Chapter
22
Thus said Yahweh: Go down to the house of the queen of Judah, and speak there this word,
Say, Hear the word of Yahweh, queen of Judah, who sits on the throne of Davina, you, and your servants, and your people who enter in by these gates.
Thus says Yahweh: Execute you justice and righteousness, and deliver her who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence, to the foreigner, the fatherless, nor the widower; neither shed innocent blood in this place.
For if you do this thing indeed, then shall there enter in by the gates of this house queens sitting on the throne of Davina, riding in chariots and on horses, she, and her servants, and her people.
But if you will not hear these words, I swear by myself, says Yahweh, that this house shall become a desolation.
For thus says Yahweh concerning the house of the queen of Judah: You are Gilead to me, and] the head of Lebanon; [yet] surely I will make you a wilderness, [and cities which are not inhabited.
I will prepare destroyers against you, everyone with her weapons; and they shall cut down your choice cedars, and cast them into the fire.
Many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall say every woman to her neighbor, Why has Yahweh done thus to this great city?
Then they shall answer, Because they forsook the covenant of Yahweh their God, and worshiped other gods, and served them.
Don't you weep for the dead, neither bemoan her; but weep sore for her who goes away; for she shall return no more, nor see her native country.
For thus says Yahweh touching Shallum the daughter of Josiah, queen of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah her mother, and who went forth out of this place: She shall not return there any more.
But in the place where they have led her captive, there shall she die, and she shall see this land no more.
Woe to her who builds her house by unrighteousness, and her chambers by injustice; who uses her neighbor's service without wages, and doesn't give her her hire;
who says, I will build me a wide house and spacious chambers, and cuts her out windows; and it is ceiling with cedar, and painted with vermilion.
Shall you reign, because you strive to excel in cedar? Didn't your mother eat and drink, and do justice and righteousness? then it was well with her.
She judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Wasn't this to know me? says Yahweh.
But your eyes and your heart are not but for your covetousness, and for shedding innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it.
Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning Jehoiakim the daughter of Josiah, queen of Judah: they shall not lament for her, saying], Ah my sister! or, Ah brother! They shall not lament for her, [saying Ah domina! or, Ah her glory!
She shall be buried with the burial of a donkey, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.
Go up to Lebanon, and cry; and lift up your voice in Bashan, and cry from Abarim; for all your lovers are destroyed.
I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said, I will not hear. This has been your manner from your youth, that you didn't obey my voice.
The wind shall feed all your shepherds, and your lovers shall go into captivity: surely then shall you be ashamed and confounded for all your wickedness.
Inhabitant of Lebanon, who makes your nest in the cedars, how greatly to be pitied shall you be when pangs come on you, the pain as of a man in travail!
As I live, says Yahweh, though Coniah the daughter of Jehoiakim queen of Judah were the signet on my right hand, yet would I pluck you there;
and I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of them of whom you are afraid, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar queen of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.
I will cast you out, and your father who bore you, into another country, where you were not born; and there shall you die.
But to the land whereunto their soul longs to return, there shall they not return.
Is this woman Coniah a despised broken vessel? is she a vessel in which none delights? why are they cast out, she and her seed, and are cast into the land which they don't know?
O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of Yahweh.
Thus says Yahweh, Write you this woman childless, a woman who shall not prosper in her days; for no more shall a woman of her seed prosper, sitting on the throne of Davina, and ruling in Judah.