21 And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,

² Son of man, set thy face against Jerusalem, and drop [words] against the holy places, and prophesy against the land of Israel,

³ and say to the land of Israel, Thus saith Jehovah: Behold, I am against thee, and I will draw forth my sword out of its sheath, and will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked.

⁴ Seeing that I will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked, therefore shall my sword go forth out of its sheath against all flesh, from the south to the north;

⁵ and all flesh shall know that I Jehovah have drawn forth my sword out of its sheath: it shall not return any more.

⁶ Sigh then, thou son of man; with breaking of the loins, and with bitterness sigh before their eyes.

⁷ And it shall be, when they say unto thee, Wherefore dost thou sigh? that thou shalt say, Because of the tidings, for it cometh; and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall languish, and all knees shall melt into water: behold, it cometh; it is here, saith the Lord Jehovah.

⁸ And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,

⁹ Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith Jehovah: Say, A sword, a sword is sharpened, and also furbished.

¹⁰ It is sharpened for sore slaughter, it is furbished that it may glitter. Shall we then make mirth, [saying,] The sceptre of my son contemneth all wood?

¹¹ And he hath given it to be furbished that it may be handled. The sword,—it is sharpened, and it is furbished to give it into the hand of the slayer.

¹² Cry and howl, son of man; for it shall be against my people, it shall be against all the princes of Israel: they are given up to the sword along with my people: smite therefore upon the thigh.

¹³ For the trial [is made]; and what if even the contemning sceptre shall be no [more]? saith the Lord Jehovah.

¹⁴ And thou, son of man, prophesy, and smite thy hands together; for [the strokes of] the sword shall be doubled the third time: it is the sword of the slain, the sword that hath slain the great one, which encompasseth them privily.

¹⁵ In order that the heart may melt, and the stumbling-blocks be multiplied, I have set the threatening sword against all their gates: ah! it is made glittering, it is whetted for the slaughter.

¹⁶ Gather up [strength], go to the right hand, turn thee, go to the left, whithersoever thy face is appointed.

¹⁷ And I myself will smite my hands together, and I will satisfy my fury: I Jehovah have spoken [it].

¹⁸ And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,

¹⁹ And thou, son of man, set thee two ways, by which the sword of the king of Babylon may come—out of one land shall they both come—and make thee a signpost, make it at the head of the way to the city.

²⁰ Appoint a way for the coming of the sword to Rabbah of the children of Ammon, and to Judah at the fenced [city] of Jerusalem.

²¹ For the king of Babylon standeth at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination: he shaketh [his] arrows, he inquireth of the teraphim, he looketh in the liver.

²² In his right hand is the lot of Jerusalem to appoint battering-rams, to open the mouth for bloodshed, to lift up the voice with shouting, to appoint battering-rams against the gates, to cast mounds, to build siege-towers.

²³ And this shall be a false divination in their sight, for them that have sworn oaths; but he will call to remembrance the iniquity, that they may be taken.

²⁴ Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Because ye make your iniquity to be remembered in that your transgressions are discovered, so that in all your doings your sins appear; because ye are come to remembrance, ye shall be taken with the hand.

²⁵ And thou, profane, wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, at the time of the iniquity of the end,

²⁶ —thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Remove the mitre and take off the crown; what is shall be no [more]. Exalt that which is low, and abase that which is high.

²⁷ I will overturn, overturn, overturn it! This also shall be no [more], until he come whose right it is; and I will give it [to him].

²⁸ And thou, son of man, prophesy and say, Thus speaketh the Lord Jehovah concerning the children of Ammon, and concerning their reproach; and thou shalt say, A sword, a sword is drawn; for the slaughter is it furbished, that it may consume, that it may glitter:

²⁹ whilst they see vanity for thee, whilst they divine a lie unto thee, to lay thee upon the necks of the wicked that are slain, whose day is come at the time of the iniquity of the end.

³⁰ Restore [it] to its sheath. I will judge thee in the place where thou wast created, in the land of thy birth.

³¹ And I will pour out mine indignation upon thee, I will blow upon thee the fire of my wrath, and give thee into the hand of brutish men, skilful to destroy.

³² Thou shalt be for fuel to the fire; thy blood shall be in the midst of the land; thou shalt not be remembered: for I Jehovah have spoken.

22 And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,

² And thou, son of man, wilt thou judge, wilt thou judge the bloody city? Yea, cause her to know all her abominations,

³ and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: A city that sheddeth blood in her midst, that her time may come, and maketh idols against herself to defile herself.

⁴ Thou art become guilty by thy blood which thou hast shed, and hast defiled thyself with thine idols which thou hast made; and thou hast caused thy days to draw near, and art come unto thy years: therefore have I made thee a reproach unto the nations, and a mocking unto all countries.

⁵ Those that are near, and those that are far from thee, shall mock thee, who art infamous [and] full of tumult.

⁶ Behold, the princes of Israel have been in thee to shed blood, each according to his power.

⁷ In thee have they made light of father and mother; in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger; in thee have they vexed the fatherless and the widow.

⁸ Thou hast despised my holy things, and hast profaned my sabbaths.

⁹ In thee there have been slanderous men to shed blood; and in thee have they eaten upon the mountains; in the midst of thee they have committed lewdness;

¹⁰ in thee have they discovered their fathers' nakedness; in thee have they humbled her that was unclean in her separation.

¹¹ And one hath committed abomination with his neighbour's wife; and another hath lewdly defiled his daughter-in-law; and another in thee hath humbled his sister, his father's daughter.

¹² In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood; thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast overreached thy neighbours by oppression, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord Jehovah.

¹³ And behold, I have smitten mine hand at thine overreaching which thou hast done, and at thy bloodshed which hath been in the midst of thee.

¹⁴ Shall thy heart endure, shall thy hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee? I Jehovah have spoken, and will do [it].

¹⁵ And I will scatter thee among the nations, and disperse thee through the countries, and will consume thy filthiness out of thee.

¹⁶ And thou shalt be polluted through thyself in the sight of the nations, and thou shalt know that I [am] Jehovah.

¹⁷ And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,

¹⁸ Son of man, the house of Israel is become dross to me: they are all copper, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace: they are become the dross of silver.

¹⁹ Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Because ye are all become dross, therefore behold, I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem.

²⁰ [As] they gather silver, and copper, and iron, and lead, and tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it, so will I gather you in mine anger and in my fury, and I will lay you on and melt you.

²¹ Yea, I will collect you, and blow upon you the fire of my wrath, and ye shall be melted in the midst thereof.

²² As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof: and ye shall know that I Jehovah have poured out my fury upon you.

²³ And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,

²⁴ Son of man, say unto her, Thou art a land that is not cleansed, nor rained upon in the day of indignation.

²⁵ There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst of her like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they devour souls; they take away treasure and precious things; they increase her widows in the midst of her;

²⁶ her priests do violence to my law, and profane my holy things: they put no difference between the holy and profane, neither do they make known [the difference] between the unclean and the clean, and they hide their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.

²⁷ Her princes in the midst of her are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain.

²⁸ And her prophets have daubed for them with untempered [mortar], seeing vanity and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah! and Jehovah hath not spoken.

²⁹ The people of the land use oppression and practise robbery; and they vex the poor and needy, and oppress the stranger wrongfully.

³⁰ And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the fence, and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found none.

³¹ And I will pour out mine indignation upon them; I will consume them in the fire of my wrath: their own way will I recompense upon their head, saith the Lord Jehovah.

23 And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,

² Son of man, there were two women, daughters of one mother.

³ And they committed whoredom in Egypt; they committed whoredom in their youth: there were their breasts pressed, and there were handled the teats of their virginity.

⁴ And their names were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister; and they were mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names: Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah.

⁵ And Oholah played the harlot when she was mine; and she lusted after her lovers, after the Assyrians [her] neighbours,

⁶ clothed with blue, governors and rulers, all of them attractive young men, horsemen riding upon horses.

⁷ And she bestowed her whoredoms upon them, all of them the choice of the children of Asshur; and with all after whom she lusted, with all their idols she defiled herself.

⁸ Neither left she her whoredoms [brought] from Egypt; for in her youth they had lain with her, and had handled the breasts of her virginity, and poured their fornication upon her.

⁹ Therefore I gave her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the children of Asshur, after whom she lusted.

¹⁰ These discovered her nakedness, they took her sons and her daughters, and slew her with the sword; and she became a name among women; and they executed judgment upon her.

¹¹ And her sister Oholibah saw [this], and was more corrupt in her passion than she, and in her fornications more than the whoredoms of her sister.

¹² She lusted after the children of Asshur [her] neighbours, governors and rulers, clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them attractive young men.

¹³ And I saw that she was defiled: both took one way.

¹⁴ And she increased her fornications; for she saw men portrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion,

¹⁵ girded with girdles upon their loins, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them captains in appearance, [after] the likeness of the children of Babylon, of Chaldea, the land of their nativity.

¹⁶ And as soon as she saw them with her eyes, she lusted after them, and sent messengers unto them into Chaldea.

¹⁷ And the children of Babylon came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their fornication; she too defiled herself with them, and her soul was alienated from them.

¹⁸ And she discovered her whoredoms, and discovered her nakedness; and my soul was alienated from her, like as my soul was alienated from her sister.

¹⁹ Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she played the harlot in the land of Egypt;

²⁰ and she lusted after their paramours, whose flesh is [as] the flesh of asses, and whose issue is [as] the issue of horses.

²¹ And thou didst look back to the lewdness of thy youth, in the handling of thy teats by the Egyptians, for the breasts of thy youth.

²² Therefore, Oholibah, thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will raise up thy lovers against thee, from whom thy soul is alienated, and I will bring them against thee on every side.

²³ The children of Babylon, and all the Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, all the children of Asshur with them; all of them attractive young men, governors and rulers, great lords and renowned, all of them riding upon horses.

²⁴ And they shall come against thee [with] armour, chariots and wheels, and with an assemblage of peoples; they shall set themselves against thee [with] target, and shield, and helmet round about; and I will put judgment before them, and they shall judge thee according to their judgments.

²⁵ And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee: they shall cut off thy nose and thine ears, and thy remnant shall fall by the sword; they shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire.

²⁶ They shall also strip the of thy garments, and take away thy fair jewels.

²⁷ And I will make thy lewdness to cease from thee, and thy whoredom [brought] from the land of Egypt; and thou shalt not lift up thine eyes unto them, nor remember Egypt any more.

²⁸ For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will give thee over into the hand of them whom thou hatest, into the hand of them from whom thy soul is alienated.

²⁹ And they shall deal with thee in hatred, and shall take away all thy labour, and shall leave thee naked and bare; so that the nakedness of thy whoredoms shall be discovered, both thy lewdness and thy fornications.

³⁰ These things shall be done unto thee, because thou hast gone a whoring after the nations, because thou hast defiled thyself with their idols.

³¹ Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister; and I have given her cup into thy hand.

³² Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Thou shalt drink of thy sister's cup deep and large; thou shalt be for a laughing-stock and a derision, [for] it containeth much.

³³ Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation, the cup of thy sister Samaria;

³⁴ thou shalt even drink it and suck it out, and thou shalt gnaw the sherds thereof, and pluck off thine own breasts: for I have spoken [it], saith the Lord Jehovah.

³⁵ Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Because thou hast forgotten me, and cast me behind thy back, therefore bear thou also thy lewdness and thy fornications.

³⁶ And Jehovah said unto me, Son of man, wilt thou judge Oholah and Oholibah? yea, declare unto them their abominations.

³⁷ For they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands; and with their idols have they committed adultery, and have also passed over unto them their children, whom they bore unto me, to be devoured.

³⁸ Moreover this have they done unto me: in the same day have they defiled my sanctuary and profaned my sabbaths.

³⁹ For when they had slaughtered their children unto their idols, they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; and behold, thus have they done in the midst of my house.

⁴⁰ And furthermore, they sent for men to come from far, unto whom a messenger was sent; and behold, they came: for whom thou didst wash thyself, paintedst thine eyes, and deckedst thyself with ornaments;

⁴¹ and satest upon a stately bed, with a table prepared before it, whereupon thou hadst set mine incense and mine oil.

⁴² And the voice of a multitude living carelessly was with her; and with people of the common sort were brought Sabeans from the wilderness, and they put bracelets upon their hands, and a beautiful crown upon their heads.

⁴³ And I said of her that was old in adulteries, Will she now commit her fornications, even she.

⁴⁴ And they went in unto her, as they go in unto a whorish woman: so went they in unto Oholah and unto Oholibah the lewd women.

⁴⁵ And righteous men, they shall judge them with the judgment of adulteresses, and with the judgment of women that shed blood; for they are adulteresses, and blood is in their hands.

⁴⁶ For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: I will bring up an assemblage against them, and will give them to be driven hither and thither and spoiled.

⁴⁷ And the assemblage shall stone them with stones, and despatch them with their swords; they shall kill their sons and their daughters, and burn their houses with fire.

⁴⁸ And I will cause lewdness to cease out of the land, and all women shall receive instruction and shall not do according to your lewdness.

⁴⁹ And they shall recompense your lewdness upon you, and ye shall bear the sins of your idols; and ye shall know that I [am] the Lord Jehovah.

24 And in the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,

² Son of man, write thee the name of the day, of this selfsame day: on this selfsame day the king of Babylon draws near to Jerusalem.

³ And propose a parable unto the rebellious house, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Set on the pot, set [it] on, and also pour water into it.

⁴ Gather the pieces thereof into it, every good piece, the thigh and the shoulder; fill [it] with the choice bones:

⁵ take the choice of the flock; and also [put] a pile of wood under it, for the bones; make it boil well, and let the bones of it seethe therein.

⁶ Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose rust is therein, and whose rust is not gone out of it! Bring it out piece by piece; let no lot fall upon it:

⁷ for her blood is in the midst of her; she set it upon the bare rock; she poured it not upon the ground, to cover it with dust.

⁸ That it might cause fury to come up to execute vengeance, I have set her blood upon the bare rock, that it should not be covered.

⁹ Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Woe to the bloody city! I also will make the pile great.

¹⁰ Heap on the wood, kindle the fire, boil thoroughly the flesh, and spice it well, and let the bones be burned.

¹¹ Then set it empty upon its coals, that it may be hot, and the brass of it may burn, and that its filthiness may be molten in it, [and] that its rust may be consumed.

¹² She hath exhausted [her] labours, yet her great rust goeth not forth out of her: let her rust be in the fire.

¹³ In thy filthiness is lewdness, for I have purged thee, and thou art not pure. Thou shalt no more be purged from thy filthiness, till I have satisfied my fury upon thee.

¹⁴ I Jehovah have spoken [it]: it shall come to pass, and I will do it; I will not go back, neither will I spare, nor will I repent. According to thy ways, and according to thy doings, shall they judge thee, saith the Lord Jehovah.

¹⁵ And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,

¹⁶ Son of man, behold, I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke; yet thou shalt not mourn nor weep, neither shall thy tears run down.

¹⁷ Sigh in silence, make no mourning for the dead; bind thy turban upon thee, and put thy sandals upon thy feet, and cover not the beard, and eat not the bread of men.

¹⁸ —And I spoke unto the people in the morning; and at even my wife died. And I did in the morning as I was commanded.

¹⁹ And the people said unto me, Wilt thou not tell us what these things are to us, which thou doest?

²⁰ And I said to them, The word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,

²¹ Say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will profane my sanctuary, the pride of your strength, the desire of your eyes, and your soul's longing; and your sons and your daughters whom ye have left behind shall fall by the sword.

²² And ye shall do as I have done: ye shall not cover the beard, neither eat the bread of men;

²³ and your turbans shall be upon your heads, and your sandals upon your feet: ye shall not mourn nor weep; but ye shall waste away in your iniquities and moan one toward another.

²⁴ Thus Ezekiel shall be unto you a sign; according to all that he hath done shall ye do: when it cometh, then ye shall know that I [am] the Lord Jehovah.

²⁵ And thou, son of man, shall it not be in the day when I take from them their strength, the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that whereunto they lift up their soul, their sons and their daughters,

²⁶ that in that day he that escapeth shall come unto thee, to cause [thine] ears to hear [it]?

²⁷ In that day shall thy mouth be opened to him that is escaped, and thou shalt speak, and be no more dumb. So shalt thou be a sign unto them; and they shall know that I [am] Jehovah.