Ezekiel 22:1–13

The Bloody City

²²The word of the Lord came to me: ²You, mortal, will you judge, will you judge the bloody city? Then declare to it all its abominable deeds.^{* 3}You shall say: Thus says the Lord God: A city! Shedding blood within itself; its time has come; making its idols, defiling itself. ⁴You have become guilty by the blood that you have shed and defiled by the idols that you have made; you have brought your days near; the appointed time of your years has come. Therefore I have made you a disgrace before the nations and a mockery to all the countries. ⁵Those who are near and those who are far from you will mock you, you infamous one, full of tumult.

⁶The princes of Israel in you, everyone according to his power, have been bent on shedding blood.^{* 7}Father and mother are treated with contempt in you; the alien residing within you suffers extortion; the orphan and the widow are wronged in you.^{* 8}You have despised my holy things and profaned my Sabbaths.^{* 9}In you are those who slander to shed blood, those in you who eat upon the mountains, who commit lewdness in your midst.^{* 10}In you they uncover their fathers’ nakedness; in you they violate women during their menstrual periods.^{* 11}One commits abomination with his neighbor’s wife; another lewdly defiles his daughter-in-law; another in you defiles his sister, his father’s daughter.^{* 12}In you, they take bribes to shed blood; you take both advance interest and accrued interest and make gain of your neighbors by extortion, and you have forgotten me, says the Lord God.^*

¹³See, I strike my hands together at the dishonest gain you have made and at the blood that has been shed within you.