Jeremiah 22
1 This is another message that Yahweh gave [to me]: “Go down to the palace of the king of Judah and say this to him:
Thus says the Lord; Go you, and go down to the house of the king of Juda, and you shall speak there this word,
2 ‘You are the king of Judah. You are the ruler [MTY], like King David was. You and your officials and your people must listen
and you shall say, Hear the word of the Lord, O king of Juda, that sit on the throne of David, you, and your house, and your people, and they that go in at these gates:
3 to what Yahweh says: “Act fairly and justly. Do what is right. Help those who have been robbed. Rescue people from those who oppress them. Stop doing evil things. Do not mistreat those who have come here from other countries, and do not mistreat orphans and widows. Stop murdering here [in Jerusalem] [MTY] those who (are innocent/have not done things that are wrong).
thus says the Lord; Execute you judgment and justice, and rescue the spoiled out of the hand of him that wrongs him: and oppress not the stranger, and orphan, and widow, and sin not, and shed no innocent blood in this place.
4 If you obey those commands carefully, there will [always] be some descendant of King David who will be ruling here [MTY] [in Jerusalem]. The king and his officials and other people will ride through the gates of the city in chariots and on horses.
For if you will indeed perform this word, then shall there enter in by the gates of this house kings sitting upon the throne of David, and riding on chariots and horses, they, and their servants, and their people.
5 But if you refuse to pay attention to those commands, I, Yahweh, solemnly declare, with myself [MTY] as a witness, that this palace will become a pile of rubble.”’”
But if you will not perform these words, by myself have I sworn, says the Lord, that this house shall be [brought] to desolation.
6 And this is what Yahweh says about the king’s palace: “[I like] this palace, like I like the forests in the Gilead [region] and the mountains in Lebanon. But I will cause this palace to become a desert, a place that no one lives in.
For thus says the Lord concerning the house of the king of Juda; You are Galaad to me, [and] the head of Libanus: [yet] surely I will make you a desert, [even] cities that shall not be inhabited:
7 I will summon enemy troops who will destroy this palace; each of their soldiers will use his own tools [to wreck the building]. They will cut into pieces the beautiful big cedar [beams] and throw them into a fire.”
and I will bring upon you a destroying man, and his axe: and they shall cut down your choice cedars, and cast [them] into the fire.
8 People from many nations will walk past [the ruins of] this city and say to each other, “Why did Yahweh destroy this city that was [very] great?”
And nations shall pass through this city, and each shall say to his neighbor, Why has the Lord done thus to this great city?
9 And [other] people will reply, “[He did it] because his people stopped obeying the agreement that they had made with Yahweh their God. Instead, they worshiped [DOU] other gods.”
And they shall say, Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord their God, and worshipped strange gods, and served them.
10 [Yahweh also says, ] “Do not mourn for King [Josiah]; do not cry because he has died. Instead, mourn for [King Jehoahaz, his son], [because] he will be captured and taken to another country, and he will never return to see his own country, [Judah], again.”
Weep not for the dead, nor lament for him: weep bitterly for him that goes away: for he shall return no more, nor see his native land.
11 Jehoahaz became king after his father, King Josiah, [died], but Jehoahaz indeed was captured and taken [to Babylonia]. And this is what Yahweh says about him: “He also will never return [to Judah].
For thus says the Lord concerning Sellem the son of Josias, who reigns in the place of Josias his father, who has gone forth out of this place; He shall not return there any more:
12 He will die in that far-away country and will never see his own country again.”
but in that place whither I have carried him captive, there shall he die, and shall see this land no more.
13 [And Yahweh said to me], “Terrible things will happen to [King Jehoahaz’s brother, King Jehoiakim]. He unjustly [forced men to] build his palace. The rooms on the upper level were built [by men who were forced] unjustly [to do that work]; he forced his neighbors to work for nothing; he did not pay them anything.
He that builds his house not with justice, and his upper chambers not with judgment, who works by means of his neighbor for nothing, and will by no means give him his reward.
14 He said, ‘I will [force my workers to] build a huge beautiful palace with very large rooms and [many] windows. They will cover the walls with [fragrant] cedar panels/timber and paint them bright red.’”
You have built for yourself a well-proportioned house, airy chambers, fitted with windows, and wainscoted with cedar, and painted with vermilion.
15 But it is certainly not [RHQ] having a beautiful cedar palace that causes a king to be great! Jehoiakim’s father, Josiah, also had [RHQ] plenty of things to eat and drink. But Josiah always did things that are right and just, and that is why God blessed him.
Shall you reign, because you are provoked with your father Achaz? they shall not eat, and they shall not drink: it is better for you to execute judgment and justice.
16 Josiah acted justly/fairly and helped poor and needy people, so things went well for him. Yahweh says, “That is [RHQ] the way a person should behave who knows me.
They understood not, they judged not the cause of the afflicted, nor the cause of the poor: is not this your not knowing me? says the Lord.
17 But [Jehoiakim], you [MTY] are greedy and desire only to obtain things by acting dishonestly. You murder [MTY] innocent people, you oppress poor people, and you treat people cruelly and violently.”
Behold, your eyes are not good, nor your heart, but [they go] after your covetousness, and after the innocent blood to shed it, and after acts of injustice and slaughter, to commit them.
18 Therefore, this is what Yahweh says about Jehoiakim, the son of King Josiah: “[When he dies], people will not mourn for him. They will not say to each other, ‘It is very sad; we are so sorry!’ The people whom he ruled will not mourn for him, saying, ‘We are sad that our king is dead; we are so sorry that the wonderful things [that happened while he was king are ended].’
Therefore thus says the Lord concerning Joakim son of Josias, king of Juda, even concerning this man; they shall not bewail him, [saying], Ah brother! neither shall they at all weep for him, [saying], Alas Lord.
19 [When he dies, people will do to] his corpse what they do to a dead donkey; his [corpse] will be dragged out of Jerusalem and dumped outside the gates!
He shall be buried with the burial of an ass; he shall be dragged roughly along and cast outside the gate of Jerusalem.
20 [You people of Judah], go to [the mountains in] Lebanon and weep, shout in the [mountains of the] Bashan [region], cry out in [the mountains of] Moab, because all your friends [in those areas] have been destroyed.
Go up to Libanus, and cry; and utter your voice to Basan, and cry aloud to the extremity of the sea: for all your lovers are destroyed.
21 When you were prosperous, I warned you, but you replied, ‘We will not pay attention [to what you say].’ You have been acting like that since you were young; you have never obeyed me.
I spoke to you on [occasion of] your trespass, but you said, I will not listen. This [has been] your way from your youth, you have not listened to my voice.
22 [So, now I will punish] all your leaders; [it will be as though] they have been blown away by the wind. They will be captured [by your enemies] and taken to another country. When that happens, you will [truly] be ashamed and disgraced because of all the wicked things [that you have done].
The wind shall tend all your shepherds, and your lovers shall go into captivity; for then shall you be ashamed and disgraced because of all your lovers.
23 [Now, your king] enjoys living in the cedar rooms in his palace, but [soon] he will be punished, and then he will groan like [SIM] a woman who is giving birth to a baby.”
O you that dwell in Libanus, making your nest in the cedars, you shall groan heavily, when pangs as of a travailing woman are come upon you.
24 Yahweh says this: “Jehoiachin, son of King Jehoiakim of Judah, as surely as I am alive, [I will punish you]. Even if you were the ring on my finger that shows that I am the king, I would pull you off.
[As] I live, says the Lord, though Jechonias son of Joakim king of Juda were indeed the seal upon my right hand, thence would I pluck you;
25 You are afraid of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and his huge army, [because] they are wanting to kill you. I will enable them to capture you.
and I will deliver you into the hands of them that seek your life, before whom you are afraid, into the hands of the Chaldeans.
26 I will expel you and your mother [from this land], and you will be taken to another country. Neither of you was born there, but you will both die there.
And I will cast forth you, and your mother that bore you, into a land where you were not born; and there you shall die.
27 You will never return to this land that you will very much desire to return to.”
But they shall by no means return to the land which they long for in their souls.
28 [Someone said, ] “Jehoiachin will be [RHQ] like a broken pot that is despised and which no one wants. He and his children will be (exiled/forced to go) to a foreign land.
Jechonias is dishonored as a good-for-nothing vessel; for he is thrown out and cast forth into a land which he knew not.
29 [I want] the people in this land to listen carefully to this message from Yahweh.”
Land, land, hear the word of the Lord.
30 This is what Yahweh says: “[In the record about the kings of Judah, ] write down that [it will be as though] this man [Jehoiachin] had no children, and that he has not been successful during his life, because none of his children/descendants will [ever] become king to rule over [the people of] Judah.”
Write you this man an outcast: for there shall none of his seed at all grow up to sit on the throne of David, [or as] a prince yet in Juda.
