Ezekiel 22–23

INDICTMENT OF SINFUL JERUSALEM

22The word of the Lord came to me: ²“As for you, son of man, will you pass judgment? Will you pass judgment against the city of blood? Then explain all her detestable practices to her.^{a 3}You are to say, ‘This is what the Lord God says: A city that sheds blood^b within her walls so that her time of judgment has come and who makes idols for herself so that she is defiled! ⁴You are guilty of the blood you have shed,^c and you are defiled from the idols you have made. You have brought your judgment^B days near and have come to your years of punishment.^C Therefore, I have made you a disgrace to the nations and a mockery to all the lands. ⁵Those who are near and those far away from you will mock you, you infamous one full of turmoil.

⁶“ ‘Look, every prince of Israel^d within you has used his strength to shed blood. ⁷Father and mother are treated with contempt,^e and the resident alien is exploited within you. The fatherless and widow are oppressed in you.^{f 8}You despise my holy things and profane my Sabbaths.^{g 9}There are men within you who slander in order to shed blood.^h People who live in you eat at the mountain shrines;^D they commit depraved acts within you. ¹⁰Men within you have sexual intercourse with their father’s wife and violate women during their menstrual impurity.^{i 11}One man within you commits a detestable act with his neighbor’s wife;^j another defiles his daughter-in-law with depravity; and yet another violates his sister, his father’s daughter.^{k 12}People who live in you accept bribes in order to shed blood.^l You take interest and profit on a loan and brutally extort your neighbors.^m You have forgotten me.ⁿ This is the declaration of the Lord God.

¹³“ ‘Now look, I clap my hands together against the dishonest profit you have made^o and against the blood shed among you. ¹⁴Will your courage endure^p or your hands be strong in the days when I deal with you? I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will act.^{q 15}I will disperse you among the nations and scatter you among the countries;^r I will purge your uncleanness.^{s 16}You^E will be profaned in the sight of the nations. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’ ”^t

JERUSALEM AS GOD’S FURNACE

¹⁷The word of the Lord came to me: ¹⁸“Son of man, the house of Israel has become merely dross to me.^u All of them are copper, tin, iron, and lead inside the furnace;^v they are just dross from silver. ¹⁹Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: Because all of you have become dross, I am about to gather you into Jerusalem. ²⁰Just as one gathers silver, copper, iron, lead, and tin into the furnace to blow fire^w on them and melt them, so I will gather you in my anger and wrath, put you inside, and melt you. ²¹Yes, I will gather you together and blow on you with the fire of my fury, and you will be melted within the city. ²²As silver is melted inside a furnace, so you will be melted inside the city. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have poured out my wrath on you.”^x

INDICTMENT OF A SINFUL LAND

²³The word of the Lord came to me: ²⁴“Son of man, say to her, ‘You are a land that has not been cleansed,^y that has not received rain in the day of indignation.’ ²⁵The conspiracy of her prophets^z within her is like a roaring lion tearing its prey: they devour people, seize wealth and valuables, and multiply the widows within her. ²⁶Her priests do violence to my instruction and profane my holy things.^aa They make no distinction between the holy and the common, and they do not explain the difference between the clean and the unclean.^ab They close their eyes to my Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.

²⁷“Her officials within her are like wolves tearing their prey, shedding blood, and destroying lives in order to make profit dishonestly. ²⁸Her prophets plaster for them with whitewash by seeing false visions and lying divinations,^ac saying, ‘This is what the Lord God says,’ when the Lord has not spoken. ²⁹The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery.^ad They have oppressed the poor and needy and unlawfully exploited the resident alien. ³⁰I searched for a man among them who would repair the wall^ae and stand in the gap before me on behalf of the land so that I might not destroy it,^af but I found no one. ³¹So I have poured out my indignation on them and consumed them with the fire of my fury. I have brought their conduct down on their own heads.”^ag This is the declaration of the Lord God.

THE TWO IMMORAL SISTERS

23The word of the Lord came to me again: ²“Son of man, there were two women,^ah daughters of the same mother, ³who acted like prostitutes in Egypt,^a behaving promiscuously in their youth. Their breasts were fondled there, and their virgin nipples caressed. ⁴The older one was named Oholah,^B and her sister was Oholibah.^C They became mine and gave birth to sons and daughters. As for their names, Oholah represents Samaria and Oholibah represents Jerusalem.

⁵“Oholah acted like a prostitute even though she was mine. She lusted after her lovers, the Assyrians:^b warriors ⁶dressed in blue, governors and prefects, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on steeds. ⁷She offered her sexual favors to them; all of them were the elite of Assyria. She defiled herself with all those she lusted after and with all their idols. ⁸She didn’t give up her promiscuity that began in Egypt,^c when men slept with her in her youth, caressed her virgin nipples, and poured out their lust on her. ⁹Therefore, I handed her over to her lovers,^d the Assyrians she lusted for. ¹⁰They exposed her nakedness, seized her sons and daughters, and killed her with the sword. Since they executed judgment against her, she became notorious among women.

¹¹“Now her sister Oholibah saw this, but she was even more depraved in her lust than Oholah, and made her promiscuous acts worse than those of her sister.^{e 12}She lusted after the Assyrians:^f governors and prefects, warriors splendidly dressed, horsemen riding on steeds, all of them desirable young men. ¹³And I saw that she had defiled herself; both of them had taken the same path. ¹⁴But she increased her promiscuity when she saw male figures carved on the wall,^g images of the Chaldeans, engraved in bright red,^{h 15}wearing belts on their waists and flowing turbans on their heads; all of them looked like officers, a depiction of the Babylonians in Chaldea, their native land. ¹⁶At the sight of them^A she lusted after them and sent messengers to them in Chaldea.^{i 17}Then the Babylonians came to her,^j to the bed of love, and defiled her with their lust. But after she was defiled by them, she turned away from them in disgust. ¹⁸When she flaunted her promiscuity and exposed her nakedness, I turned away from her in disgust just as I turned away from her sister.^{k 19}Yet she multiplied her acts of promiscuity, remembering the days of her youth when she acted like a prostitute in the land of Egypt ²⁰and lusted after their lovers, whose sexual members^B were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of stallions. ²¹So you revisited the depravity of your youth, when the Egyptians caressed your nipples to enjoy your youthful breasts.^l

²²“Therefore, Oholibah, this is what the Lord God says: I am going to incite your lovers against you, those you turned away from in disgust. I will bring them against you from every side: ²³the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans; Pekod, Shoa, and Koa;^m and all the Assyrians with them—desirable young men, all of them governors and prefects, officers and administrators, all of them riding on steeds. ²⁴They will come against you with an assembly of peoples and with weapons, chariots, and^C wagons. They will set themselves against you on every side with large and small shields and helmets. I will delegate judgment to them, and they will judge you by their own standards. ²⁵When I vent my jealous fury on you,ⁿ they will deal with you in wrath. They will cut off your nose and ears, and the rest of you^D will fall by the sword. They will seize your sons and daughters, and the rest of you will be consumed by fire. ²⁶They will strip off your clothes and take your beautiful jewelry.^{o 27}So I will put an end to your depravity and sexual immorality, which began in the land of Egypt, and you will not look longingly at them or remember Egypt anymore.

²⁸“For this is what the Lord God says: I am going to hand you over to those you hate, to those you turned away from in disgust. ²⁹They will treat you with hatred, take all you have worked for, and leave you stark naked,^p so that the shame of your debauchery will be exposed, both your depravity and promiscuity. ³⁰These things will be done to you because you acted like a prostitute with the nations,^q defiling yourself with their idols. ³¹You have followed the path of your sister, so I will put her cup in your hand.”^r

³²This is what the Lord God says:

“You will drink your sister’s cup,^s

which is deep and wide.

You will be an object of^A ridicule and scorn,

for it holds so much.^t

³³You will be filled with drunkenness and grief,

with a cup of devastation and desolation,

the cup of your sister Samaria.

³⁴You will drink it and drain it;

then you will gnaw its broken pieces,

and tear your breasts.

For I have spoken.”

This is the declaration of the Lord God.

³⁵Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: “Because you have forgotten me^a and cast me behind your back,^b you must bear the consequences of your indecency and promiscuity.”

³⁶Then the Lord said to me, “Son of man, will you pass judgment against Oholah and Oholibah?^c Then declare their detestable practices to them.^{d 37}For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands; they have committed adultery with their idols. And the children they bore to me they have sacrificed in the fire^B as food for the idols.^{e 38}They also did this to me: they defiled my sanctuary^f on that same day and profaned my Sabbaths.^{g 39}On the same day they slaughtered their children for their…