1These were the words of the LORD: Go down to the house of the king of Judah 2and say this: Listen to the words of the LORD, O king of Judah, you who sit on David's throne, you and your courtiers and your people who come in at these gates. 3These are the words of the LORD: Deal justly and fairly, rescue the victim from his oppressor, do not ill-treat or do violence to the alien, the orphan or the widow, do not shed innocent blood in this place. 4If you obey, and only if you obey, kings who sit on David's throne shall yet come riding through these gates in chariots and on horses, with their retinue of courtiers and people. 5But if you do not listen to my words, then by myself I swear, says the LORD, this house shall become a desolate ruin. 6For these are the words of the LORD about the royal house of Judah: Though you are dear to me as Gilead
7I will dedicate an armed host to fight against you,
or as the heights of Lebanon,
I swear that I will make you a wilderness,
a land of unpeopled cities.
a ravening horde;
they shall cut your choicest cedars down
and fling them on the fire.
8Men of many nations shall pass by this city and say to one another, 'Why has the LORD done this to such a great city?' 9The answer will be, 'Because they forsook their covenant with the LORD their God; they worshipped other gods and served them.'
11For these are the words of the LORD concerning Shallum son of Josiah, king of Judah, who succeeded his father on the throne and has gone away: He shall never return; 12he shall die in the place of his exile and never see this land again.
18Therefore these are the words of the LORD concerning Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah: For him no mourner shall say, 'Alas, brother, dear brother!'
19He shall be buried like a dead ass,
no one say, 'Alas, lord and master!'
dragged along and flung out
beyond the gates of Jerusalem.
20Get up into Lebanon and cry aloud,
make your voice heard in Bashan,
cry aloud from Abarim, for all who befriend you are broken.
21I spoke to you in your days of prosperous ease,
but you said, 'I will not listen.'
This is how you behaved since your youth;
never have you obeyed me.
22The wind shall carry away all your friends ,
your lovers shall depart into exile.
Then you will be put to shame and abashed
for all your evil deeds .
23You dwellers in Lebanon, who make your nests among the cedars,
how you will groan when the pains come upon you,
like the pangs of a woman in labour!
24By my life, says the LORD, Coniah son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, shall be the signet-ring on my right hand no longer. Yes, Coniah, I will pull you off. 25I will hand you over to those who seek your life, to those you fear, to Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and to the Chaldaeans. 26I will fling you headlong, you and the mother who gave you birth, into another land, a land where you were not born; and there shall you both die. 27They shall never come back to their own land, the land for which they long.
28This man, Coniah, then, is he a mere puppet, contemptible and broken, only a thing unwanted? Why else are he and his children flung out headlong and hurled into a country they do not know?
29O land, land, land, hear the words of the LORD: 30These are the words of the LORD: Write this man down as stripped of all honour, one who in his own life shall not prosper, nor shall he leave descendants to sit in prosperity on David's throne or rule again in Judah.
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