New King James Version

Jeremiah 22:13-27 New King James Version (NKJV)

13. “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousnessAnd his chambers by injustice,Who uses his neighbor’s service without wagesAnd gives him nothing for his work,

14. Who says, ‘I will build myself a wide house with spacious chambers,And cut out windows for it,Paneling it with cedarAnd painting it with vermilion.’

15. “Shall you reign because you enclose yourself in cedar?Did not your father eat and drink,And do justice and righteousness?Then it was well with him.

16. He judged the cause of the poor and needy;Then it was well.Was not this knowing Me?” says the Lord.

17. “Yet your eyes and your heart are for nothing but your covetousness,For shedding innocent blood,And practicing oppression and violence.”

18. Therefore thus says the Lord concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah:“They shall not lament for him,Saying, ‘Alas, my brother!’ or ‘Alas, my sister!’They shall not lament for him,Saying, ‘Alas, master!’ or ‘Alas, his glory!’

19. He shall be buried with the burial of a donkey,Dragged and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.

20. “Go up to Lebanon, and cry out,And lift up your voice in Bashan;Cry from Abarim,For all your lovers are destroyed.

21. I spoke to you in your prosperity,But you said, ‘I will not hear.’This has been your manner from your youth,That you did not obey My voice.

22. The wind shall eat up all your rulers,And your lovers shall go into captivity;Surely then you will be ashamed and humiliatedFor all your wickedness.

23. O inhabitant of Lebanon,Making your nest in the cedars,How gracious will you be when pangs come upon you,Like the pain of a woman in labor?

24. “As I live,” says the Lord, “though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet on My right hand, yet I would pluck you off;

25. and I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of those whose face you fear—the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and the hand of the Chaldeans.

26. So I will cast you out, and your mother who bore you, into another country where you were not born; and there you shall die.

27. But to the land to which they desire to return, there they shall not return.