1 This is what the LORD{YHWH, Sovereign Judge} says: Go down to the king of Judah’s house and speak this word{davar: decree} there.
2 And you shall say, “Hear the word {davar: authoritative declaration} of the LORD {YHWH, Supreme Authority}, O king of Judah who sits upon the throne of David—you, your servants, and your people who enter through these gates.”
3 Thus says the LORD {YHWH, Authority of Justice}: "Do justice and righteousness, and deliver the one who has been robbed from the hand of the oppressor. Do not oppress or do violence to the sojourner, the orphan {yatom: fatherless}, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place."
4 For if you do this thing {davar: command or matter}, then kings sitting on David’s throne, riding in chariots and on horses—the king himself, his servants, and his people—will enter through the gates of this house {shaarei: entrance ways}.
5 But if you do not listen to these words, I have sworn by Myself, declares the LORD {YHWH, Verdict Giver}, that this house will become a ruin {le-khorbah: lasting wreckage}.
6 For thus says the LORD {YHWH: Sovereign Judge} concerning the house of the king of Judah: "You are to Me like Gilead, the summit {rosh: highest point} of Lebanon; yet I will make you a wilderness, cities not inhabited."
7 I {YHWH, Sovereign Judge} will set apart against you destroyers, each man with his weapons; and they will cut down the choicest of your cedars {arazekha: tall, valuable trees}, and cast them into the fire.
8 And many nations will pass over this city, and each man will say to his neighbor, "Why has the LORD {YHWH, Righteous Judge} done thus to this great city {hagedolah: prominent metropolis}?"
9 And they will say, “Because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD their God {YHWH Eloheihem, Covenant God}, bowed down to other gods {elohim: foreign powers}, and served them.”
10 Do not weep for the dead, nor lament for him; but weep bitterly for the one going away {laholekh: departing one}, for he will not return again nor see his native land {erets moladto: place of birth}.
11 For thus says the LORD {YHWH, Pronouncer of Judgment} concerning Shallum son of Josiah, king {melekh: sovereign ruler} of Judah, who reigned in place of his father Josiah, who went out from this place: He will not return there again.
12 For in the place where they led him into exile {higlu: forced removal}, there he will die, and this land {haaretz: ancestral territory} he will not see again.
13 Woe to the one who builds his house without righteousness {tsedeq: moral rightness} and his upper rooms without justice, who makes his neighbor serve for nothing and does not give him his wages {po'al: labor earnings}.
14 The one who says, “I will build myself a house {beit: measured structure} of great dimensions and spacious upper rooms, and he cuts out windows in it, panels it with cedar, and paints it with vermilion {bashashar: red pigment}.”
15 Will you reign because you are striving in cedar? Did not your father eat and drink and do justice {mishpat: legal rightness} and righteousness {tsedaqah: covenant faithfulness}? Then it was well for him.
16 He judged the cause {dîn: legal dispute} of the poor and needy; then it was well. Is this not to know Me? declares the LORD {YHWH, Righteous Judge}.
17 For your eyes and your heart are fixed only on selfish gain {bitsecha: self-serving profit} and on shedding innocent blood {dam ha-naqi: blood of the guiltless} and on oppression and on violence.
18 Therefore, thus says the LORD {YHWH, Just Judge} concerning Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah: They will not lament for him, saying “Alas, my brother!” or “Alas, sister!” They will not lament for him, saying “Alas, lord!” or “Alas, his majesty {hodo: royal splendor}!”
19 He will be buried with the burial of a donkey {hamor: symbolic humiliation}—dragged and thrown out beyond the gates of Jerusalem {Yerushalayim: city of peace}.
20 Go up to Lebanon and cry out {utsaaqi: loud lament}; in Bashan lift up your voice; and cry out from Abarim, for all your lovers have been destroyed {nishberu: shattered, ruined}.
21 I spoke to you in your prosperity {shalvotayikh: secure state}, but you said, “I will not listen.” This is your way from your youth, for you have not listened to my voice {be-qoli: authoritative call}.
22 All your shepherds {rōʿayikh: metaphorical leaders} will be shepherded by the wind, and your lovers will go into captivity; for then you shall be ashamed and disgraced because of all your evil {raʿāteikh: wrongdoing}.
23 You who dwell in Lebanon {levanon: cedar-rich region}, who nest in the cedars, how pitiful you will be when pangs {chavalim: birth pangs} come upon you—pain like a woman in labor!
24 “As I live,” declares the LORD {YHWH, Oath-Swearing Judge}, “even if Coniah son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were a signet {chotam: authoritative seal} on my right hand, yet from there I would pluck you off.”
25 I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life {nephesh: whole being}, and into the hand of those before whom you are fearful, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans {hakasdim: Babylonian elite}.
26 And I {YHWH, Divine Judge} will hurl you and your mother who bore you {yeladatkha: gave you birth} upon another land, where you were not born, and there you will die.
27 But concerning the land to which they are lifting up {menasseim: intense yearning} their soul {nefesh: vital longing} to return, they shall not return.
28 Is this man Coniah {konyahu: shortened form of Jeconiah, last king of Judah} a despised, broken pot, or a vessel in which there is no delight? Why have they—he and his offspring {zaro: descendants}—been cast out and thrown upon a land which they did not know?
29 O land, land, land, hear {shimi: receive and obey} the word of the LORD {YHWH, Supreme Judge}.
30 Thus says the LORD{YHWH, Divine Judge}: Write down this man as childless{ariri: without an heir}, a man who will not succeed in his days; for none of his descendants will succeed in sitting on the throne of David or ruling any longer in Judah.