Jeremiah 22

²The Lord, the God of Israel, told Jeremiah to go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah and tell him that this is what the Lord says: “Behold, I am about to deliver this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it down.

¹⁹But when he rebuked Herod the tetrarch regarding his brother’s wife Herodias and all the evils he had done,

²⁰Herod added this to them all: He locked John up in prison.

¹⁸For John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife!”

¹⁸“Get up and go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, who is in Samaria. See, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, where he has gone to take possession of it.

¹⁹Tell him that this is what the Lord says: ‘Have you not murdered a man and seized his land?’ Then tell him that this is also what the Lord says: ‘In the place where the dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, there also the dogs will lick up your blood—yes, yours!’”

¹Then the Lord sent Nathan to David, and when he arrived, he said, “There were two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor.

¹“Hear this, O priests! Take heed, O house of Israel! Give ear, O royal house! For this judgment is against you because you have been a snare at Mizpah, a net spread out on Tabor.

³²He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David,

⁷Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from that time and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will accomplish this.

⁴For if you will indeed carry out these commands, then kings who sit on David’s throne will enter through the gates of this palace riding on chariots and horses—they and their officials and their people.

¹⁰Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the instruction of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

¹⁴Therefore hear the word of the Lord, O scoffers who rule this people in Jerusalem.

¹⁹Micaiah continued, “Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by Him on His right and on His left.

¹²O house of David, this is what the Lord says: ‘Administer justice every morning, and rescue the victim of robbery from the hand of his oppressor, or My wrath will go forth like fire and burn with no one to extinguish it because of their evil deeds.

⁸He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?

¹⁷“But your eyes and heart are set on nothing except your own dishonest gain, on shedding innocent blood, on practicing extortion and oppression.”

²⁷Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

⁷Father and mother are treated with contempt. Within your walls the foreign resident is exploited, the fatherless and the widow are oppressed.

¹⁵When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you multiply your prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood.

¹⁶Wash and cleanse yourselves. Remove your evil deeds from My sight. Stop doing evil!

²⁵then kings and princes will enter through the gates of this city. They will sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses with their officials, along with the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem, and this city will be inhabited forever.

⁸The Lord God has sworn by Himself—the Lord, the God of Hosts, has declared: “I abhor Jacob’s pride and detest his citadels, so I will deliver up the city and everything in it.”

¹³When God made His promise to Abraham, since He had no one greater to swear by, He swore by Himself,

²⁷But if you do not listen to Me to keep the Sabbath day holy by not carrying a load while entering the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle an unquenchable fire in its gates to consume the citadels of Jerusalem.’”

¹⁶saying, “By Myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your only son,

⁴⁰For I lift up My hand to heaven and declare: As surely as I live forever,

⁴¹when I sharpen My flashing sword, and My hand grasps it in judgment, I will take vengeance on My adversaries and repay those who hate Me.

²⁰But if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

¹¹Then I asked: “How long, O Lord?” And He replied: “Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left unoccupied and the land is desolate and ravaged,

³⁴and fruitful land into fields of salt, because of the wickedness of its dwellers.

¹²Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, and the temple mount a wooded ridge.

¹⁰For the fortified city lies deserted—a homestead abandoned, a wilderness forsaken. There the calves graze, and there they lie down; they strip its branches bare.

¹¹“And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

³⁴I will remove from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the sounds of joy and gladness and the voices of the bride and bridegroom, for the land will become a wasteland.”

⁶Raise a signal flag toward Zion. Seek refuge! Do not delay! For I am bringing disaster from the north, and terrible destruction.

⁷A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations has set out. He has left his lair to lay waste your land. Your cities will be reduced to ruins and lie uninhabited.

³³Behold, the Lord God of Hosts will lop off the branches with terrifying power. The tall trees will be cut down, the lofty ones will be felled.

³⁴He will clear the forest thickets with an axe, and Lebanon will fall before the Mighty One.

²⁴Through your servants you have taunted the Lord, and you have said: “With my many chariots I have ascended to the heights of the mountains, to the remote peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, the finest of its cypresses. I have reached its farthest heights, the densest of its forests.

¹Then I heard Him call out in a loud voice, saying, “Draw near, O executioners of the city, each with a weapon of destruction in hand.”

²And I saw six men coming from the direction of the Upper Gate, which faces north, each with a weapon of slaughter in his hand. With them was another man clothed in linen who had a writing kit at his side. And they came in and stood beside the bronze altar.

³I have commanded My sanctified ones; I have even summoned My warriors to execute My wrath and exult in My triumph.

⁴Listen, a tumult on the mountains, like that of a great multitude! Listen, an uproar among the kingdoms, like nations gathered together! The Lord of Hosts is mobilizing an army for war.

¹⁴I will punish you as your deeds deserve, declares the Lord. I will kindle a fire in your forest that will consume everything around you.’”

⁸And when this temple has become a heap of rubble, all who pass by it will be appalled and will hiss and say, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’

⁹And others will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the Lord their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—because of this, the Lord has brought all this disaster upon them.’”

²⁰then I will uproot Israel from the soil I have given them, and I will banish from My presence this temple I have sanctified for My Name. I will make it an object of scorn and ridicule among all the peoples.

²¹And when this temple has become a heap of rubble, all who pass by it will be appalled and say, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’

²³All its soil will be a burning waste of sulfur and salt, unsown and unproductive, with no plant growing on it, just like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His fierce anger.

²⁴So all the nations will ask, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?’

¹⁵All who pass by clap their hands at you in scorn. They hiss and shake their heads at the Daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?”

¹⁶All your enemies open their mouths against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth, saying, “We have swallowed her up. This is the day for which we have waited. We have lived to see it!”

¹⁰When you tell these people all these things, they will ask you, ‘Why has the Lord pronounced all this great disaster against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’

¹²The kings of the earth did not believe, nor any people of the world, that an enemy or a foe could enter the gates of Jerusalem.

²⁵because they have forsaken Me and burned incense to other gods, that they might provoke Me to anger with all the works of their hands. My wrath will be poured out upon this place and will not be quenched.’

¹⁷because they have forsaken Me and burned incense to other gods, that they might provoke Me to anger with all the works of their hands. My wrath will be kindled against this place and will not be quenched.’

²The captain of the guard found Jeremiah and said to him, “The Lord your God decreed this disaster on this place,

³and now the Lord has fulfilled it; He has done just as He said. Because you people have sinned against the Lord and have not obeyed His voice, this thing has happened to you.

¹⁷Have you not brought this on yourself by forsaking the Lord your God when He led you in the way?

¹⁸Now what will you gain on your way to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile? What will you gain on your way to Assyria to drink the waters of the Euphrates?

²⁵And the people will answer, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt.

²⁶They went and served other gods, and they worshiped gods they had not known—gods that the Lord had not given to them.

⁷All who found them devoured them, and their enemies said, ‘We are not guilty, for they have sinned against the Lord, their true pasture, the Lord, the hope of their fathers.’

²So I admired the dead, who had already died, above the living, who are still alive.

¹¹For this is what the Lord says concerning Shallum son of Josiah, king of Judah, who succeeded his father Josiah but has gone forth from this place: “He will never return,

⁹Those slain by the sword are better off than those who die of hunger, who waste away, pierced with pain because the fields lack produce.

¹The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; devout men are taken away, while no one considers that the righteous are taken away from the presence of evil.

²⁰‘Therefore I will indeed gather you to your fathers, and you will be gathered to your grave in peace. Your eyes will not see all the calamity that I will bring on this place.’” So they brought her answer back to the king.

³⁰From Megiddo his servants carried his body in a chariot, brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own tomb. Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah, anointed him, and made him king in place of his father.

³¹Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah.

¹⁵The sons of Josiah: Johanan was the firstborn, Jehoiakim the second, Zedekiah the third, and Shallum the fourth.

³⁴Then Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim son of Josiah king in place of his father Josiah, and he changed Eliakim’s name to Jehoiakim. But Neco took Jehoahaz and carried him off to Egypt, where he died.

¹Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah and made him king in Jerusalem in place of his father.

²Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months.

³¹Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah.

²²So Hilkiah and those the king had designated went and spoke to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum son of Tokhath, the son of Hasrah, the keeper of the wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem, in the Second District.

¹²Then some of the leaders of the Ephraimites—Azariah son of Jehohanan, Berechiah son of Meshillemoth, Jehizkiah son of Shallum, and Amasa son of Hadlai—stood in opposition to those arriving from the war.

³⁴Then Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim son of Josiah king in place of his father Josiah, and he changed Eliakim’s name to Jehoiakim. But Neco took Jehoahaz and carried him off to Egypt, where he died.

¹⁸Therefore this is what the Lord says concerning Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah: “They will not mourn for him: ‘Alas, my brother! Alas, my sister!’ They will not mourn for him: ‘Alas, my master! Alas, his splendor!’

⁴Look, the wages you withheld from the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts.

¹⁰who build Zion with bloodshed and Jerusalem with iniquity.

¹³You must not defraud your neighbor or rob him. You must not withhold until morning the wages due a hired hand.

⁵“Then I will draw near to you for judgment. And I will be a swift witness against sorcerers and adulterers and perjurers, against oppressors of the widowed and fatherless, and against those who defraud laborers of their wages and deny justice to the foreigner but do not fear Me,” says the Lord of Hosts.

¹⁴Do not oppress a hired hand who is poor and needy, whether he is a brother or a foreigner residing in one of your towns.

¹⁵You are to pay his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and depends on them. Otherwise he may cry out to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin.

⁹Woe to him who builds his house by unjust gain, to place his nest on high and escape the hand of disaster!

¹⁰You have plotted shame for your house by cutting off many peoples and forfeiting your life.

²he said to Nathan the prophet, “Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.”

⁸Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field until no place is left and you live alone in the land.

⁹I heard the Lord of Hosts declare: “Surely many houses will become desolate, great mansions left unoccupied.

⁴“Is it a time for you yourselves to live in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?”

²⁸Which of you, wishing to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost to see if he has the resources to complete it?

²⁹Otherwise, if he lays the foundation and is unable to finish the work, everyone who sees it will ridicule him,

³⁰the king exclaimed, “Is this not Babylon the Great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?”

⁴Though Edom may say, “We have been devastated, but we will rebuild the ruins,” this is what the Lord of Hosts says: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called the Land of Wickedness, and a people with whom the Lord is indignant forever.

²⁵Neither before nor after Josiah was there any king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, according to all the Law of Moses.

¹⁰Tell the righteous it will be well with them, for they will enjoy the fruit of their labor.

¹⁷Blessed are you, O land whose king is a son of nobles, and whose princes feast at the proper time—for strength and not for drunkenness.

⁵Remove the wicked from the king’s presence, and his throne will be established in righteousness.

⁴By justice a king brings stability to the land, but a man who exacts tribute demolishes it.

²And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in all the ways of his father David; he did not turn aside to the right or to the left.

²⁴But let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, who exercises loving devotion, justice and righteousness on the earth—for I delight in these things,” declares the Lord.

³By this we can be sure that we have come to know Him: if we keep His commandments.

⁴If anyone says, “I know Him,” but does not keep His commandments, he is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

¹⁷Learn to do right; seek justice and correct the oppressor. Defend the fatherless and plead the case of the widow.”

¹⁶They profess to know God, but by their actions they deny Him. They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good deed.

¹Of Solomon. Endow the king with Your justice, O God, and the son of the king with Your righteousness.

²May he judge Your people with righteousness and Your afflicted with justice.

³Now this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.

¹⁴Their eyes are full of adultery; their desire for sin is never satisfied; they seduce the unstable. They are accursed children with hearts trained in greed.

⁶He prowled among the lions, and became a young lion. After learning to tear his prey, he devoured men.

⁴and also for the innocent blood he had shed. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord was unwilling to forgive.

³This is what the Lord says: Administer justice and righteousness. Rescue the victim of robbery from the hand of his oppressor. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow. Do not shed innocent blood in this place.

³For the wicked man boasts in the cravings of his heart; he blesses the greedy and reviles the Lord.

³¹So My people come to you as usual, sit before you, and hear your words; but they do not put them into practice. Although they express love with their mouths, their hearts pursue dishonest gain.

³⁰Then he laid the body in his own tomb, and they lamented over him, “Oh, my brother!”

⁶“Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried or mourned, nor will anyone cut himself or shave his head for them.

¹⁰Do not weep for him who is dead; do not mourn his loss. Weep bitterly for him who is exiled, for he will never return to see his native land.

⁴“They will die from deadly diseases. They will not be mourned or buried, but will lie like dung on the ground. They will be finished off by sword and famine, and their corpses will become food for the birds of the air and beasts of the earth.”

²⁶I grieve for you, Jonathan, my brother. You were delightful to me; your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women.

¹⁹This continued day after day until two full years had passed. Finally, his intestines came out because of his disease, and he died in severe pain. And his people did not make a fire in his honor as they had done for his fathers.

²⁰Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years. He died, to no one’s regret, and was buried in the City of David, but not in the tombs of the kings.

³⁰Therefore this is what the Lord says about Jehoiakim king of Judah: He will have no one to sit on David’s throne, and his body will be thrown out and exposed to heat by day and frost by night.

²³And the Lord also speaks concerning Jezebel: ‘The dogs will devour Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel.’

²⁴Anyone belonging to Ahab who dies in the city will be eaten by dogs, and anyone who dies in the field will be eaten by the birds of the air.”

¹⁰Because of all this, behold, I am bringing disaster on the house of Jeroboam: I will cut off from Jeroboam every male, both slave and free, in Israel; I will burn up the house of Jeroboam as one burns up dung until it is gone!

⁶so you are to go to the house of the Lord on a day of fasting, and in the hearing of the people you are to read the words of the Lord from the scroll you have written at my dictation. Read them in the hearing of all the people of Judah who are coming from their cities.

³⁵But when they went out to bury her, they found nothing but her skull, her feet, and the palms of her hands.

³I will appoint over them four kinds of destroyers, declares the Lord: the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, and the birds of the air and beasts of the earth to devour and destroy.

¹²Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go up this mountain of the Abarim range and see the land that I have given the Israelites.

²She weeps aloud in the night, with tears upon her cheeks. Among all her lovers there is no one to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies.

²²Therefore, Oholibah, this is what the Lord God says: ‘I will incite your lovers against you, those from whom you turned away in disgust. And I will bring them against you from every side—

⁵Those who made Cush their hope and Egypt their boast will be dismayed and ashamed.

⁶And on that day the dwellers of this coastland will say, ‘See what has happened to our source of hope, those to whom we fled for help and deliverance from the king of Assyria! How then can we escape?’”

¹⁹I called out to my lovers, but they have betrayed me. My priests and elders perished in the city while they searched for food to keep themselves alive.

¹⁷So I took the cup from the Lord’s hand and made all the nations drink from it, each one to whom the Lord had sent me,

¹⁸to make them a ruin, an object of horror and contempt and cursing, as they are to this day—Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, its kings and officials;

³⁰For the children of Israel and of Judah have done nothing but evil in My sight from their youth; indeed, they have done nothing but provoke Me to anger by the work of their hands, declares the Lord.

²⁵Let us lie down in our shame; let our disgrace cover us. We have sinned against the Lord our God, both we and our fathers; from our youth even to this day we have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.”

²²For when I brought your fathers out of the land of Egypt, I did not merely command them about burnt offerings and sacrifices,

²³but this is what I commanded them: Obey Me, and I will be your God, and you will be My people. You must walk in all the ways I have commanded you, so that it may go well with you.

³and they played in Egypt, prostituting themselves from their youth. Their breasts were fondled there, and their virgin bosoms caressed.

⁴The older was named Oholah, and her sister was named Oholibah. They became Mine and gave birth to sons and daughters. As for their identities, Oholah is Samaria, and Oholibah is Jerusalem.

⁸You have never heard; you have never understood; for a long time your ears have not been open. For I knew how deceitful you are; you have been called a rebel from birth.

⁹Otherwise, I may have too much and deny You, saying, ‘Who is the Lord?’ Or I may become poor and steal, profaning the name of my God.

²“Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and tell them that this is what the Lord God says: ‘Woe to the shepherds of Israel, who only feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed their flock?

³You eat the fat, wear the wool, and butcher the fattened sheep, but you do not feed the flock.

¹“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture!” declares the Lord.

²Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says about the shepherds who tend My people: “You have scattered My flock and driven them away, and have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your deeds, declares the Lord.

¹⁷Woe to the worthless shepherd, who deserts the flock! May a sword strike his arm and his right eye! May his arm be completely withered and his right eye utterly blinded!”

¹⁵Although he flourishes among his brothers, an east wind will come—a wind from the Lord rising up from the desert. His fountain will fail, and his spring will run dry. The wind will plunder his treasury of every precious article.

¹⁰Many shepherds have destroyed My vineyard; they have trampled My plot of ground. They have turned My pleasant field into a desolate wasteland.

²¹For the shepherds have become senseless; they do not seek the Lord. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flock is scattered.

²⁴We have heard the report; our hands hang limp. Anguish has gripped us, pain like that of a woman in labor.

⁶For this is what the Lord says concerning the house of the king of Judah: “You are like Gilead to Me, like the summit of Lebanon; but I will surely turn you into a desert, like cities that are uninhabited.

³⁰And you, O devastated one, what will you do, though you dress yourself in scarlet, though you adorn yourself with gold jewelry, though you enlarge your eyes with paint? You adorn yourself in vain; your lovers despise you; they want to take your life.

³¹For I hear a cry like a woman in labor, a cry of anguish like one bearing her first child—the cry of the Daughter of Zion gasping for breath, stretching out her hands to say, “Woe is me, for my soul faints before the murderers!”

¹Open your doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may consume your cedars!

²Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen; the majestic trees are ruined! Wail, O oaks of Bashan, for the dense forest has been cut down!

⁴“In those days and at that time, declares the Lord, the children of Israel and the children of Judah will come together, weeping as they come, and will seek the Lord their God.

⁵They will ask the way to Zion and turn their faces toward it. They will come and join themselves to the Lord in an everlasting covenant that will never be forgotten.

⁹Woe to him who builds his house by unjust gain, to place his nest on high and escape the hand of disaster!

¹Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made Zedekiah son of Josiah the king of Judah, and he reigned in place of Coniah son of Jehoiakim.

⁶Set me as a seal over your heart, as a seal upon your arm. For love is as strong as death, its jealousy as unrelenting as Sheol. Its sparks are fiery flames, the fiercest blaze of all.

¹⁶The successors of Jehoiakim: Jeconiah his son, and Zedekiah.

²³On that day, declares the Lord of Hosts, I will take you, My servant, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, declares the Lord, and I will make you like My signet ring, for I have chosen you, declares the Lord of Hosts.”

⁶And Jehoiakim rested with his fathers, and his son Jehoiachin reigned in his place.

⁷Now the king of Egypt did not march out of his land again, because the king of Babylon had taken all his territory, from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates River.

⁶For this is what the Lord says concerning the house of the king of Judah: “You are like Gilead to Me, like the summit of Lebanon; but I will surely turn you into a desert, like cities that are uninhabited.

²⁰I will deliver into the hands of their enemies who seek their lives. Their corpses will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth.

²¹And I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials into the hands of their enemies who seek their lives, to the army of the king of Babylon that had withdrawn from you.

⁷‘After that,’ declares the Lord, ‘I will hand over Zedekiah king of Judah, his officers, and the people in this city who survive the plague and sword and famine, to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and to their enemies who seek their lives. He will put them to the sword; he will not spare them or show pity or compassion.’

¹⁵Nebuchadnezzar carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, as well as the king’s mother, his wives, his officials, and the leading men of the land. He took them into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

¹⁶The king of Babylon also brought into exile to Babylon all seven thousand men of valor and a thousand craftsmen and metalsmiths—all strong and fit for battle.

²⁸Is this man Coniah a despised and shattered pot, a jar that no one wants? Why are he and his descendants hurled out and cast into a land they do not know?

¹⁶But King Zedekiah swore secretly to Jeremiah, “As surely as the Lord lives, who has given us this life, I will not kill you, nor will I deliver you into the hands of these men who are seeking your life.”

²⁴What the wicked man dreads will overtake him, but the desire of the righteous will be granted.

¹⁵Nebuchadnezzar carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, as well as the king’s mother, his wives, his officials, and the leading men of the land. He took them into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

²If they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ you are to tell them that this is what the Lord says: ‘Those destined for death, to death; those destined for the sword, to the sword; those destined for famine, to famine; and those destined for captivity, to captivity.’

³I will appoint over them four kinds of destroyers, declares the Lord: the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, and the birds of the air and beasts of the earth to devour and destroy.

⁸Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Nehushta daughter of Elnathan; she was from Jerusalem.

¹⁷Look, O mighty man! The Lord is about to shake you violently. He will take hold of you,

⁹With hooks they caged him and brought him to the king of Babylon. They brought him into captivity so that his roar was heard no longer on the mountains of Israel.

¹⁰Your mother was like a vine in your vineyard, planted by the water; it was fruitful and full of branches because of the abundant waters.

⁹Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months and ten days. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord.

¹⁰In the spring, King Nebuchadnezzar summoned Jehoiachin and brought him to Babylon, along with the articles of value from the house of the Lord. And he made Jehoiachin’s relative Zedekiah king over Judah and Jerusalem.

¹⁴so that none of the remnant of Judah who have gone to reside in Egypt will escape or survive to return to the land of Judah, where they long to return and live; for none will return except a few fugitives.”

³¹On the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month of the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the first year of the reign of Evil-merodach king of Babylon, he pardoned Jehoiachin king of Judah and released him from prison.

³²And he spoke kindly to Jehoiachin and set his throne above the thrones of the other kings who were with him in Babylon.

¹¹For this is what the Lord says concerning Shallum son of Josiah, king of Judah, who succeeded his father Josiah but has gone forth from this place: “He will never return,

²⁷On the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month of the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Judah’s King Jehoiachin, in the year Evil-merodach became king of Babylon, he released King Jehoiachin of Judah from prison.

²⁸And he spoke kindly to Jehoiachin and set his throne above the thrones of the other kings who were with him in Babylon.

⁴Bring joy to Your servant, for to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

⁸Israel is swallowed up! Now they are among the nations like a worthless vessel.

¹²I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind. I am like a broken vessel.

³⁸On all the rooftops of Moab and in the public squares, everyone is mourning; for I have shattered Moab like an unwanted jar,” declares the Lord.

³⁰This is what the Lord says: “Enroll this man as childless, a man who will not prosper in his lifetime. None of his descendants will prosper to sit on the throne of David or to rule again in Judah.”

¹Then the Lord said to me: “Even if Moses and Samuel should stand before Me, My heart would not go out to this people. Send them from My presence, and let them go!

¹⁷The descendants of Jeconiah the captive: Shealtiel his son,

¹⁸Malchiram, Pedaiah, Shenazzar, Jekamiah, Hoshama, and Nedabiah.

¹Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

²Hear, O peoples, all of you; listen, O earth, and everyone in it! May the Lord God bear witness against you, the Lord from His holy temple.

¹⁹Hear, O earth! I am bringing disaster on this people, the fruit of their own schemes, because they have paid no attention to My word and have rejected My instruction.

¹This is the vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

²Listen, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken: “I have raised children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against Me.

¹Hear now what the Lord says: “Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice.

²Hear, O mountains, the Lord’s indictment, you enduring foundations of the earth. For the Lord has a case against His people, and He will argue it against Israel:

¹Come near, O nations, to listen; pay attention, O peoples. Let the earth hear, and all that fills it, the world and all that springs from it.

³⁰Therefore this is what the Lord says about Jehoiakim king of Judah: He will have no one to sit on David’s throne, and his body will be thrown out and exposed to heat by day and frost by night.

²⁰Can a corrupt throne be Your ally—one devising mischief by decree?

¹¹and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.

¹²After the exile to Babylon: Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,

³²He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David,

³³and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end!”

¹⁶The successors of Jehoiakim: Jeconiah his son, and Zedekiah.

¹⁷The descendants of Jeconiah the captive: Shealtiel his son,

²¹For the shepherds have become senseless; they do not seek the Lord. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flock is scattered.