1Thus said יהוה, “Go down to the house of the sovereign of Yehuḏah. And there you shall speak this word,

2and shall say, ‘Hear the word of יהוה, O sovereign of Yehuḏah, you who sit on the throne of Dawiḏ, you and your servants and your people who enter these gates!

3‘Thus said יהוה, “Do right-ruling and righteousness, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor. Do not maltreat nor do violence to the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.

4“For if you certainly do this word, then there shall enter in by the gates of this house sovereigns sitting on the throne of Dawiḏ, riding on horses and in chariots, he and his servants and his people.

5“But if you do not obey these words, I swear by Myself,” declares יהוה, “that this house shall become a ruin.” ’ ”

6For thus said יהוה to the house of the sovereign of Yehuḏah, “You are like Gil‛aḏ to Me, the head of Leḇanon. But I shall make you a wilderness, and cities which are not inhabited.

7“And I shall prepare destroyers against you, each with his weapons. And they shall cut down your choice cedars and throw them into the fire.

8“And many gentiles shall pass by this city, and they shall say to one another, ‘Why has יהוה done so to this great city?’

9“Then they shall say, ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of יהוה their Elohim, and bowed themselves to other mighty ones and served them.’ ”

10Do not weep for the dead, nor mourn for him. Weep bitterly for him who goes away, for he shall never come back nor see the land of his birth.

11For thus said יהוה concerning Shallum son of Yoshiyahu, sovereign of Yehuḏah, who reigned instead of Yoshiyahu his father, who went from this place, “He shall never come back,

12but he shall die in the place where they have exiled him, and not see this land again.

13“Woe to him who builds his house without righteousness and his rooms without right-ruling, who uses his neighbour’s service without wages and does not give him his wages,

14who says, ‘I am going to build myself a wide house with spacious rooms, and cut out windows for it, panelling it with cedar and painting it in red.’

15“Do you reign because you enclose yourself in cedar? Did not your father eat and drink, and do right-ruling and righteousness? Then it was well with him.

16“He defended the cause of the poor and needy – then it was well. Was this not to know Me?” declares יהוה.

17“But your eyes and your heart are only upon your own greedy gain, and on shedding innocent blood, and on oppression and on doing violence.”

18Therefore thus said יהוה concerning Yehoyaqim son of Yoshiyahu, sovereign of Yehuḏah, “Let them not lament for him: ‘Alas, my brother!’ or ‘Alas, my sister!’ Let them not lament for him: ‘Alas, master!’ or ‘Alas, his excellency!’

19“He shall be buried with the burial of a donkey, dragged and thrown outside the gates of Yerushalayim.

20“Go up to Leḇanon, and cry out, and lift up your voice in Bashan. And cry from Aḇarim, for all your lovers are destroyed.

21“I have spoken to you in your ease, but you said, ‘I do not listen.’ This has been your way from your youth, for you did not obey My voice.

22“Let all your shepherds be devoured by the wind, and your lovers go into captivity. Then you shall be ashamed and humiliated for all your evil.

23“You who dwell in Leḇanon, being nested in the cedars, how you shall groan when pangs come upon you, like the pains of a woman giving birth!

24“As I live,” declares יהוה, “though Konyahu son of Yehoyaqim, sovereign of Yehuḏah, were the signet on My right hand, I would still pull you off from there;

25and I shall give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of those whose face you fear, into the hand of Neḇuḵaḏretstsar sovereign of Baḇel and the hand of the Chaldeans.

26“And I shall hurl you out, and your mother who bore you, into another land where you were not born, and there you shall die.

27“But they shall not return to the land to which their being yearns to return.

28“Is this man Konyahu a despised broken pot, or an undesirable vessel? Why are they hurled out, he and his descendants, and cast into a land which they do not know?

29“O land, land, land! Hear the word of יהוה!

30“Thus said יהוה, ‘Write this man down as childless, a strong man who is not to prosper in his days, for none of his descendants shall prosper, sitting on the throne of Dawiḏ, or rule any more in Yehuḏah.’ ”