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.

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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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22 The wind(A) will drive all your shepherds(B) away,
    and your allies(C) will go into exile.
Then you will be ashamed and disgraced(D)
    because of all your wickedness.
23 You who live in ‘Lebanon,[a](E)
    who are nestled in cedar buildings,
how you will groan when pangs come upon you,
    pain(F) like that of a woman in labor!

24 “As surely as I live,” declares the Lord, “even if you, Jehoiachin[b](G) son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, were a signet ring(H) on my right hand, I would still pull you off.

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Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 22:23 That is, the palace in Jerusalem (see 1 Kings 7:2)
  2. Jeremiah 22:24 Hebrew Koniah, a variant of Jehoiachin; also in verse 28