Jeremiah 22:13-17

God cares about all people...period!

He cares and He will repay injustice and unrighteousness. We are forgiven in Christ but there always repercussions to our actions. We will learn the lessons we need to learn because of His great love for us. 

God does not leave us where He found us.

Jeremiah 22:15 (FSB): A mocking rhetorical question. Using Jehoiakim’s father, Josiah, as a favorable example, Jeremiah asserts that one is a king by virtue of character, not by virtue of construction projects.

Jeremiah 22:16 (FSB): Knowledge of Yahweh comes through emulating Him in the attributes of justice, righteousness, and care for the oppressed and less fortunate.

Jeremiah 22:14 (NKJVSB): The king was supposed to be the guardian of his people, but Jehoiakim enslaved his fellow Israelites to build his self-aggrandizing palaces.

Jeremiah 22:16 (NKJVSB): Israel perished because of its lack of knowledge of God.  Knowledge of God here is related to concern for the poor and needy.

Jeremiah 22:17 (NKJVSB): Jehoiakim did not follow in the footsteps of Josiah. covetousness … shedding innocent blood … practicing oppression and violence: This triad of sins characterizing the reign of Jehoiakim would hammer home a resounding message to Judah concerning the collapse of its kingship. Covenant violations would not go unpunished.

Jeremiah 22:13–17 (NKJV): “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by injustice,Who uses his neighbor’s service without wages and gives him nothing for his work,Who says, ‘I will build myself a wide house with spacious chambers,And cut out windows for it, Paneling it with cedar and painting it with vermilion.’

“ He judged the cause of the poor and needy;Then it was well.Was not this knowing Me?” says the Lord.“Yet your eyes and your heart are for nothing but your covetousness,For shedding innocent blood, and practicing oppression and violence.”

Jeremiah 22:3 (NKJV): Thus says the Lord: “Execute judgment and righteousness, and deliver the plundered out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong and do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.

Micah 3:10–11 (NKJV): Who build up Zion with bloodshedAnd Jerusalem with iniquity:Her heads judge for a bribe,Her priests teach for pay,And her prophets divine for money.Yet they lean on the Lord, and say,“Is not the Lord among us?No harm can come upon us.”