Jer 22
1
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
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
thus says the Lord; Execute you judgement and justice, and rescue the spoiled out
of the hand of him whom wrongs him: and oppress not the stranger, and orphan, and
widow, and sin not, and shed no innocent blood in this place.
4
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 will not perform these words, by myself have I sworn, says the Lord, that
this house shall be brought to desolation.
6
For thus says the Lord Or, against 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
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
And nations shall pass through this city, and each shall say to his neighbour, Why
has the Lord done thus to this great city?
9
And they shall say Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord their God, and worshiped
strange gods, and served them.
10
Weep not for the dead, nor lament for him: weep bitterly for him whom goes away: for
he shall return no more, nor see his native land.
11
For thus says the Lord Gr. against 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
but in that place where I have carried him captive, there shall he die, and shall
see this land no more.
13
He who builds his house not with justice, and his upper chambers not with judgement,
Complut. reads, «his neighbour works with him,’ etc. who works by means of his neighbour for nothing, and will by no means
give him his
reward.
14
You have built for yourself a well-proportioned house, airy chambers, fitted with
windows, and wainscoted with cedar, and painted with vermilion.
15
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 judgement and justice.
16
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
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 thus says the Lord Or, to, or, against 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
He shall be buried with the burial of an ass; he shall be dragged roughly along and
cast outside the gate of Jerusalem.
20
Go up to Libanus, and cry; and Gr. give utter your voice to Basan, and cry aloud Alex. reads eiv to peran, to the country
beyond the sea to the extremity of the sea: for all your lovers are destroyed.
21
I spoke to you Possibly «concerning your fall’ on occasion of your trespass, but you said, I will not hearken. This has been
your
way from your youth, you have not hearkened to my voice.
22
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
O Fem. gen 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
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
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
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
But they shall by no means return to the land which they long for in their souls.
28
Jechonias is dishonoured as a good-for-nothing vessel; for he is thrown out and cast
forth into a land which he knew not.
29
Land, land, hear the word of the Lord.
30
Write you this man Gr. one cried out as by a common crier 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.