

25 And I will deliver you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of those before whom you are afraid, namely, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.

26 And I will cast you and your mother who bore you into a foreign land, where you were not born, and there you shall die.

27 But to the land to which they lift up their soul, to return, they shall not return.

28 Is this man Jeconiah a vile, broken vessel? Or a vessel in which no one delights? Why were they cast out, he and his generation, and hurled into a land they do not know?

29 O earth, earth, earth! Hear the word of the Lord.

30 Thus says the Lord: Write that this man is bereaved of his children, and is a man who will not prosper in his days; nor will any of his generation prosper, to sit on the throne of David and reign again in Judah.