Jeremiah 22

Revised Geneva Translation

22 Thus says the LORD: “Go down to the House of the king of Judah, and speak this thing there,

² “and say, ‘Hear the Word of the LORD, O king of Judah, who sits upon the throne of David, you and your servants and your people who enter in by these gates!

³ ‘Thus says the LORD: “Execute judgment and righteousness, and deliver the oppressed from the hand of the oppressor, and do not trouble the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow. Do no violence or shed innocent blood in this place.

⁴ “For if you do this thing, then the kings sitting upon the throne of David shall enter in by the gates of this House and ride upon chariots and upon horses, he and his servants and his people.

⁵ “But if you will not hear these words, I swear by Myself,” says the LORD, “that this House shall be waste.”

⁶ ‘For thus has the LORD, spoken upon the king’s House of Judah: “You are Gilead to Me, the head of Lebanon. Surely I will make you as a wilderness, as uninhabited cities.

⁷ “And I will prepare destroyers against you, everyone with his weapons. And they shall cut down your chief cedar trees and cast them in the fire.

⁸ “And many nations shall pass by this city. And every man shall say to his neighbor, ‘Why has the LORD done this to this great city?’

⁹ “Then they shall answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the Covenant of the LORD their God, and worshipped other gods and served them.’”’”

¹⁰ Do not weep for the dead, and do not be moved for them. Weep for him who goes out. For he shall return no more, nor see his native country.

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

¹² “But he shall die in the place where they have led him captive and shall see this land no more.”

¹³ “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers without justice. He uses his neighbor without wages and gives him nothing for his work.

¹⁴ “He says, ‘I will build myself a wide house and large chambers.’ So he will make himself large windows and a ceiling with cedar and paint them with vermilion.

¹⁵ “Shall you reign because you close yourself in cedar? Did not your father eat and drink and prosper when he executed judgment and justice?

¹⁶ “When he judged the cause of the afflicted and the poor he prospered. Was not this because he knew Me,” says the LORD?

¹⁷ “But your eyes and your heart are only for your covetousness, and for shedding innocent blood, and for oppression, and for destruction.”

¹⁸ Therefore, thus says the LORD against Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah: “They shall not lament him, saying, ‘Ah, my brother,’ or ‘Ah sister.’ Nor shall they mourn for him, saying, ‘Ah, lord,’ or ‘Ah, his glory.’

¹⁹ “He shall be buried as a donkey is buried, dragged and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.

²⁰ “Go up to Lebanon and cry! Shout in Bashan, and cry by the passages! For all your lovers are destroyed.

²¹ “I spoke to you when you were in prosperity, but you said, ‘I will not hear.’ This has been your manner from your youth, that you would not obey My Voice.

²² “The spirit shall feed all your shepherds. And your lovers shall go into captivity. And then you shall be ashamed of all your wickedness and confounded.

²³ “You who dwell in Lebanon, and make your nest in the cedars, how beautiful shall you be when sorrows come upon you, as the sorrow of a woman in labor?

²⁴ “As I live,” says the LORD, “though Coniah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet of My right Hand, yet would I pluck you from there.

²⁵ “And I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life and into the hand of those whose faces you fear, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babel, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.

²⁶ “And I will cause them to carry you away, and your mother who bore you, into another country where you were not born. And there you shall die.

²⁷ “But to the land to which they desire to return, they shall not return to it.

²⁸ “Is not this man, Coniah, a despised and broken idol or a vessel in which there is no pleasure? Why are they carried away, he and his seed, and cast out into a land that they do not know?

²⁹ “O Earth, Earth, Earth! Hear the Word of the LORD!

³⁰ “Thus says the LORD: ‘Write this man down as childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days. For there shall be no man from his seed who shall prosper and sit upon the throne of David or bear rule anymore in Judah.’”