Jeremiah 13:18-27 - A Message For The King And The Queen Mother

¹⁸ Say to the king and the queen mother:
Take a humble seat,
for your glorious crowns
have fallen from your heads.
¹⁹ The cities of the Negev are under siege;
no one can help them.
All of Judah has been taken into exile,
taken completely into exile.
²⁰ Look up and see
those coming from the north.
Where is the flock entrusted to you,
the sheep that were your pride?

²¹ What will you say when He appoints
close friends as leaders over you,
ones you yourself trained?
Won’t labor pains seize you,
as they do a woman in labor?
²² And when you ask yourself,
“Why have these things happened to me?”
It is because of your great guilt
that your skirts have been stripped off,
your body exposed.
²³ Can the Cushite change his skin,
or a leopard his spots?
If so, you might be able to do what is good,
you who are instructed in evil.
²⁴ I will scatter you like drifting chaff
before the desert wind.
²⁵ This is your lot,
what I have decreed for you—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
because you have forgotten Me
and trusted in Falsehood.
²⁶ I will pull your skirts up over your face
so that your shame might be seen.
²⁷ Your adulteries and your lustful neighing,
your heinous prostitution
on the hills, in the fields—
I have seen your detestable acts.
Woe to you, Jerusalem!
You are unclean—
for how long yet?