1Thus said LORD JEHOVAH: “Come down to the house of the King of Judea and speak there this answer 2And say: ‘Hear the word of LORD JEHOVAH, King of Judea, who sits on the throne of David, you and your Servants and your people who enter into these doors 3So says LORD JEHOVAH: ‘Do judgment and righteousness, and save the oppressed from him who oppresses him, and you shall not take advantage of the foreigners and the orphans and the widows, and you shall not oppress, and you shall not shed innocent blood in this place 4And if you will do this word, Kings shall enter into the gates of this house, and Princes who sit on the throne of David, as they ride in chariots and on horses, he and his Servants and his people 5And if you will not hear this word, by myself I have sworn, says LORD JEHOVAH, ‘This house shall be for desolation’

6For thus says LORD JEHOVAH about the house of the King of Judea: ‘Galeed, you are the head of Lebanon, but I shall make you a wilderness like a city that is uninhabited

7And I shall prepare destroyers for you, each man and his ax in his hand, and they shall cut down the choice ones of your cedars, and they shall throw them into fire

8And many nations shall pass by this great city. They shall say, a man to his neighbor: ‘Why did so LORD JEHOVAH to this great city?’ 9And they shall say: ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of LORD JEHOVAH their God, and they bowed to other gods, and they worked for them!’

10You shall not weep for the dead and you shall not tremble for him. Weep for him who departs and does not return, and he does not see the land in which he was born

11For thus says LORD JEHOVAH about Shallum, son of Yoshiah, who reigned in the place of Yoshiah his father, who went out from this place: ‘He shall not return there again 12But in the place that he was taken captive, there he shall die, and he shall not see this land again’

13Woe to him who builds his house that is not in righteousness, and his upper rooms that are not in justice! His fellow man works for him without charge and he does not give him his wages

14Who says, ‘I shall build myself houses of dimensions and spacious upper rooms’, and opens windows and covers them in cedar and fashions images for them

15Do you reign that you may rejoice in cedar? Your father ate and drank, and did justice and righteousness; because of this, I did good to him

16He judged the judgment of the poor and of the afflicted, and did what is beautiful; whoever does these things knows me, says LORD JEHOVAH

17But your eyes and your heart are not on anything but your possessions and upon shedding innocent blood and upon oppression and exercising tyranny

18For thus says LORD JEHOVAH about Yoaqim, son of Yoshiah, King of Judea: “They shall not mourn for him, and they shall not say, ‘Woe, my brother! Woe, my brother!’ And they shall not mourn over him ‘Woe, Master! Woe, Master!’

19With the burial of an ass he shall be buried, and they shall drag and throw him far from the gates of Jerusalem”

20Go up to Lebanon and cry out, and in Mathnin lift up your voice and cry out from over the sea, for all of your friends are defeated!

21And I have spoken to you in your prosperity, and you said: “I will not listen.” This is your way from your youth, and you have not listened to my voice

22The wind shall shepherd all your shepherds, and your friends shall depart into captivity, and then you shall be ashamed and you shall be convicted of all your evil

23Inhabitant in Lebanon, nesting in cedar, how you will groan when destruction and shaking like that of child birth will come upon you!

24I am living, says LORD JEHOVAH God: “If Yokania, son of Yoaqim, King of Judea, shall be the seal on my right hand, surely from there I shall uproot you 25And I shall hand you over into the hand of those men who seek your life and into the hand of those whom you fear, into the hand of Nebukadnetsar, King of Babel, and into the hand of The Chaldeans 26And I shall cast you out, you and your mother who gave you birth, to another land where you were not born, and there you shall die 27And the land to which your souls hope to return you shall not return

28This Yokania, a despised and contemptible man, is like a useless vessel. Because of this, he is carried away, and his seed, and they are cast to a land that they do not know

29Earth, Earth, Earth, hear the word of LORD JEHOVAH!

30Thus says LORD JEHOVAH: “Write him, this accursed man, without sons, because a man from his seed shall not prosper in his days, a man who sits on the throne of David or is authorized again in Yehuda