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Thus says Jehovah: Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak this Word there,
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and say, Hear the Word of Jehovah, O king of Judah, who sits on the throne of David, you and your servants, and your people who enter in by these gates.
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Thus says Jehovah, Execute justice and righteousness, and deliver him who is plundered out of the hand of the oppressor. And do no wrong, do no violence to the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.
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For if indeed you do this thing, then there shall enter in by the gates of this house kings sitting on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, he, his servants, and his people.
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But if you will not heed these Words, I swear by Myself, says Jehovah, that this house shall become a desolation.
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For thus says Jehovah to the house of the king of Judah, You are Gilead to Me, the head of Lebanon. Yet surely I will make you a wilderness; cities which are not inhabited.
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And I will prepare destroyers against you, each one with his weapons. And they shall cut down your choice cedars, and throw them into the fire.
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And many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall say each one to his neighbor, Why has Jehovah done this to this great city?
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Then they shall answer, Because they have forsaken the covenant of Jehovah their God, and bowed down to other gods, and served them.
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Weep not for the dead, nor moan for him; but weep bitterly for him who goes away. For he shall return no more, nor see his native land.
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For thus says Jehovah concerning Shallum the son of Josiah king of Judah, who reigned in the place of Josiah his father, who went forth out of this place: he shall not return there any more.
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But he shall die in the place where they have led him captive, and shall see this land no more.
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Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness and his upper rooms without justice; his neighbor serves without pay, and is given nothing for his work;
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who says, I will build myself a wide house and large rooms, and has cut out windows for himself, and the ceiling is paneled with cedar, and painted with vermilion.
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Shall you reign, because you lust after cedar? Did not your father eat and drink, and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him.
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He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him. Was this not knowledge of Me? says Jehovah.
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But your eyes and your heart are for nothing but your unjust gain, and for shedding innocent blood, and for oppression, and to do violence.
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Therefore thus says Jehovah concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, They shall not mourn for him, saying, Alas, my brother! or, Alas, sister! They shall not mourn for him, saying, Alas, master! or, Alas, his majesty!
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He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, dragged and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.
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Go up to Lebanon, and cry out; and lift up your voice in Bashan, and cry out from Abarim, for all your lovers are destroyed.
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I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said, I will not hear. This has been your way from your youth, for you have not obeyed My voice.
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The wind shall eat up all your shepherds, and your lovers shall go into captivity; surely then you will be ashamed and humiliated for all your wickedness.
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O inhabitant of Lebanon, nesting in the cedars, how you will be pitied when pangs come upon you, the pain as of a woman giving birth!
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As I live, says Jehovah, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet on My right hand, yet I would tear you out of there!
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And I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of those whose face you fear, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.
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And I will cast you out, along with your mother who bore you, into another land where you were not born; and there you shall die.
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But to the land to which they desire to return, there they shall not return.
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Is this man Coniah a despised and broken vessel? Is he an object in which there is no pleasure? Why are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they do not know?
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O earth, earth, earth, hear the Word of Jehovah!
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Thus says Jehovah, Write this man down as childless, a man who shall not prosper in his days; for no man of his seed shall succeed, sitting on the throne of David and ruling any more in Judah.
