Ezekiel 22

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.