Jeremiah 22:22-26

The Message

You’ve Made a Total Mess of Your Life

^20-23“People of Jerusalem, climb a Lebanon peak and weep,
    climb a Bashan mountain and wail,
Climb the Abarim ridge and cry—
    you’ve made a total mess of your life.
I spoke to you when everything was going your way.
    You said, ‘I’m not interested.’
You’ve been that way as long as I’ve known you,
    never listened to a thing I said.
All your leaders will be blown away,
    all your friends end up in exile,
And you’ll find yourself in the gutter,
    disgraced by your evil life.
You big-city people thought you were so important,
    thought you were ‘king of the mountain’!
You’re soon going to be doubled up in pain,
    pain worse than the pangs of childbirth.

* * *

^24-26“As sure as I am the living God”—God’s Decree—“even if you, Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, were the signet ring on my right hand, I’d pull you off and give you to those who are out to kill you, to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and the Chaldeans, and then throw you, both you and your mother, into a foreign country, far from your place of birth. There you’ll both die.

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