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. ^f3You are to say: This is what the Lord God says: A city that sheds blood ^gwithin 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, ^hand you are defiled from the idols you have made. You have brought your judgment days near and have come to your years of punishment. 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 ⁱwithin you has used his strength to shed blood. ⁷Father and mother are treated with contempt, ^jand the foreign resident is exploited within you. The fatherless and widow are oppressed in you. ^k8You despise My holy things and profane My Sabbaths. ^l9There are men within you who slander in order to shed blood. ^mPeople who live in you eat at the mountain shrines; they commit immoral acts within you. ¹⁰Men within you have sexual intercourse with their father’s wife and violate women during their menstrual impurity. ⁿ¹¹One man within you commits a detestable act with his neighbor’s wife; ^oanother wickedly defiles his daughter-in-law; and yet another violates his sister, his father’s daughter. ^p12People who live in you accept bribes in order to shed blood. ^qYou take interest and profit on a loan and brutally extort your neighbors. ^rYou have forgotten Me.” ^sThis is the declaration of the Lord God.

¹³“Now look, I clap My hands together against the dishonest profit you have made ^tand against the blood shed among you. ¹⁴Will your courage endure ^uor your hands be strong in the days when I deal with you? I, Yahweh, have spoken, and I will act. ^v15I will disperse you among the nations and scatter you among the countries; ^wI will purge your uncleanness. ^x16You ^ywill be profaned in the sight of the nations. Then you will know that I am Yahweh.” ^z

Jerusalem as God’s Furnace

¹⁷The word of the Lord came to me: ¹⁸“Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to Me. ^aAll of them are copper, tin, iron, and lead inside the furnace; ^bthey are the dross of 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 ^con 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, Yahweh, have poured out My wrath on you.” ^d

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, ^ethat has not received rain in the day of indignation. ²⁵The conspiracy of her prophets ^fwithin her is ^glike 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. ^hThey make no distinction between the holy and the common, and they do not explain the difference between the clean and the unclean. ⁱThey disregard ^jMy 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 with whitewash for them by seeing false visions and lying divinations, ^kand they say, ‘This is what the Lord God says,’ when the Lord has not spoken. ²⁹The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery. ^lThey have oppressed the poor and needy and unlawfully exploited the foreign resident. ³⁰I searched for a man among them who would repair the wall ^mand stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land so that I might not destroy it, ⁿbut 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 actions down on their own heads.” ^oThis 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, ^pdaughters of the same mother, ³who acted like prostitutes in Egypt, ^qbehaving promiscuously in their youth. Their breasts were fondled there, and their virgin nipples caressed. ⁴The older one was named Oholah, ^rand her sister was Oholibah. ^sThey 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: ^twarriors 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, ^uwhen 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, ^vthe 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. ^w12She lusted after the Assyrians: ^xgovernors 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, ^yimages of the Chaldeans, engraved in vermilion, ^z15wearing belts on their waists and flowing turbans on their heads; all of them looked like officers, a depiction of the Babylonians in Chaldea, the land of their birth. ¹⁶At the sight of them ^ashe lusted after them and sent messengers to them in Chaldea. ^b17Then the Babylonians came to her, ^cto 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. ^d19Yet 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 were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of stallions. ²¹So you revisited the indecency of your youth, when the Egyptians caressed your nipples to enjoy your youthful breasts. ^e

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; ^fand all the Assyrians with them—desirable young men, all of them governors and prefects, officers and administrators, all of them riding on horses. ²⁴They will come against you with an alliance of nations and with weapons, chariots, and ^gwagons. They will set themselves against you on every side with shields, bucklers, and helmets. I will delegate judgment to them, and they will judge you by their own standards. ²⁵When I vent My jealous rage on you, ^hthey will deal with you in wrath. They will cut off your nose and ears, and your descendants will fall by the sword. They will seize your sons and daughters, and your descendants will be consumed by fire. ²⁶They will strip off your clothes and take your beautiful jewelry. ⁱ²⁷So I will put an end to your indecency 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, ^jso that the shame of your debauchery will be exposed, both your indecency and promiscuity. ³⁰These things will be done to you because you acted like a prostitute with the nations, ^kdefiling yourself with their idols. ³¹You have followed the path of your sister, so I will put her cup in your hand.” ^l

³²This is what the Lord God says:

You will drink your sister’s cup, ^m

which is deep and wide.

You will be an object of ⁿridicule and scorn,

for it holds so much. ^o

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 ^pand cast Me behind your back, ^qyou 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? ^rThen declare their detestable practices to them. ^s37For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands; they have committed adultery with their idols. They have even made the children they bore to Me pass through the fire as food for the idols. ^t38They also did this to Me: they defiled My sanctuary ^uon that same day and profaned My Sabbaths. ^v39On the same day they slaughtered their children for their idols, they entered My sanctuary to profane…