Jeremiah 22
22
The LORD will punish the king of Judah
1-3The LORD sent me to the palace of the king of Judah to speak to the king, his officials, and everyone else who was there. The LORD told me to say:
I am the LORD, so pay attention! You have been allowing people to cheat, rob, and take advantage of widows, orphans, and foreigners who live here. Innocent people have become victims of violence, and some of them have even been killed. But now I command you to do what is right and see that justice is done. Rescue everyone who has suffered from injustice.
4If you obey me, the kings from David's family will continue to rule Judah from this palace. They and their officials will ride in and out on their horses or in their chariots. 5But if you ignore me, I promise in my own name that this palace will lie in ruins.#Mt 23.28; Lk 13.35. 6Listen to what I think about it:
the palace of Judah's king
is as glorious as Gilead
or Lebanon's highest peaks.
But it will be as empty
as a ghost town
when I'm through with it.
7I'll send troops to tear it apart,
and its beautiful cedar beams
will be used for firewood.
8People from different nations will pass by and ask, “Why did the LORD do this to such a great city as Jerusalem?” 9Others will answer, “It's because the people worshipped foreign gods and broke the agreement that the LORD their God had made with them.”
King Jehoahaz
The LORD said:
10King Josiah is dead,
so don't cry for him.#22.10 King Josiah…him: The Hebrew text has “don't cry for the dead one”, meaning King Josiah, who ruled 640-609 BC.
Instead, cry for his son
King Jehoahaz,#22.10 his son King Jehoahaz…country: The Hebrew text has “the one who was dragged off to another country”, meaning King Jehoahaz, who ruled for three months in 609 BC.
dragged off to another country,
never to return.
11-12Jehoahaz#22.11,12 Jehoahaz: The Hebrew text has “Shallum”, another name for Jehoahaz. became king of Judah after his father King Josiah died. But Jehoahaz was taken as a prisoner to a foreign country. Now I, the LORD, promise that he will die there without ever seeing his own land again.#2 K 23.31-34; 2 Ch 36.1-4.
King Jehoiakim
The LORD told me to say:
13-14King Jehoiakim,#22.13,14 Jehoiakim: See the note at 1.3. you are doomed!
You built a palace
with large rooms upstairs.
You put in big windows
and used cedar panelling
and red paint.
But you were unfair
and forced the builders to work
without pay.
15-16More cedar in your palace
doesn't make you a better king
than your father Josiah.
He always did right—
he gave justice to the poor
and was honest.
That's what it means
to truly know me.
So he lived a comfortable life
and always had enough
to eat and drink.
17But all you think about
is how to cheat
or abuse or murder
some innocent victim.
18Jehoiakim, no one will cry#2 K 23.36—24.6; 2 Ch 36.5-7.
at your funeral.
They won't turn to each other
and ask,
“Why did our great king
have to die?”
19You will be given a burial
fit for a donkey;
your body will be dragged
outside the city gates
and tossed in the dust.
I, the LORD, have spoken.
King Jehoiachin and the people of Jerusalem
The LORD told me to say:
20People of Jerusalem,
the nations#22.20 nations: Or “gods”. you trusted
have been crushed.
Go to Lebanon and weep;
cry in the land of Bashan
and in Moab.
21When times were good,
I warned you.
But you ignored me,
just as you have done
since Israel was young.
22Now you will be disgraced
because of your sins.
Your leaders will be swept away
by the wind,
and the nations you trusted
will be captured and dragged
to a foreign country.
23Those who live in the palace
panelled with cedar#22.23 who live in the palace panelled with cedar: The Hebrew text has “who live in Lebanon and who nest among the cedars”, which probably means Forest Hall in the royal palace at Jerusalem, which was panelled with cedar and had cedar columns and a cedar ceiling, all from Lebanon (see 1 Kings 7.2,3).
will groan with pain
like women giving birth.
24King Jehoiachin,#22.24 Jehoiachin: The Hebrew text has “Coniah”, another form of Jehoiachin's name; he ruled for three months in 598 BC. son of Jehoiakim,#22.24 Jehoiakim: See the note at 1.3. even if you were the ring I wear as the sign of my royal power, I would still pull you from my finger.#2 K 24.8-15; 2 Ch 36.9,10. 25I would hand you over to the enemy you fear, to King Nebuchadnezzar#22.25 Nebuchadnezzar: See the note at 21.2. and his army, who want to kill you. 26You and your mother#22.26 mother: See the note at 13.18. were born in Judah, but I will throw both of you into a foreign country, where you will die, 27longing to return home.
28Jehoiachin, you are unwanted
like a broken clay pot.
So you and your children
will be thrown into a country
you know nothing about.
29Land of Judah, I am the LORD.
Now listen to what I say!
30Erase the names
of Jehoiachin's children
from the royal records.
He is a complete failure,
and so none of them
will ever be king.
I, the LORD, have spoken.
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Jeremiah 22: CEVUK
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© British and Foreign Bible Society 2012
Jeremiah 22
22
1 Thus says the Lord: "Descend to the house of the king of Judah, and there you shall speak this word.
2 And you shall say: Listen to the word of the Lord, O king of Judah, who sits upon the throne of David: you and your servants, and your people, who enter through these gates.
3 Thus says the Lord: Exercise judgment and justice, and free anyone who is oppressed by violence from the hand of a false accuser. And do not be willing to sadden the new arrival, or the orphan, or the widow, nor should you burden them unfairly. And you shall not shed innocent blood in this place.
4 For if you will indeed accomplish this word, then there will enter through the gates of this house kings from the stock of David, sitting on his throne, and riding on chariots and on horses: they, and their servants, and their people.
5 But if you will not listen to these words, I swear by myself, says the Lord, that this house will be in desolation.
6 For thus says the Lord about the house of the king of Judah: You are to me like Gilead, the head of Lebanon. Certainly, I will make you desolate, with uninhabitable cities.
7 And I will sanctify over you the destroying man and his weapons. And they will cut down your select cedars and throw them violently into the fire.
8 And many nations will pass through this city. And each one will say to his neighbor: 'Why has the Lord acted in this way toward this great city?'
9 And they will answer: 'It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord their God, and they adored strange gods and served them.'
10 You should not choose to weep for the dead, nor should you mourn over them with tears. Lament for him who is departing, for he will return no more, nor will he see his native land again.
11 For thus says the Lord to Shallum, the son of Josiah, the king of Judah, who reigned in place of his father, who has departed from this place: He will not return here again.
12 Instead, he will die in the place to which I have transferred him, and he will not see this land anymore.
13 Woe to one who builds his house with injustice and his upper rooms without judgment, who oppresses his friend without cause and does not pay him his wages.
14 And he says: 'I will build a broad house for myself, with spacious upper rooms.' He makes windows for himself, and he builds the roof out of cedar, and he paints it with red ocher.
15 Will you reign because you compare yourself to the cedar? Did your father not eat and drink, and act with judgment and justice, so that it would be well with him?
16 He judged the case of the poor and the indigent for their good. Was this not because he knew me, says the Lord?
17 Yet truly, your eyes and your heart are toward avarice and the shedding of innocent blood, and toward false accusations and the pursuit of evil deeds.
18 Because of this, thus says the Lord toward Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah: They will not mourn for him by saying, 'Alas,' to a brother, or, 'Alas,' to a sister. They will not make a noise for him and say, 'Alas,' to a master, or, 'Alas,' to a nobleman.
19 He will be buried with the burial of a donkey, having rotted and been thrown out of the gates of Jerusalem.
20 Ascend to Lebanon and cry out! And utter your voice in Bashan, and cry out to those passing by. For all your lovers have been crushed.
21 I spoke to you in your abundance, and you said, 'I will not listen.' This has been your way from your youth, for you have not listened to my voice.
22 The wind will feed all your shepherds, and your lovers will go into captivity. And then you will be confounded, and you will be ashamed of all your wickedness.
23 You who sit in Lebanon, and who nest in the cedars, in what way did you mourn when suffering came to you, like the suffering of a woman giving birth?
24 As I live, says the Lord, if Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, were a ring on my right hand, I would remove him from there.
25 And I will deliver you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of those whose face you dread, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.
26 And I will send you, and your mother who conceived you, into a foreign land, in which you were not born, and there you shall die.
27 And to the land about which they lift up their mind, thinking to return there, they shall not return.
28 Is this man, Jeconiah, a broken earthenware vessel? Is he a vessel which is entirely unpleasing? Why have they been cast out, he and his offspring, cast out even into a land that they have not known?
29 O earth, O earth, O earth! Listen to the word of the Lord!
30 Thus says the Lord: Write: this man is barren; he is a man who will not prosper in his days. For there will not be a man from among his offspring who will sit upon the throne of David, or have authority in Judah, anymore."
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