The enemies will destroy the palace
1The Lord said: ‘Jeremiah, you must go to the palace of the king_of_Judah and you must tell them what I say. 2You must say: “O, King_of_Judah, you who sit on the throne of King David, you must listen to what the Lord says, you and your officials and your people who come here to the gates to judge.” 3The Lord says: “You must do what is right and you must punish the people who have done wrong. You must help people when other people have taken their things, and don't let strangers, orphans or widows suffer, and do not kill innocent people in this place. 4If you really do what is right, then kings will come and rule on the throne of King David. The kings and their officials and their people will come through the gates of this palace and they will ride on horses and wagons. 5But if you don't want to listen to Me, I will destroy this palace, this I promise.”
6Yes, the Lord talks about the palace
of the king_of_Judah and He says:
“You were like the land of Gilead to Me,
like the trees on Mount Lebanon,
but I will make you become like
a desert where no one can live.
7I will send people to destroy you.
They will come with their axes
and they will cut down your beautiful
cedar planks and throw them in the fire.”
8A lot of people will walk past this city and they will ask each other: “Why has the Lord done this to this great city?” 9And they will answer: “The Lord has done this because the people of this city have broken the covenant of the Lord their God. They turned away from the Lord, and they worshipped other gods and served them.” ’
Shallum will not come back again
10‘Don't cry for your king who has died,
don't mourn him, but cry
for the king who is being taken away,
because he will not come back,
and he will not see this land again, the land where he was born.
11Because the Lord talks about Shallum,
son of King Josiah of Judah, and He says:
“Shallum went from here
and he will not come back here.
12The enemies have taken him away
to another land and he will die in that land.
He will never see this land again.” ’
Jehoiakim will suffer
13The Lord says: ‘The king
who builds this palace for himself will suffer.
It is a palace with rooms upstairs.
He makes people build his palace,
but he does not pay them.
He makes them work hard, but he gives them nothing.
14He says he wants to build a big palace
with rooms upstairs
so that the wind can blow through it.
He builds it with big windows.
He covers the walls with cedar wood
and he paints it red.’
15‘Jehoiakim, you think that you are a king
because you have a lot
of cedar wood in your palace.
Your father had food to eat
and wine to drink every day.
He did what was right to people every day,
and everything went well for him.
16He did what was right to poor people,
people who could not help themselves,
and all went well.
That is what it means to know God.’
This is what the Lord says.
17‘But Jehoiakim,
you want to have everything you see,
you kill innocent people,
you take what you want
and you oppress the people.’
18The Lord says this about Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, king_of_Judah:
‘That is why Jehoiakim's family
will not cry when he dies,
and the people whom he rules
will not mourn him.
19When they bury him,
it will be like when people
take a dead donkey and pull it
out of the city with a rope
and throw it away.’
King Jehoiakim's mother will suffer
20The Lord talks
to King Jehoiakim and He says:
‘You must go up Mount Lebanon and cry.
Shout_loudly so that the people
can hear you in the land of Bashan.
Go and stand on the Abarim Mountains
and ask someone to help you,
because there is no one left over,
and everyone that you loved is dead.
21I talked to you
when all went well with you,
but you said you did not want to listen.
You did not obey Me from the time
when you were young.
22Now the wind will blow away
all your friends,
and the people who loved you
will become prisoners.
Your enemies will humiliate you
and you will not know what to do,
because you have done
a lot of things that are wrong.
23You live in a palace built
with cedar wood that comes
from the Lebanon Mountain,
but when your punishment comes,
you will cry, and you will shout like
a woman who is having a baby.’
King Jehoiakim and his descendants will not rule again
24The Lord said: ‘As sure as I live, Jehoiachin, king_of_Judah, son of Jehoiakim, you were important to Me. You were like a ring with a seal on my right hand, but I will take you off my finger. 25I will give you to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and to the Babylonians. They are the people who want to kill you. They are the people that you are afraid of. 26I will throw you and your mother away into another land, a land where you were not born, and you will die there. 27You will long for your land but you will never come back here.’
28Jehoiachin is like a broken clay pot that no one wants. Why did the Lord throw Jehoiachin away into a land that he did not know? Why did the Lord throw away his descendants? 29All of you in the land, you must listen to what the Lord says. 30The Lord says: ‘You must write his name in the list with people who had no children. Nothing good will happen to this man while he lives, and none of his sons will sit on the throne of King David and rule over Judah.’
