1Thus says the Lord; Go you, and go down to the house of the king of Juda, and you shall speak there this word,
2and you shall say, Hear the word of the Lord, O king of Juda, that sit on the throne of David, you, and your house, and your people, and they that go in at these gates:
3thus says the Lord; Execute you° judgement and justice, and rescue the spoiled out of the hand of him that wrongs him: and oppress not the stranger, and orphan, and widow, and sin not, and shed no innocent blood in this place.
4For if you° will indeed perform this word, then shall there enter in by the gates of this house kings sitting upon the throne of David, and riding on chariots and horses, they, and their servants, and their people.
5But if you° will not perform these words, by myself have I sworn, says the Lord, that this house shall be brought to desolation.
6For thus says the Lord concerning the house of the king of Juda; You are Galaad to me, and the head of Libanus: yet surely I will make you a desert, even cities that shall not be inhabited:
7and I will bring upon you a destroying man, and his axe: and they shall cut down your choice cedars, and cast them into the fire.
8And nations shall pass through this city, and each shall say to his neighbour, Why has the Lord done thus to this great city?
9And they shall say, Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord their God, and worshipped strange gods, and served them.
10Weep not for the dead, nor lament for him: weep bitterly for him that goes away: for he shall return no more, nor see his native land.
11For thus says the Lord concerning Sellem the son of Josias, who reigns in the place of Josias his father, who has gone forth out of this place; He shall not return there any more:
12but in that place whither I have carried him captive, there shall he die, and shall see this land no more.
13He that builds his house not with justice, and his upper chambers not with judgement, who works by means of his neighbour for nothing, and will by no means give him his reward.
14You have built for yourself a well-proportioned house, airy chambers, fitted with windows, and wainscoted with cedar, and painted with vermilion.
15Shall you reign, because you are provoked with your father Achaz? they shall not eat, and they shall not drink: it is better for you to execute judgement and justice.
16They understood not, they judged not the cause of the afflicted, nor the cause of the poor: is not this your not knowing me? says the Lord.
17Behold, your eyes are not good, nor your heart, but they go after your covetousness, and after the innocent blood to shed it, and after acts of injustice and slaughter, to commit them.
18Therefore thus says the Lord concerning Joakim son of Josias, king of Juda, even concerning this man; they shall not bewail him, saying, Ah brother! neither shall they at all weep for him, saying, Alas Lord.
19He shall be buried with the burial of an ass; he shall be dragged roughly along and cast outside the gate of Jerusalem.
20Go up to Libanus, and cry; and utter your voice to Basan, and cry aloud to the extremity of the sea: for all your lovers are destroyed.
21I spoke to you on occasion of your trespass, but you said, I will not listen. This has been your way from your youth, you have not listened to my voice.
22The wind shall tend all your shepherds, and your lovers shall go into captivity; for then shall you be ashamed and disgraced because of all your lovers.
23O you that dwell in Libanus, making your nest in the cedars, you shall groan heavily, when pangs as of a travailing woman are come upon you.
24As I live, says the Lord, though Jechonias son of Joakim king of Juda were indeed the seal upon my right hand, thence would I pluck you;
25and I will deliver you into the hands of them that seek your life, before whom you are afraid, into the hands of the Chaldeans.
26And I will cast forth you, and your mother that bore you, into a land where you were not born; and there you° shall die.
27But they shall by no means return to the land which they long for in their souls.
28Jechonias is dishonoured as a good-for-nothing vessel; for he is thrown out and cast forth into a land which he knew not.
29Land, land, hear the word of the Lord.
30Write you° this man an outcast: for there shall none of his seed at all grow up to sit on the throne of David, or as a prince yet in Juda.
