Jeremiah 22

Translated from the Hebrew of the Westminster Leningrad Codex. Tap a verse to see why it reads as it does. Tap a small letter to read its footnote.

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A word for the palace of Judah

¹The LORD says this: “Go down to the palace of Judah’s king and speak this message there. ²Say: ‘Hear the word of the LORD, king of Judah, you who sit on David’s throne, you and your officials and your people who come in through these gates.

³The LORD says this: Practice justice and righteousness. Rescue anyone who has been robbed from the power of the oppressor. Do not mistreat the outsider, the orphan or the widow, do not use violence against them, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. ⁴For if you are careful to do what this word commands, then kings who sit on David’s throne will come in through the gates of this palace, riding in chariots and on horses, each with his officials and his people. ⁵But if you will not listen to these words, I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that this palace will become a ruin.’”

⁶For the LORD says this about the palace of the king of Judah: \q To me you are like Gilead, like the heights of Lebanon, \q but I will surely make you a wilderness, \q like towns where no one lives. ⁷I will appoint destroyers against you, each with his weapons. \q They will cut down your finest cedars \q and throw them into the fire. ⁸People of many nations will pass by this city and say to one another, “Why has the LORD treated this great city like this?” ⁹And the answer will be, “Because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD their God and worshiped other gods and served them.”

Shallum will not return

¹⁰Do not weep for the one who is dead; \q do not mourn for him. \q Weep and keep weeping for the one who is going away, \q because he will never return \q or see his homeland again.

¹¹For the LORD says this about Shallum son of Josiah, king of Judah, who became king in place of his father Josiah and has gone away from this place: He will never come back here. ¹²He will die in the place where they have taken him as a captive, and he will never see this land again.

A palace built by injustice

¹³Woe to the man who builds his palace without righteousness \q and his upper rooms without justice, \q who makes his fellow citizens work for nothing \q and does not pay them their wages. ¹⁴He says, “I will build myself a huge palace \q with spacious upper rooms.” \q He cuts windows into it, \q panels it with cedar and paints it with vermilion. ¹⁵Does it make you a king to outdo others in cedar? \q Did not your father eat and drink \q and also do justice and righteousness? \q Then all went well with him. ¹⁶He defended the cause of the poor and the needy, and then all was well. \q Is that not what it means to know me? declares the LORD. ¹⁷But your eyes and your heart are set on nothing \q but dishonest gain, \q on shedding innocent blood, \q and on practicing oppression and extortion.

¹⁸Therefore the LORD says this about Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah: \q No one will mourn for him, crying, \q “Alas, my brother! Alas, my sister!” \q No one will mourn for him, crying, \q “Alas, my master! Alas, his majesty!” ¹⁹He will be buried the way a donkey is buried, \q dragged away and thrown out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.

²⁰Climb up to Lebanon and cry out; \q let your voice be heard in Bashan; \q cry out from the Abarim mountains, \q for all your lovers have been crushed. ²¹I spoke to you while you felt secure, \q but you said, “I will not listen.” \q Ever since you were young you have behaved like this: \q you have not obeyed my voice. ²²The wind will herd away all your shepherds, \q and your lovers will be carried into captivity. \q Then you will feel shame and disgrace \q because of all your wickedness. ²³You who live in Lebanon, \q nesting among the cedars, \q how you will groan when the pains come on you, \q pain like a woman in labor! ²⁴As surely as I live, declares the LORD: Coniah son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, even if you were the signet ring on my right hand, I would still pull you off. ²⁵I will hand you over to those who want to kill you, to those you fear, to Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and to the Chaldeans. ²⁶I will throw you and the mother who gave birth to you into another country, where neither of you was born, and there you will both die. ²⁷They will long to return to this land, but they will never come back to it.

²⁸Is this man Coniah a worthless, broken pot, \q a jar that no one wants? \q Why have he and his children been hurled out \q and thrown into a land they do not know? ²⁹Land, land, land, \q hear the word of the LORD!

³⁰The LORD says this: Record this man as childless, \q a man who will not succeed in his lifetime, \q for none of his descendants will succeed in sitting on the throne of David \q or ruling again in Judah.