1This is what Yahweh said: "Go down to the palace of the king of Judah and announce this message there:
2'Listen to Yahweh's message, King of Judah, you who sit on David's throne—you, your officials, and your people who enter through these gates.
3Yahweh says: "Do what is right and fair. Rescue those who have been robbed from their oppressors. Do not mistreat or harm foreigners, orphans, or widows. Do not shed innocent blood in this place."
4"'For if you truly do these things, then kings who sit on David's throne will continue to enter through the gates of this palace, riding in chariots and on horses, along with their officials and their people.
5But if you do not listen to these words, I swear by myself," says Yahweh, "that this palace will become a ruin."'"
6For Yahweh says this about the palace of the king of Judah: "You are like Gilead to me, like the peak of Lebanon. Yet I will surely turn you into a wilderness, into uninhabited cities."
7I will send destroyers against you, each with their weapons. They will cut down your best cedar trees and throw them into the fire.
8Many nations will pass by this city, and each one will ask their neighbor, 'Why did Yahweh do this to such a great city?'
9Then they will answer, 'Because they abandoned the agreement with Yahweh their God, and worshiped and served other gods.'
10Don't cry for the dead person or mourn for them, but cry bitterly for the one who is taken away, because he will never return or see his homeland again.
11This is what Yahweh says about Shallum, son of Josiah, king of Judah, who became king after his father Josiah, and who left this place: “He will never return here.
12Instead, he will die in the place where he was taken captive, and he will never see this land again.”
13“How terrible it will be for the person who builds his house by doing wrong, and his rooms by being unfair; who makes his neighbor work without pay and doesn’t give him what he earned;
14who says, ‘I will build myself a large house with spacious rooms,’ and cuts out windows for himself, and uses cedar for the ceiling and paints it with red pigment.”
15“Do you think you are a king because you compete to have the most cedar? Your father ate and drank, and he was fair and did what was right. And then things went well for him.
16He judged the cases of the poor and those in need, and then things went well. Doesn’t this mean he knew me?” says Yahweh.
17“But you only care about your greed, and about shedding innocent blood, about oppressing people, and about committing violence.”
18Therefore, this is what Yahweh says about Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, king of Judah: “People will not mourn for him, saying, ‘Oh, my brother!’ or, ‘Oh, sister!’ They will not mourn for him, saying, ‘Oh, lord!’ or, ‘Oh, his majesty!’
19He will be buried like a donkey, dragged out and thrown outside the gates of Jerusalem.”
20“Go up to Lebanon and cry out; raise your voice in Bashan; cry out from Abarim, because all your allies are destroyed.
21I spoke to you when you were doing well, but you said, ‘I will not listen.’ This has been your way since you were young; you have never obeyed my voice.
22The wind will carry away all your shepherds, and your allies will be taken captive. Then you will surely be ashamed and disgraced because of all your wickedness.
23You who live in Lebanon, who build your nest in the cedar trees, how much pity you will deserve when pain comes upon you, a pain like a woman giving birth!”
24“As surely as I live,” says Yahweh, “even if Coniah, son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were a signet ring on my right hand, I would still pull you off of it;
25and I would hand you over to those who want to kill you, and to those you fear—to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and to the Chaldeans.”
26I will throw you out, along with your mother who gave birth to you, into another country where you were not born; and there you will die.
27But they will never return to the land their souls long to go back to.”
28Is this man Coniah a despised, broken pot? Is he a jar that no one wants? Why are he and his children thrown out and cast into a land they don’t know?
29Oh earth, earth, earth, listen to Yahweh’s word!
30Yahweh says, “Record this man as childless, a man who will not succeed in his lifetime; for none of his descendants will ever succeed in sitting on David’s throne and ruling in Judah.”