The In-Dept Study of the Bible
Jeremiah 22
1 Yahweh said, “Go down to the house
of the king of Judah, and speak this word
there:
2 ‘Hear Yahweh’s word, king of Judah,
who sits on David’s throne—you, your
servants, and your people who enter in by
these gates.
3 Yahwehsays: “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.
4 For if you do this thing indeed, then
kings sitting on David’s throne will enter in
by the gates ofthishouse, riding inchariots
and on horses—they, their servants, and
their people.
5 But if you will not hear these words, I
swear by myself,” says Yahweh, “that this
house will become a desolation.
6 For Yahweh says concerning the house
of the king of Judah: “You are Gilead to me,
the head of Lebanon. Yet surely I will make you a wilderness,
cities which are not inhabited.
7 I will prepare destroyers against you,
everyone with his weapons,
and they will cut down your choice cedars,
and cast them into the fire.
8 “Manynations will pass by this city, and
they will each ask his neighbor, ‘Why has
Yahweh done this to this great city?’
9 Then they will answer, ‘Because they
abandoned the covenant of Yahweh their
God, worshiped other gods, and served
them.’ ”
10 Don’t weep for the dead.
Don’t bemoan him;
but weep bitterly for him who goes away,
for he will return no more,
and not see his native country.
11 For Yahweh 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.
12 But 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, and his rooms by injustice;
who uses his neighbor’s service without
wages, and doesn’t give him his hire;
14 who says, ‘I will build myself a wide
house and spacious rooms,’
and cuts out windows for himself,
with a cedar ceiling,
and painted with red.
15 “Should you reign because you strive to
excel in cedar? Didn’t your father eat and drink,
and do justice and righteousness?
Then it was well with him.
16 He judged the cause of the poor and
needy; so then it was well.
Wasn’t this to know me? says Yahweh.
17 But your eyes and your heart are only for
your covetousness, for shedding innocent blood,
for oppression, and for doing violence.”
18 Therefore Yahweh says concerning
Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah:
“They won’t lament for him,
saying, ‘Ah my brother!’ or, ‘Ah sister!’
They won’t lament for him,
saying ‘Ah lord!’ or, ‘Ah his glory!’
19 He will be buried with the burial of a
donkey, drawnandcast outbeyondthe gates of
Jerusalem.”
20 “Go up to Lebanon, and cry out.
Lift up your voice in Bashan,
and cry from Abarim; for all your lovers
have been destroyed.
21 I spoke to you in your prosperity,
but you said, ‘I will not listen.’
This has been your way from your youth,
that you didn’t obey my voice.
22 The wind will feed all your shepherds,
and your lovers will go into captivity.
Surely then you will be ashamed
and confounded for all your wickedness.
23 Inhabitant of Lebanon, who makes your nest in the cedars,
how greatly to be pitied you will be when
pangs come on you, the pain as of a woman in travail!
24 “As I live,” says Yahweh, “though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah
were the signet on my right hand, I would
still pluck you from there.
25 I would give you into the hand ofthose
who seek your life, and into the hand of
themof whomyouare afraid, eveninto the
hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon,
and into the hand of the Chaldeans.
26 I will cast you out with your mother
who bore you into another country, where
you were not born; and there you will die.
27 But to the land to which their soul
longs to return, there they will not return.”
28 Is this man Coniah a despised broken
vessel? Is he a vessel in which no one delights?
Why are they cast out, he and his offspring,
and cast into a land which they don’t
know?
29 O earth, earth, earth,
hear Yahweh’s word!
30 Yahweh says, “Record this man as childless,
a man who will not prosper in his
days; for no more will a man of his offspring
prosper, sitting on David’s throne
and ruling in Judah.”