1. Thus says the Lord: Go down to the palace of the king of Judah and there deliver this word:
2. You shall say: Listen to the word of the Lord, king of Judah, who sit on the throne of David, you, your ministers, and your people who enter by these gates!
3. Thus says the Lord: Do what is right and just. Rescue the victims from the hand of their oppressors. Do not wrong or oppress the resident alien, the orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.
4. If you carry out these commands, kings who succeed to the throne of David will continue to enter the gates of this house, riding in chariots or mounted on horses, with their ministers, and their people.
5. But if you do not obey these commands, I swear by myself—oracle of the Lord: this house shall become rubble.
6. For thus says the Lord concerning the house of the king of Judah:Though you be to me like Gilead,like the peak of Lebanon,I swear I shall turn you into a waste,with cities uninhabited.
7. Against you I will send destroyers,each with their tools:They shall cut down your choice cedars,and cast them into the fire.
8. Many nations will pass by this city and ask one another: “Why has the Lord done this to so great a city?”
9. And they will be told: “Because they have deserted their covenant with the Lord, their God, by worshiping and serving other gods.”
10. Do not weep for him who is dead,nor mourn for him!Weep rather for him who is going away;never again to seethe land of his birth.
11. Thus says the Lord concerning Shallum, son of Josiah, king of Judah, his father’s successor, who left this place: He shall never return,
12. but in the place where they exiled him, there he shall die; he shall never see this land again.
13. Woe to him who builds his house on wrongdoing,his roof-chambers on injustice;Who works his neighbors without pay,and gives them no wages.
14. Who says, “I will build myself a spacious house,with airy rooms,”Who cuts out windows for it,panels it with cedar,and paints it with vermilion.