King James Version

1 Thus says the Lord: Go down to the house of the king of Judah and speak there this word. 2 And you shall say, "Hear the word of the Lord, O King of Judah, who sits on the throne of David, you and your servants and your people who come in through these gates." 3 Thus says the LORD: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver the robbed out of the hand of the oppressor; and do not oppress the stranger, the orphan, and the widow; and do not shed innocent blood in this place. 4 For if you do this thing and come into the gates of this house, there will be kings sitting for David on his throne, riding on chariots and on horses, he and his servants and his people. 5 And if you do not listen to these words, I have sworn by Myself, says the LORD, that this house will become a desolation. 6 For thus says the Lord regarding the house of the king of Judah: "You are Gilead to me, the head of Lebanon. If I do not set you as a wilderness, cities not inhabited." 7 And I will sanctify against you destroyers, each man and his vessels, and they will fell from the choice cedars of yours and they will cast them upon the fire. 8 And many nations will pass over this city and they will say to each other, "Why has the LORD done this to this great city?" 9 And they said about how they abandoned the covenant of Yahweh their God and bowed down to other gods and served them. 10 Do not weep for the dead, and do not mourn for him; weep bitterly for the one who goes away, for he will not return again and see the land of his birth. 11 For thus says the Lord to Shalom son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigns in place of Josiah his father, who went out from this place: he shall not return there again. 12 For in the place where they exiled him, there he will die, and he will not see this land again. 13 Woe to him who builds his house without righteousness and his upper rooms without justice, who makes his neighbor serve him for nothing and does not give him his wages. 14 I will build for myself a house of worship and spacious upper rooms, and I will cut windows for it and cover it with cedar and paint it with crimson. 15 Will you not rule because you are a seeker of the cedar of your father? Did he not eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it is good for him. 16 Dan judged the poor and needy, then it is good; is it not the knowledge of my word, says the Lord? 17 For your eyes and heart are not except for your gain and for the innocent blood to be shed and for the oppression and for the greed to act. 18 Therefore, thus says the Lord to Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah: "They shall not lament for him, 'Alas, my brother!' and 'Alas, sister!' They shall not lament for him, 'Alas, lord!' and 'Alas, his glory!'" 19 The burial of a donkey shall be buried, dragged and cast out from the gate of Jerusalem. 20 Go up to Lebanon and cry out, and in Bashan lift up your voice and cry out from the other side, for all your lovers have been broken. 21 I spoke to you in your calmness; you said, "I will not listen." This is your way from your youth because you have not heard my voice. 22 Every shepherd will shepherd your spirit, and your beloveds will go in captivity; for then you will be ashamed and confounded before all your evil. 23 I sat, you were sitting in Lebanon, I nested among the cedars; what have you brought to you, pains like a woman in labor? 24 As surely as I live, says the Lord, if Coniah son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were a signet ring on my right hand, I would pull you off. 25 And I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life and into the hand of those at whom you are afraid, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of the Chaldeans. 26 And I will cast you out, and your mother who bore you, into another land where you were not born, and there you will die. 27 And upon the land which they are lifting their souls to return there, they will not return. 28 The pain is despised; this man has a possession, but there is no desire for it. Why were he and his descendants cast upon the land which they did not know? 29 Land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord. 30 Thus says the LORD: Write this man down as childless; a man who will not succeed in his days, for he will not succeed of his offspring; a man sitting on the throne of David and ruling again in Judah.