A message about King Jehoiakim

13 And Yahweh said to me, “Terrible things will happen to King Jehoahaz’s brother, King Jehoiakim.

He unjustly forced men to build his palace.

The rooms on the upper level were built by men who were forced unjustly to do that work;

he forced his neighbors to work for nothing;

he did not pay them anything.

14 He said, ‘I will force my workers to build a huge beautiful palace

with very large rooms and many windows.

They will cover the walls with fragrant cedar panels/timber

and paint them bright red.’ ”

15 But it is certainly not [RHQ] having a beautiful cedar palace that causes a king to be great!

Jehoiakim’s father, Josiah, also had [RHQ] plenty of things to eat and drink.

But Josiah always did things that are right and just,

and that is why God blessed him.

16 Josiah acted justly/fairly and helped poor and needy people,

so things went well for him.

Yahweh says, “That is [RHQ] the way a person should behave who knows me.

17 But Jehoiakim, you [MTY] are greedy and desire only to obtain things by acting dishonestly.

You murder [MTY] innocent people,

you oppress poor people,

and you treat people cruelly and violently.”

18 Therefore, this is what Yahweh says about Jehoiakim, the son of King Josiah:

“When he dies, people will not mourn for him.

They will not say to each other, ‘It is very sad; we are so sorry!’

The people whom he ruled will not mourn for him, saying,

‘We are sad that our king is dead; we are so sorry that the wonderful things that happened while he was king are ended.’

19 When he dies, people will do to his corpse what they do to a dead donkey;

his corpse will be dragged out of Jerusalem and dumped outside the gates!

20 You people of Judah, go to the mountains in Lebanon and weep,

shout in the mountains of the Bashan region,

cry out in the mountains of Moab,

because all your friends in those areas have been destroyed.

21 When you were prosperous, I warned you,

but you replied, ‘We will not pay attention to what you say.’

You have been acting like that since you were young;

you have never obeyed me.

22 So, now I will punish all your leaders;

it will be as though they have been blown away by the wind.

They will be captured by your enemies and taken to another country.

When that happens, you will truly be ashamed and disgraced

because of all the wicked things that you have done.

23 Now, your king enjoys living in the cedar rooms in his palace,

but soon he will be punished,

and then he will groan

like [SIM] a woman who is giving birth to a baby.”