How hot with fever [was] your heart!' {declares} the Lord Yahweh. '{When you did} all of these actions {of a headstrong female prostitute},

And it was the opposite with you from the [other] women in your whorings; {no one solicited you as a prostitute}. {You gave} a harlot's wages, and harlot's wages [were] not given to you, and [so] it was [just] the opposite.

Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness discovered through thy whoredoms with thy lovers, and with all the idols of thy abominations, and by the blood of thy children, which thou didst give unto them;

Thou art thy mother's daughter, that lotheth her husband and her children; and thou art the sister of thy sisters, which lothed their husbands and their children: your mother was an Hittite, and your father an Amorite.

Your older sister was Samaria, who lived with her daughters to the north of you, and your younger sister was Sodom, who lived with her daughters to the south of you.

Yet hast thou not walked after their ways, nor done after their abominations: but, as if that were a very little thing, thou wast corrupted more than they in all thy ways.

Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

They were full of pride and did what was disgusting to me: and so I took them away as you have seen.

Thou also bear thine own reproach, which thou didst adjudge to thy sisters, by thy sins in which thou wast more abominable than they, thou didst make them appear more righteous than thou, - Thou also, therefore turn thou pale and bear thine own reproach, for making thy sisters appear righteous!

For thy sister Sodom was not mentioned by thy mouth in the day of thy pride,

Before thy wickedness was discovered, as at the time of thy reproach of the daughters of Syria, and all that are round about her, the daughters of the Philistines, which despise thee round about.

and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: A great eagle with great wings, long-pinioned, full of feathers, which was of divers colours, came unto Lebanon, and took the highest branch of the cedar.

Then did it grow, and was a great vine stock, but low by the ground: thus there came of it a vine, and it brought forth blossoms, and spread out branches.

There was also another great eagle with great wings and many feathers: and, behold, this vine did bend her roots toward him, and shot forth her branches toward him, that he might water it by the furrows of her plantation.

It was planted in a good soil by great waters, that it might bring forth branches, and that it might bear fruit, that it might be a goodly vine.

And if it is planted will it do well? will it not become quite dry at the touch of the east wind, drying up in the bed where it was planted?

And I spread my net upon him and he was taken in my net, and I brought him to Babel, and I contended with him there for his transgression which he transgressed against me.

In the mountain of the height of Israel I will plant it: and it bare a branch, and it made fruit, and it was for a great cedar: and there dwelt under it all fowls of every wing; in the shadow of its branches shall they dwell.

So shall all the trees of the field know that I Yahweh Have laid low the high tree Have exalted the low tree, Have dried up the moist tree, And have caused to flourish the tree, that was dry, - I, Yahweh, have spoken, and performed.

And has done no wrong to any, but has given back to the debtor what is his, and has taken no one's goods by force, and has given food to him who was in need of it, and clothing to him who was without it;

oppresses the poor and the needy, commits robbery, does not give back what was given in pledge, prays to idols, performs abominable acts,

Or done wrong to any, or taken anything from one in his debt, or taken goods by force, but has given food to him who was in need of it, and clothing to him who was without it;

As for his father, because he practised oppression, exercised robbery upon his brother, and did what was not good among his people, behold, he shall die in his iniquity.

"Yet you keep asking, "Why wouldn't the son bear the punishment of his father's sin?' Because the son has done what was lawful and right, and has kept all my statutes and obeyed them, he's certainly going to live.

Because he had fear and was turned away from all the wrong which he had done, life will certainly be his, death will not be his fate.

and say, What was thy mother? A lioness: she couched among lions, in the midst of the young lions she nourished her whelps.

And she will bring up one of her whelps: it was a young lion, and it will learn to rend the prey eating man.

The nations also heard of him; he was taken in their pit, and they brought him with chains unto the land of Egypt.

Now when she saw that she had waited, and her hope was lost, then she took another of her whelps, and made him a young lion.

And he will go about in the midst of the lions; he was a young lion, and he will learn to tear in pieces the prey, eating man.

And he knew their desolate palaces, and he laid waste their cities; and the land was desolate, and the fulness thereof, by the noise of his roaring.

Then the nations set against him on every side from the provinces, and spread their net over him: he was taken in their pit.

Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood, planted by the waters: she was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters.

And she had strong rods for the sceptres of them that bare rule, and her stature was exalted among the thick branches, and she appeared in her height with the multitude of her branches.

But she was plucked up in fury, she was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods were broken and withered; the fire consumed them.

And [so] fire has gone out from the stem of its branches; its fruit it has consumed, and [there] was not in it {a strong branch}, a scepter for ruling.'" This [is] a lament, and {it will be used as a lament}.

In the seventh year, in the fifth month, on the tenth of the month [after the beginning of the exile in Babylon], certain of the elders of Israel came to inquire of the Lord and sat down before me.

And the word of Jehovah was to me, saying,

In that day, lifted I up my hand to them, to bring them forth out of the land of Egypt, - into a land that I had looked out for them flowing with milk and honey, The beauty, it was of all lands,

And I was acting for the honour of my name, so that it might not be made unclean before the eyes of the nations among whom they were, and before whose eyes I gave them knowledge of myself, by taking them out of the land of Egypt.

Moreover also my sabbaths, gave I unto them, to become a sign betwixt me and them, - that it might be known that, I, Yahweh, was hallowing them.

And I was acting for the honour of my name, so that it might not be made unclean in the eyes of the nations, before whose eyes I had taken them out.

Yet even l lifted up my hand to them. in the desert, - That I would not b1ing them into the land which I had given to them flowing with milk and honey, The beauty, it was. of all lands:

because they despised my judgments, and {they did not walk in my statutes}, and my Sabbaths they profaned, for their heart was going after their idols.

"But they rebelled against me. They didn't live according to my statutes, observe my ordinances, or practice them, by which a person will live. They also kept profaning my Sabbaths. So I said that I was going to pour out my anger on them and in my anger I'm going to bring about a complete end to them in the wilderness.

And I was acting for the honour of my name, so that it might not be made unclean in the eyes of the nations, before whose eyes I had taken them out.

And further, I gave them rules which were not good and orders in which there was no life for them;

As I was judged with your fathers, In the wilderness of the land of Egypt, So I am judged with you, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah.

With the odor of sweetness I will receive you into favor in my bringing you forth from the peoples, and I gathered you from the lands where ye were scattered in them; and I was consecrated in you before the eyes of the nations.

And it was when they shall say to thee, For what sighest thou? and say, For the report, because it came: and every heart melted and all hands were relaxed, and every spirit was weak, and all knees shall go into water: behold, it came, and it was, says the Lord Jehovah.

Son of man, prophesy and say, Thus said Jehovah: say, A sword, a sword was sharpened, and also polished.

In order to slaughter a slaughter it was sharpened; in order for lightning to be to it, it was polished; then shall we exult? the rod of my son despised, every tree.

And he will give it to be polished, to be taken in the hand: this sword was sharpened, and it was polished to give it into the hand of him slaying.

Cry and wail, son of man, for it was upon my people, it was upon all the princes of Israel: terrors for the sword were upon my people: for this, strike upon thy thigh.

For it is a trial, and what if also the rod was rejected? it shall not be, says the Lord Jehovah.

In order to melt the heart and to multiply the ruins, I gave the turning of the sword against all their gates: Ah! it was made for lightnings, it was polished for slaughter.

At his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem, to appoint captains, to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to appoint battering rams against the gates, to cast a mount, and to build a fort.

And it was to them as a divination of falsehood in their eyes, swearing an oath to them, remembering iniquity to be taken.

So says the Lord Jehovah: Remove the diadem, and take off the crown. This shall not be as it was. Lift up the low one, and put down the high one.

Perverted, perverted, perverted, will I set her: and this was not till he came which to him the judgment; and I gave him.

And thou son of man, prophesy and say, Thus said the Lord Jehovah to the sons of Ammon, and for their reproach; and say, The sword, the sword was loosed: for slaughter it was polished, to consume for sake of the lightning:

because thou hast looked thee out vanities, and prophesied lies, that it may come upon thy neck like as upon the other ungodly which be slain: whose day came, when their wickedness was full.

Shall I cause it to return into his sheath? I will judge thee in the place where thou wast created, in the land of thy nativity.

In thee have they discovered their fathers' nakedness: in thee have they humbled her that was set apart for pollution.

And in you one man has done what was disgusting with his neighbour's wife; and another has made his daughter-in-law unclean; and another has done wrong to his sister, his father's daughter.

And look! I strike my hand for your ill-gotten gain that you [have] made and at your blood that was in the midst of you.

Son of man, say to her, Thou a land not being cleansed; it was not rained upon in the day of anger.

And I was looking for a man among them who would make up the wall and take his station in the broken place before me for the land, so that I might not send destruction on it: but there was no one.

and they played the harlot in Egypt; they played the harlot in their youth; there were their breasts pressed, and there was handled the bosom of their virginity.

Now [as for] their names, the older [was] Oholah, and Oholibah [was] her sister. And {they became mine}, and they bore sons and daughters, and their names [are] Samaria [for] Oholah, and Jerusalem [for] Oholibah

And Aholah played the harlot when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbours,

Thus through her whoredom, she cleaved unto all the young men of Assyria: Yea she was mad upon them, and defiled herself with all their Idols.

And she has not given up her loose ways from the time when she was in Egypt; for when she was young they were her lovers, and by them her young breasts were crushed, and they let loose on her their unclean desire.

For this cause I gave her up into the hands of her lovers, into the hands of the Assyrians on whom her desire was fixed.

By these her shame was uncovered: they took her sons and daughters and put her to death with the sword: and she became a cause of wonder to women; for they gave her the punishment which was right.

And when her sister Aholibah saw this, she was more corrupt in her inordinate love than she, and in her whoredoms more than her sister in her whoredoms.

She was full of desire for the Assyrians, captains and rulers, her neighbours, clothed in blue, horsemen going on horses, all of them young men to be desired.

Then I saw that she was defiled, that they took both one way,

girded with belts on their loins, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them looking like officers, like the Babylonian men whose native land was Chaldea.

And when she saw them she was full of desire for them, and sent servants to them in Chaldaea.

And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoredom, and she was polluted with them, and her mind was alienated from them.

So she discovered her whoredoms, and discovered her nakedness: then my mind was alienated from her, like as my mind was alienated from her sister.

Yet she increased her whorings, {recalling} the days of her childhood when she was prostituted in the land of Egypt

For she lusted after her lovers [there], whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys and whose issue is like the issue of horses.

And you longed [after] the obscene conduct of your youth when your bosom was caressed by Egypt, fondling your young breasts.

For this, O Aholibah, thus said the Lord Jehovah: Behold me raising up those loving thee, against thee, whom thy soul was rent away from them, and I brought them against thee from round about

For thus said the Lord Jehovah: Lo, I am giving thee into a hand that thou hast hated, Into a hand from which thou wast alienated.

And they did with thee in hatred, and they took all thy labor, and they left thee naked and nakedness: and the nakedness of thy fornication was uncovered, and thy wickedness and thy fornications.

These things will happen to you because of your sexual immorality that was patterned after what the nations do. You've been defiled by their idols.

And furthermore, that ye have sent for men to come from far, unto whom a messenger was sent; and, lo, they came: for whom thou didst wash thyself, paintedst thy eyes, and deckedst thyself with ornaments,

then sat down on an elegant bed. A table was arranged in front of it, on which you set out my incense and oil.

And a voice of a multitude being at ease was with her: and with the men of the common sort were brought Sabeans from the wilderness, which put bracelets upon their hands, and beautiful crowns upon their heads.

Then said I unto her that was old in adulteries, Will they now commit whoredoms with her, and she with them?

But righteous men, they will judge them [with] [the] judgment of committing adultery, and [with] [the] judgment of shedding blood; for they were committing adultery, and blood [was] on their hands."

For her blood was in the midst of her; {she put it on a bare rock}; she [did] not pour it on the ground to cover it [with] dust.

And cause it to stand upon its coals, empty, so that its brass shall be warm and burning, and its uncleanness was melted in the midst of it; its rust shall be consumed.

She was wearied with labors, and her great rust shall not go forth from her: in the fire her rust

In thy filthiness is lewdness: because I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged, thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more, till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee.

So I spake unto the people in the morning: and at even my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded.

And saying to them, The word of Jehovah was to me, saying,