Jeremiah 22:11-30 - Message To The Sons Of Josiah

11 For this is what the Lord has said about Shallum, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who became king in place of Josiah his father, who went out from this place: He will never come back there again: 12 But death will come to him in the place where they have taken him away prisoner, and he will never see this land again.

13 A curse is on him who is building his house by wrongdoing, and his rooms by doing what is not right; who makes use of his neighbour without payment, and gives him nothing for his work; 14 Who says, I will make a wide house for myself, and rooms of great size, and has windows cut out, and has it roofed with cedar and painted with bright red. 15 Are you to be a king because you make more use of cedar than your father? did not your father take food and drink and do right, judging in righteousness, and then it was well for him? 16 He was judge in the cause of the poor and those in need; then it was well. Was not this to have knowledge of me? says the Lord. 17 But your eyes and your heart are fixed only on profit for yourself, on causing the death of him who has done no wrong, and on violent and cruel acts.

18 So this is what the Lord has said about Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah: They will make no weeping for him, saying, Ah my brother! or, Ah sister! they will make no weeping for him, saying, Ah lord! or, Ah his glory! 19 They will do to him what they do to the dead body of an ass; his body will be pulled out and placed on the earth outside the doors of Jerusalem. 20 Go up to Lebanon and give a cry; let your voice be loud in Bashan, crying out from Abarim; for all your lovers have come to destruction 21 My word came to you in the time of your well-being; but you said, I will not give ear. This has been your way from your earliest years, you did not give attention to my voice. 22 All the keepers of your sheep will be food for the wind, and your lovers will be taken away prisoners: truly, then you will be shamed and unhonoured because of all your evil-doing. 23 O you who are living in Lebanon, making your living-place in the cedars, how greatly to be pitied will you be when pains come on you, as on a woman in childbirth!

24 By my life, says the Lord, even if Coniah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, was the ring on my right hand, even from there I would have you pulled off; 25 And I will give you into the hands of those desiring your death, and into the hands of those whom you are fearing, even into the hands of Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, and into the hands of the Chaldaeans. 26 I will send you out, and your mother who gave you birth, into another country not the land of your birth; and there death will come to you. 27 But to the land on which their soul's desire is fixed, they will never come back.

28 Is this man Coniah a broken vessel of no value? is he a vessel in which there is no pleasure? why are they violently sent out, he and his seed, into a land which is strange to them? 29 O earth, earth, earth, give ear to the word of the Lord!

30 The Lord has said, Let this man be recorded as having no children, a man who will not do well in all his life: for no man of his seed will do well, seated on the seat of the kingdom of David and ruling again in Judah.


Basic English, produced by Mr C. K. Ogden of the Orthological Institute - public domain