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Exhortation to Repent

22Thus says the Lord: Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word, ²and say: Hear the word of the Lord, O King of Judah sitting on the throne of David—you, and your servants, and your people who enter these gates. ³Thus says the Lord: Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place. ⁴For if you will indeed obey this word, then through the gates of this house shall enter kings who sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their servants, and their people. ⁵But if you will not heed these words, I swear by myself, says the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation. ⁶For thus says the Lord concerning the house of the king of Judah:
You are like Gilead to me,
   like the summit of Lebanon;
but I swear that I will make you a desert,
   an uninhabited city.^*
7 I will prepare destroyers against you,
   all with their weapons;
they shall cut down your choicest cedars
   and cast them into the fire.

8 And many nations will pass by this city, and all of them will say one to another, ‘Why has the Lord dealt in this way with that great city?’ ⁹And they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord their God, and worshipped other gods and served them.’

¹³ Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness,
   and his upper rooms by injustice;
who makes his neighbours work for nothing,
   and does not give them their wages;
¹⁴ who says, ‘I will build myself a spacious house
   with large upper rooms’,
and who cuts out windows for it,
   panelling it with cedar,
   and painting it with vermilion.
¹⁵ Are you a king
   because you compete in cedar?
Did not your father eat and drink
   and do justice and righteousness?
   Then it was well with him.
¹⁶ He judged the cause of the poor and needy;
   then it was well.
Is not this to know me?
   says the Lord.
¹⁷ But your eyes and heart
   are only on your dishonest gain,
for shedding innocent blood,
   and for practising oppression and violence.