Jeremiah 22:14
That saith, I will build me a wide house and large chambers, and cutteth him out windows; and it is cieled with cedar, and painted with vermilion. That saith, I will build me a wide house and large chambers, and cutteth him out windows; and it is cieled with cedar, and painted with vermilion.
The verse records the boastful plan of King Jehoiakim to build for himself a wide, spacious house with large chambers, cut-out windows, cedar paneling and ceiling, and decoration with red or vermilion paint. It was spoken at the very time messages of impending doom were being urged upon princes and people, when he should have been a wise spiritual leader foremost in confession of sin and in reformation and good works, but instead he spent his time in selfish pleasure. The display is condemned because it was built through unrighteousness and wrong, by fraud and oppression, including using a neighbor's labor without pay and exploiting workers.
The surrounding context identifies covetousness, oppression, violence and the shedding of innocent blood behind the luxury, in contrast to the judgment and justice that should mark a ruler, and outward splendor cannot make such unjust rule acceptable. The verse belongs to a plain warning that God lets judgments fall on His people when they walk contrary to Him and will not listen, so that the nations may know themselves to be but men. That unfaithfulness in rule built on injustice rather than judgment and justice brought scattering among the heathen, desolate land and waste cities, and desolation upon the Jewish nation despite its great light, blessings and prosperity.
Applied to the liquor traffic, the verse portrays manufacturers and sellers of intoxicating liquor who enrich themselves through others' misery and poverty. Their business is robbery because buyers receive no equivalent or fair return for their money, and every dollar added to the sellers' gains brings a curse to the spender. In that application the verse also shows how greed and appetite turn God's gifts of grain and fruit, given for nourishment, into poisons that cause misery and ruin.