4. And if you indeed obey this word, then kings who sit for David on his throne will enter through the gates of this house, riding in chariots and on horses, he, and his servants, and his people.
5. But if you do not obey these words, I swear by myself,” declares Yahweh, “that this house will become a site of ruins.” ’ ”
6. For thus says Yahweh concerning the house of the king of Judah, “You are like Gilead to me, like the head of the Lebanon. Surely I will make you a desert, like cities that are not inhabited.
7. And I will consecrate against you destroyers, everyone with his weapons, and they will cut down your choicest cedars, and cast them on the fire.
8. And many nations will pass by this city and they will say each one to his neighbor, ‘Why has Yahweh done in this manner to this great city?’
9. Then they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned the covenant of Yahweh their God, and bowed down in worship to other gods, and served them.’ ”
10. You must not weep for the dead person, and you must not show sympathy for him. Weep bitterly for the one who goes away, for he will not return, or see the land of his birth again.
11. For thus says Yahweh concerning Shallum, the son of Josiah, the king of Judah, who reigned as king in place of Josiah his father, who went out from this place: “He will not return here again.
12. But in the place where they have deported him, there he will die, and he will not see this land again.
13. Woe to the one who builds his house without righteousness, and his upper rooms without justice. His fellow countryman, he works for nothing, and he does not give to him his wages.
14. Who says ‘I will build for myself a spacious house with large upper rooms,’ and he cuts windows for it, and it is paneled with cedar, and he paints it with vermilion.
15. Do you reign as king because you are competing in cedar? Did not your father eat and drink, and he did justice and righteousness, then it was well with him?
16. He judged the legal cause of the needy and the poor, and then it was well. Is that not what it means to know me?” declares Yahweh.
17. “But there is nothing in your eyes and your heart except your unlawful gain, and on shedding the blood of the innocent, and on committing oppression and extortion.”