The Preacher's Bible

Jehovah said, “Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak this word there: ²‘Hear Jehovah’s word, king of Judah, who sits on David’s throne—you, your servants, and your people who enter in by these gates. ³Jehovah says: “Execute justice and righteousness, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong. Do no violence to the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow. Don’t shed innocent blood in this place. ⁴For if you do this thing indeed, then kings sitting on David’s throne will enter in by the gates of this house, riding in chariots and on horses—they, their servants, and their people. ⁵But if you will not hear these words, I swear by myself,” says Jehovah, “that this house will become a desolation.”’”

⁶For Jehovah says concerning the house of the king of Judah: “You are Gilead to me, the head of Lebanon. Yet surely I will make you a wilderness, cities which are not inhabited.

⁷I will prepare destroyers against you, everyone with his weapons, and they will cut down your choice cedars, and cast them into the fire. ⁸“Many nations will pass by this city, and they will each ask his neighbor, ‘Why has Jehovah done this to this great city?’ ⁹Then they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned the covenant of Jehovah their God, worshiped other gods, and served them.’”

¹⁰Don’t weep for the dead. Don’t bemoan him; but weep bitterly for him who goes away, for he will return no more, and not see his native country.

¹¹For Jehovah says touching Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, and who went out of this place: “He won’t return there any more.

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

¹³“Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his rooms by injustice; who uses his neighbor’s service without wages, and doesn’t give him his hire;

¹⁴who says, ‘I will build myself a wide house and spacious rooms,’ and cuts out windows for himself, with a cedar ceiling, and painted with red.

¹⁵“Should 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.

¹⁶He judged the cause of the poor and needy; so then it was well. Wasn’t this to know me?” says Jehovah.

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

¹⁸Therefore Jehovah says concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah: “They won’t lament for him, saying, ‘Ah my brother!’ or, ‘Ah sister!’ They won’t lament for him, saying ‘Ah lord!’ or, ‘Ah his glory!’

¹⁹He will be buried with the burial of a donkey, drawn and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.”

²⁰“Go up to Lebanon, and cry out. Lift up your voice in Bashan, and cry from Abarim; for all your lovers have been destroyed.

²¹I spoke to you in your prosperity, but you said, ‘I will not listen.’ This has been your way from your youth, that you didn’t obey my voice.

²²The wind will feed all your shepherds, and your lovers will go into captivity. Surely then you will be ashamed and confounded for all your wickedness.

²³Inhabitant of Lebanon, who makes your nest in the cedars, how greatly to be pitied you will be when pangs come on you, the pain as of a woman in travail! ²⁴“As I live,” says Jehovah, “though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet on my right hand, I would still pluck you from there. ²⁵I would 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 Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans. ²⁶I will cast you out with your mother who bore you into another country, where you were not born; and there you will die. ²⁷But to the land to which their soul longs to return, there they will not return.”

²⁸Is this man Coniah a despised broken vessel? Is he a vessel in which no one delights? Why are they cast out, he and his offspring, and cast into a land which they don’t know?

²⁹O earth, earth, earth, hear Jehovah’s word!

³⁰Jehovah says, “Record this man as childless, a man who will not prosper in his days; for no more will a man of his offspring prosper, sitting on David’s throne and ruling in Judah.”