¹⁸ Therefore thus says the Lord concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah:

⁶ Both the great and the small shall die in this land. They shall not be buried; ^(A)neither shall men lament for them, ^(B)cut themselves, nor ^(C)make themselves bald for them.

³⁰ Then he laid the corpse in his own tomb; and they mourned over him, saying, ^(A)“Alas, my brother!”

⁴ “They shall die ^(A)gruesome deaths; they shall not be ^(B)lamented nor shall they be ^(C)buried, but they shall be ^(D)like refuse on the face of the earth. They shall be consumed by the sword and by famine, and their ^(E)corpses shall be meat for the birds of heaven and for the beasts of the earth.”

⁵ You shall die in peace; as in ^(A)the ceremonies of your fathers, the former kings who were before you, ^(B)so they shall burn incense for you and ^(C)lament for you, saying, “Alas, lord!” For I have pronounced the word, says the Lord.’ ”

²⁵ Jeremiah also ^(A)lamented for ^(B)Josiah. And to this day ^(C)all the singing men and the singing women speak of Josiah in their lamentations. ^(D)They made it a custom in Israel; and indeed they are written in the Laments.

¹⁹ Then it happened in the course of time, after the end of two years, that his intestines came out because of his sickness; so he died in severe pain. And his people made no ^[a]burning for him, like ^(A)the burning for his fathers.

²⁰ He was thirty-two years old when he became king. He reigned in Jerusalem eight years and, to no one’s sorrow, departed. However they buried him in the City of David, but not in the tombs of the kings.

³³ And the king sang a lament over Abner and said:

Then all the people wept over him again.

³⁵ And when all the people came ^(B)to persuade David to eat food while it was still day, David took an oath, saying, ^(C)“God do so to me, and more also, if I taste bread or anything else ^(D)till the sun goes down!” ³⁶ Now all the people took note of it, and it pleased them, since whatever the king did pleased all the people. ³⁷ For all the people and all Israel understood that day that it had not been the king’s intent to kill Abner the son of Ner. ³⁸ Then the king said to his servants, “Do you not know that a prince and a great man has fallen this day in Israel?