1 Thus said the Lord: Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word,
2 Say, Hear the word of the Lord, king of Judah, who sits on the throne of David, you, and your servants, and your people who enter in by these gates.
3 Thus says the Lord: Execute justice and righteousness, and deliver him who was robbed out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence, to the foreigner, the fatherless, nor the widow; neither shed innocent blood in this place.
4 For if you do this thing indeed, then there shall enter in by the gates of this house kings sitting on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on 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 become a desolation.
6 For thus says the Lord concerning the house of the king of Judah: You are Gilead to me, and the head of Lebanon; yet surely I will make you a wilderness, and cities which are not inhabited.
7 I will prepare destroyers against you, everyone with his weapons; and they shall cut down your choice cedars, and cast them into the fire.
8 Many nations shall pass by this city, and every man shall say to his neighbor, Why has the Lord done thus to this great city?
9 Then they shall answer, Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord their God, and worshiped other gods, and served them.
10 Don't weep for the dead, neither bemoan him; but weep bitterly for him who goes away; for he shall return no more, nor see his native country.
11 For thus says the Lord touching Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, and who went forth out of this place: He shall not return there any more.
12 But in the place where they have led him captive, there he shall die, and he shall see this land no more.
13 Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by injustice; who uses his neighbor's service without wages, and doesn't give him his hire;
14 who says, I will build me a wide house and spacious chambers, and cuts out windows for himself; and makes its ceiling with cedar, and paints it with vermilion.
15 Shall you reign, because you strive to excel in cedar? Didn't your father eat and drink, and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him.
16 He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Wasn't this to know 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 violence, to do it.
18 Therefore thus says the Lord concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah: they shall not lament for him, saying, Ah my brother! or, Ah sister! They shall not lament for him, saying Ah lord! or, Ah his glory!
19 He shall be buried with the burial of a donkey, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.
20 Go up to Lebanon, and cry; and lift up your voice in Bashan, and cry from Abarim; for all your lovers are destroyed.
21 I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said, I will not hear. This has been your manner from your youth, that you didn't obey my voice.
22 The wind shall feed all your shepherds, and your lovers shall go into captivity: surely then you shall be ashamed and confounded for all your wickedness.
23 Inhabitant of Lebanon, who makes your nest in the cedars, how greatly to be pitied you shall be when pangs come on you, the pain as of a woman in travail!
24 As I live, says the Lord, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet on my right hand, yet I would pluck you there;
25 and I will 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 Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.
26 I will cast you out, and your mother who bore you, into another country, where you were not born; and there you shall die.
27 But to the land where their soul longs to return, there they shall not return.
28 Is this man Coniah a despised broken vessel? Is he a vessel in which none delights? Why are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into the land which they don't know?
29 O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.
30 Thus says the Lord, Write off this man as childless, a man who shall not prosper in his days; for no more shall a man of his seed prosper, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling in Judah.