Ezekiel 22–23

Chapter 22

¹Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ²“And you, son of man, will you judge, will you judge the bloody city? Then declare to her all her abominable deeds. ³You shall say, Thus says the Lord GOD: A city that sheds blood in the midst of her, that her time may come, and that makes idols to defile herself! ⁴You have become guilty by the blood which you have shed, and defiled by the idols which you have made; and you have brought your day near, the appointed time^f of your years has come. Therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations, and a mocking to all the countries. ⁵Those who are near and those who are far from you will mock you, you infamous one, full of tumult.

⁶“Behold, the princes of Israel in you, every one according to his power, have been bent on shedding blood. ⁷Father and mother are treated with contempt in you; the sojourner suffers extortion in your midst; the fatherless and the widow are wronged in you. ⁸You have despised my holy things, and profaned my sabbaths. ⁹There are men in you who slander to shed blood, and men in you who eat upon the mountains; men commit lewdness in your midst. ¹⁰In you men uncover their fathers’ nakedness; in you they humble women who are unclean in their impurity. ¹¹One commits abomination with his neighbor’s wife; another lewdly defiles his daughter-in-law; another in you defiles his sister, his father’s daughter. ¹²In you men take bribes to shed blood; you take interest and increase and make gain of your neighbors by extortion; and you have forgotten me, says the Lord GOD.

¹³“Behold, therefore, I strike my hands together at the dishonest gain which you have made, and at the blood which has been in the midst of you. ¹⁴Can your courage endure, or can your hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with you? I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it. ¹⁵I will scatter you among the nations and disperse you through the countries, and I will consume your filthiness out of you. ¹⁶And I^g shall be profaned through you in the sight of the nations; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

¹⁷And the word of the Lord came to me: ¹⁸“Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to me; all of them, silver and bronze and tin and iron and lead in the furnace, have become dross. ¹⁹Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Because you have all become dross, therefore, behold, I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem. ²⁰As men gather silver and bronze and iron and lead and tin into a furnace, to blow the fire upon it in order to melt it; so I will gather you in my anger and in my wrath, and I will put you in and melt you. ²¹I will gather you and blow upon you with the fire of my wrath, and you shall be melted in the midst of it. ²²As silver is melted in a furnace, so you shall be melted in the midst of it; and you shall know that I the Lord have poured out my wrath upon you.”

²³And the word of the Lord came to me: ²⁴“Son of man, say to her, You are a land that is not cleansed, or rained upon in the day of indignation. ²⁵Her princesⁱ in the midst of her are like a roaring lion tearing the prey; they have devoured human lives; they have taken treasure and precious things; they have made many widows in the midst of her. ²⁶Her priests have done violence to my law and have profaned my holy things; they have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they taught the difference between the unclean and the clean, and they have disregarded my sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them. ²⁷Her princes in the midst of her are like wolves tearing the prey, shedding blood, destroying lives to get dishonest gain. ²⁸And her prophets have daubed for them with whitewash, seeing false visions and divining lies for them, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD,’ when the Lord has not spoken. ²⁹The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery; they have oppressed the poor and needy, and have extorted from the sojourner without redress. ³⁰And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found none. ³¹Therefore I have poured out my indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath; their way have I requited upon their heads, says the Lord GOD.”

Chapter 23

¹The word of the Lord came to me: ²“Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother; ³they played the harlot in Egypt; they played the harlot in their youth; there their breasts were pressed and their virgin bosoms handled. ⁴Oholah was the name of the elder and Oholibah the name of her sister. They became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Oholah is Samaria, and Oholibah is Jerusalem.

⁵“Oholah played the harlot while she was mine; and she doted on her lovers the Assyrians, ⁶warriors clothed in purple, governors and commanders, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses. ⁷She bestowed her harlotries upon them, the choicest men of Assyria all of them; and she defiled herself with all the idols of every one on whom she doted. ⁸She did not give up her harlotry which she had practiced since her days in Egypt; for in her youth men had lain with her and handled her virgin bosom and poured out their lust upon her. ⁹Therefore I delivered her into the hands of her lovers, into the hands of the Assyrians, upon whom she doted. ¹⁰These uncovered her nakedness; they seized her sons and her daughters; and her they slew with the sword; and she became a byword among women, when judgment had been executed upon her.

¹¹“Her sister Oholibah saw this, yet she was more corrupt than she in her doting and in her harlotry, which was worse than that of her sister. ¹²She doted upon the Assyrians, governors and commanders, warriors clothed in full armor, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men. ¹³And I saw that she was defiled; they both took the same way. ¹⁴But she carried her harlotry further; she saw men portrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed in vermilion, ¹⁵girded with belts on their loins, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them looking like officers, a picture of Babylonians whose native land was Chaldea. ¹⁶When she saw them she doted upon them, and sent messengers to them in Chaldea. ¹⁷And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their lust; and after she was polluted by them, she turned from them in disgust. ¹⁸When she carried on her harlotry so openly and flaunted her nakedness, I turned in disgust from her, as I had turned from her sister. ¹⁹Yet she increased her harlotry, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the harlot in the land of Egypt ²⁰and doted upon her paramours there, whose members were like those of asses, and whose issue was like that of horses. ²¹Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians^j handled your bosom and pressed^k your young breasts.”

²²Therefore, O Oholibah, thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, I will rouse against you your lovers from whom you turned in disgust, and I will bring them against you from every side: ²³the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them, desirable young men, governors and commanders all of them, officers and warriors, all of them riding on horses. ²⁴And they shall come against you from the north^m with chariots and wagons and a host of peoples; they shall set themselves against you on every side with buckler, shield, and helmet, and I will commit the judgment to them, and they shall judge you according to their judgments. ²⁵And I will direct my indignation against you, that they may deal with you in fury. They shall cut off your nose and your ears, and your survivors shall fall by the sword. They shall seize your sons and your daughters, and your survivors shall be devoured by fire. ²⁶They shall also strip you of your clothes and take away your fine jewels. ²⁷Thus I will put an end to your lewdness and your harlotry brought from the land of Egypt; so that you shall not lift up your eyes to the Egyptians or remember them any more. ²⁸For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will deliver you into the hands of those whom you hate, into the hands of those from whom you turned in disgust; ²⁹and they shall deal with you in hatred, and take away all the fruit of your labor, and leave you naked and bare, and the nakedness of your harlotry shall be uncovered. Your lewdness and your harlotry ³⁰have brought this upon you, because you played the harlot with the nations, and polluted yourself with their idols. ³¹You have gone the way of your sister; therefore I will give her cup into your hand. ³²Thus says the Lord GOD:

“You shall drink your sister’s cup

which is deep and large;

you shall be laughed at and held in derision,

for it contains much;

³³you will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow.

A cup of horror and desolation,

is the cup of your sister Samaria;

³⁴you shall drink it and drain it out,

and pluck out your hair,ⁿ

and tear your breasts;

for I have spoken, says the Lord GOD.

³⁵Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Because you have forgotten me and cast me behind your back, therefore bear the consequences of your lewdness and harlotry.”

³⁶The Lord said to me: “Son of man, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah? Then declare to them their abominable deeds. ³⁷For they have committed adultery, and blood is upon their hands; with their idols they have committed adultery; and they have even offered up to them for food the sons whom they had borne to me. ³⁸Moreover this they have done to me: they have defiled my sanctuary on the same day and profaned my sabbaths. ³⁹For when they had slaughtered their children in sacrifice to their idols, on the same day they came into my sanctuary to profane it. And lo, this is what they did in my house. ⁴⁰They even sent for men to come from far, to…