Denunciation of Self-Seeking Officials

¹⁵ Thus says the Lord God of hosts, “Come, go to this steward, to Shebna, who is over the household, and say to him: ¹⁶ What have you to do here and whom have you here, that you have hewn here a tomb for yourself, you who hew a tomb on the height, and carve a habitation for yourself in the rock? ¹⁷ Behold, the Lord will hurl you away violently, O you strong man. He will seize firm hold on you, ¹⁸ and whirl you round and round, and throw you like a ball into a wide land; there you shall die, and there shall be your splendid chariots, you shame of your master’s house. ¹⁹ I will thrust you from your office, and you will be cast down from your station. ²⁰ In that day I will call my servant Eli′akim the son of Hilki′ah, ²¹ and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your girdle on him, and will commit your authority to his hand; and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. ²² And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. ²³ And I will fasten him like a peg in a sure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father’s house. ²⁴ And they will hang on him the whole weight of his father’s house, the offspring and issue, every small vessel, from the cups to all the flagons. ²⁵ In that day, says the Lord of hosts, the peg that was fastened in a sure place will give way; and it will be cut down and fall, and the burden that was upon it will be cut off, for the Lord has spoken.”