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.
15. Must you prove your rank among kingsby competing with them in cedar?Did not your father eat and drink,And act justly and righteously?Then he prospered.
16. Because he dispensed justice to the weak and the poor,he prospered.Is this not to know me?—oracle of the Lord.
17. But your eyes and heart are set on nothingexcept your own gain,On shedding innocent bloodand practicing oppression and extortion.