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.