1. Thus said יהוה, “Go down to the house of the sovereign of Yehuḏah. And there you shall speak this word,
2. and shall say, ‘Hear the word of יהוה, O sovereign of Yehuḏah, you who sit on the throne of Dawiḏ, you and your servants and your people who enter these gates!
3. ‘Thus said יהוה, “Do right-ruling and righteousness, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor. Do not maltreat nor do violence to the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.
4. “For if you certainly do this word, then there shall enter in by the gates of this house sovereigns sitting on the throne of Dawiḏ, riding on horses and in chariots, he and his servants and his people.
5. “But if you do not obey these words, I swear by Myself,” declares יהוה, “that this house shall become a ruin.” ’ ”
6. For thus said יהוה to the house of the sovereign of Yehuḏah, “You are like Gil‛aḏ to Me, the head of Leḇanon. But I shall make you a wilderness, and cities which are not inhabited.
7. “And I shall prepare destroyers against you, each with his weapons. And they shall cut down your choice cedars and throw them into the fire.
8. “And many gentiles shall pass by this city, and they shall say to one another, ‘Why has יהוה done so to this great city?’
9. “Then they shall say, ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of יהוה their Elohim, and bowed themselves to other mighty ones and served them.’ ”
10. Do not weep for the dead, nor mourn for him. Weep bitterly for him who goes away, for he shall never come back nor see the land of his birth.
11. For thus said יהוה concerning Shallum son of Yoshiyahu, sovereign of Yehuḏah, who reigned instead of Yoshiyahu his father, who went from this place, “He shall never come back,
12. but he shall die in the place where they have exiled him, and not see this land again.