Eternal One: You are as precious to Me as the lush forests of Gilead;
        you are like the cedars on the summit of Lebanon.
    But I swear I will make you into a wilderness—stripped of trees—
        with cities that lie empty and lifeless.
⁷     I will unleash destroyers against you—
        ruthless men with fearful weapons.
    They will cut down your best trees
        and throw them on the fire.

¹⁰ Do not cry for the one who is dead; do not mourn for him.
    Cry instead for the living one going into exile
For he will not come back again,
    he will never see his home again.

¹³     Woe to the one^[a] who builds his palace on the proceeds of unrighteousness,
        who adds upper rooms on the gains of injustice,
    Who forces his own people to labor for nothing,
        who refuses to pay them for all their hard work.
¹⁴     He thinks to himself, “I will build a huge palace
        with a large second story and many windows.
    I will panel the walls with the best cedar
        and paint it red to impress everyone.”
¹⁵     Do you become king because you have more cedar than another?
        Your father, so different from you, had plenty to eat, plenty to drink.
    Didn’t he live his life as a righteous and fair man?
        And look how well he did.
¹⁶     He stood up for the poor and needy;
        then things went well for him and the people.
    Isn’t this what it means to know Me?
¹⁷     But you are so different: your eyes are focused and your heart is set
        on one goal: deceitful personal gain.
    You make the innocent pay with their blood;
        you violently oppress them and take what is not yours.

¹⁸ So this is what the Eternal says
    regarding Jehoiakim (son of Josiah), king of Judah:

Eternal One: Upon his death, no one in his family will weep and say,
        “Oh my brother, oh my sister—our loved one is gone.”
    Nor will any of his subjects weep and say,
        “Our leader is gone; our great king is gone.”
¹⁹     No, he will be buried like a dead donkey—his body dragged away
        and dumped outside Jerusalem’s gates in the trash heap.

²⁰     (to Jerusalem) Go to the mountains of Lebanon and cry out.
        Run to Bashan and the peaks of Abarim, and cry out loudly
    Because all of your lovers have been destroyed.
²¹     I warned you when things were going well,
        but you said to Me, “I will not listen.”
    You have treated Me this way since the days of your youth;
        you have never listened to My voice.
²²     All your shepherds will be driven away by the wind,
        and your lovers will be led into captivity.
    In that moment, you will be covered with shame,
        humiliated because of your evil ways.
²³     You who live in Lebanon,
        safe and nestled among the cedars—
    How you will cry in anguish when the judgment comes,
        like the anguish and pain of a woman giving birth.

²⁸ Is this man, Coniah, a broken and worthless pot?
    Is he like something tossed on the garbage heap that no one wants?
Why are he and his children being thrown out—
    no, hurled out into a foreign land?
²⁹ O land, land, land!
    You must hear the word of the Eternal!

³⁰ Eternal One: Write in the record that this man is childless and disgraced.
        As long as he lives, none of his children will succeed him
    And sit on the throne of David
        and rule over Judah again.