Jeremiah Chapter 22 — Judgment on the Kings of Judah

¹The LORD said, “Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak this word there:

²‘Hear the LORD’s word, king of Judah, who sits on David’s throne—you, your servants, and your people who enter in by these gates.

³The LORD 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 the LORD, “that this house will become a desolation.” ’ ”

⁶For the LORD says concerning the house of the king of Judah:

⁷I will prepare destroyers against you,

⁸“Many nations will pass by this city, and they will each ask his neighbor, ‘Why has the LORD done this to this great city?’

⁹Then they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD their God, worshiped other gods, and served them.’ ”

¹⁰Don’t weep for the dead.

¹¹For the LORD 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,

¹⁴who says, ‘I will build myself a wide house and spacious rooms,’

¹⁵“Should you reign because you strive to excel in cedar?

¹⁶He judged the cause of the poor and needy;

¹⁷But your eyes and your heart are only for your covetousness,

¹⁸Therefore the LORD says concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah:

¹⁹He will be buried with the burial of a donkey,

²⁰“Go up to Lebanon, and cry out.

²¹I spoke to you in your prosperity,

²²The wind will feed all your shepherds,

²³Inhabitant of Lebanon,

²⁴“As I live,” says the LORD, “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?

²⁹O earth, earth, earth,

³⁰The LORD says,