Jeremiah Chapter 22
Message About Judah’s Kings
1 The LORD says,
“Go to the king’s palace in Judah and say, 2 ‘Listen to this message from the LORD, king of Judah on David’s throne—you, your officials, and your people that come in these gates. 3 “Be just and good. Deliver from their oppressors those who’ve been robbed. Don’t mistreat foreigners, orphans, or widows, or shed innocent blood here. 4 If you do that, kings who sit on David’s throne will come in these palace gates with attendants riding in chariots and on horses. 5 If you won’t, I swear by myself that this palace will be empty.”’”
6 He says this about the king of Judah’s palace:
“You’re like Gilead to me,
like the top of Lebanon;
yet I’ll make a desert out of you,
an empty city.
7 I’ll send destroyers against you with their weapons
to cut down your best cedars
and throw them in the fire.
Jer 22:1-7
8 “Nations will pass this city and say, ‘Why did the LORD do that to this great city?’ 9 People will answer, ‘Because they abandoned his covenant with them and served other gods.’
10 “Don’t mourn for the dead king;
weep bitterly for the one that’s leaving;
he’ll never come back to see his native land.”
Jer 22:8-10
Message About Jehoahaz
11This is what the LORD says about Shallum/Jehoahaz son of Josiah, king of Judah, who succeeded his father and was exiled from here:
“He’s never coming back;
12 where he goes is where he’ll die.
Message About Jehoiakim
13“Misfortune awaits Jehoiakim
that’s built his palace with forced labor,
his upper rooms with injustice: he made his countrymen work for him for nothing; 14 he said, ‘I’ll build myself a grand palace with large upper rooms, cut out windows for it, panel it with cedar, and paint it red.’ Jer 22:11-14
15Do you think you’re a king because you traffic in cedar? Didn’t your father eat and drink, do justice and goodness? Things went well for him.
16He defended the poor and needy;
isn’t that what it means to know me?
17 But you have eyes and heart only for your own dishonest gain, for shedding innocent blood, for practicing oppression and violence.” Jer 22:15-17
18 So the LORD says about Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah:
“They won’t mourn for him, as in ‘My brother,’ ‘My sister!’
They won’t mourn for him, as in ‘My master’ or ‘He had such splendor!’ 19 They’ll bury him like a donkey, dragged off and thrown out of Jerusalem.
20 Go up to Lebanon and cry out; shout in Bashan.
Cry out from Abarim because your lovers have been destroyed.
21 I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said, ‘I don’t have to do that!’ That’s the way you’ve acted since you were young. Jer 22:18-21
22 The wind will blow your allies away; your buddies will go into captivity. Your sinfulness will disgrace you.
23 You that live nested in cedars from Lebanon, how you’ll groan when pangs come on you like a woman in childbirth!
Message About Jehoiachin
24 “As I live,” the LORD says, “even if you, Coniah/Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were a signet ring on my right hand, I’d pull you off 25 and hand you to the executioners you dread: Nebuchadrezzar/Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians. 26 I’ll expel you and your mother from your native land. 27 You won’t return to the land you’ll yearn to see. Jer 22:22-27
28 “Why is Coniah/Jehoiachin a despised, shattered pot, an unwanted container?
Why have he and his descendants been expelled into a foreign country?
29 Land, land, land, listen to the LORD’s message:
30 ‘Let the records show that this man had no children; he was a failure in his own time.
He won’t have a descendant to succeed him on David’s throne in Judah.’”
Jer 22:28-30