¹⁸ Therefore, thus said Jehovah concerning Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah: They do not lament for him, Ah, my brother, and Ah, sister, They do not lament for him, Ah, lord, and Ah, his honour.

³⁰ and he placeth his carcase in his own grave, and they mourn for him, `Oh, my brother!'

⁶ And died have great and small in this land, They are not buried, and none lament for them, Nor doth any cut himself, nor become bald for them.

⁴ Of painful deaths they die, They are not lamented, nor are they buried, For dung on the face of the ground they are, And by sword and by famine are consumed, And their carcase hath been for food To the fowl of the heavens, And to the beast of the earth.

¹⁰ Ye do not weep for the dead, nor bemoan for him, Weep ye sore for the traveller, For he doth not return again, Nor hath he seen the land of his birth.

²⁶ I am in distress for thee, my brother Jonathan, Very pleasant wast thou to me; Wonderful was thy love to me, Above the love of women!

³³ and the king lamenteth for Abner, and saith: -- `As the death of a fool doth Abner die?

³⁴ Thy hands not bound, And thy feet to fetters not brought nigh! As one falling before sons of evil -- Thou hast fallen!' and all the people add to weep over him.

³⁵ And all the people come to cause David to eat bread while yet day, and David sweareth, saying, `Thus doth God to me, and thus He doth add, for -- before the going in of the sun, I taste no bread or any other thing.'

³⁶ And all the people have discerned `it', and it is good in their eyes, as all that the king hath done is good in the eyes of all the people;

³⁷ and all the people know, even all Israel, in that day, that it hath not been from the king -- to put to death Abner son of Ner.

³⁸ And the king saith unto his servants, `Do ye not know that a prince and a great one hath fallen this day in Israel?

¹⁹ and it cometh to pass, from days to days, and at the time of the going out of the end of two years, his bowels have gone out with his sickness, and he dieth of sore diseases, and his people have not made for him a burning like the burning of his fathers.

²⁰ A son of thirty and two `years' was he in his reigning, and eight years he hath reigned in Jerusalem, and he goeth without desire, and they bury him in the city of David, and not in the graves of the kings.

²⁵ and Jeremiah lamenteth for Josiah, and all the singers and the songstresses speak in their lamentations of Josiah unto this day, and set them for a statute on Israel, and lo, they are written beside the lamentations.

⁵ in peace thou diest, and with the burnings of thy fathers, the former kings who have been before thee, so they make a burning for thee; and Ah, lord, they lament for thee, for the word I have spoken -- an affirmation of Jehovah.'