And he said to me, Son of man, I am sending you to the children of Israel, to an uncontrolled nation which has gone against me: they and their fathers have been sinners against me even to this very day.

And you, son of man, have no fear of them or of their words, even if sharp thorns are round you and you are living among scorpions: have no fear of their words and do not be overcome by their looks, for they are an uncontrolled people.

But the children of Israel will not give ear to you; for they have no mind to give ear to me: for all the children of Israel have a hard brow and a stiff heart.

See, I have made your face hard against their faces, and your brow hard against their brows.

Like a diamond harder than rock I have made your brow: have no fear of them and do not be overcome by their looks, for they are an uncontrolled people.

And go now to those who have been taken away as prisoners, to the children of your people, and say to them, This is what the Lord has said; if they give ear or if they do not.

Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the children of Israel: so give ear to the word of my mouth, and give them word from me of their danger.

Again, when an upright man, turning away from his righteousness, does evil, and I put a cause of falling in his way, death will overtake him: because you have given him no word of his danger, death will overtake him in his evil-doing, and there will be no memory of the upright acts which he has done; but I will make you responsible for his blood.

And the hand of the Lord was on me there; and he said, Get up and go out into the valley and there I will have talk with you.

And I will make your tongue fixed to the roof of your mouth, so that you have no voice and may not make protests to them: for they are an uncontrolled people.

But when I have talk with you I will make your mouth open, and you are to say to them, This is what the Lord has said: Let the hearer give ear; and as for him who will not, let him keep his ears shut: for they are an uncontrolled people.

For I have had the years of their sin measured for you by a number of days, even three hundred and ninety days: and you will take on yourself the sin of the children of Israel.

And when these days are ended, turning on your right side, you are to take on yourself the sin of the children of Judah: forty days, a day for a year, I have had it fixed for you.

And the Lord said, Even so the children of Israel will have unclean bread for their food among the nations where I am driving them.

Then I said, Ah, Lord! see, my soul has never been unclean, and I have never taken as my food anything which has come to a natural death or has been broken by beasts, from the time when I was young even till now; no disgusting flesh has ever come into my mouth.

Then he said to me, See, I have given you cow's waste in place of man's waste, and you will make your bread ready on it.

You are to have a third part burned with fire inside the town, when the days of the attack are ended; and a third part you are to take and give blows with the sword round about it; and give a third part for the wind to take away, and let loose a sword after them.

This is what the Lord has said: This is Jerusalem: I have put her among the nations, and countries are round her on every side;

And she has gone against my orders by doing evil more than the nations, and against my rules more than the countries round her: for they have given up my orders, and as for my rules, they have not gone in the way of them.

For this cause the Lord has said: Because you have been more uncontrolled than the nations round about you, and have not been guided by my rules or kept my orders, but have kept the orders of the nations round about you;

And I will do in you what I have not done and will not do again, because of all your disgusting ways.

For this cause, by my life, says the Lord, because you have made my holy place unclean with all your hated things and all your disgusting ways, you will become disgusting to me; my eye will have no mercy and I will have no pity.

So my wrath will be complete and my passion will come to rest on them; and they will be certain that I the Lord have given the word of decision, when my wrath against them is complete.

And you will be a name of shame and a cause of bitter words, an example and a wonder to the nations round about you, when I give effect to my judging among you in wrath and in passion and in burning protests: I the Lord have said it:

And I will send on you need of food and evil beasts, and they will be a cause of loss to you; and disease and violent death will go through you; and I will send the sword on you: I the Lord have said it.

And your altars will be made waste, and your sun-images will be broken: and I will have your dead men placed before your images.

And those of you who are kept safe will have me in mind among the nations where they have been taken away as prisoners, how I sent punishment on their hearts which were untrue to me, and on their eyes which were turned to their false gods: and they will be full of hate for themselves because of the evil things which they have done in all their disgusting ways.

My eye will not have mercy on you, and I will have no pity: but I will send the punishment of your ways on you, and your disgusting works will be among you: and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

My eye will not have mercy, and I will have no pity: I will send on you the punishment of your ways, and your disgusting works will be among you; and you will see that I am the Lord who gives punishment.

The time has come, the day is near: let not him who gives a price for goods be glad, or him who gets the price have sorrow:

They will put out their silver into the streets, and their gold will be as an unclean thing; their silver and their gold will not be able to keep them safe in the day of the wrath of the Lord; they will not get their desire or have food for their need: because it has been the cause of their falling into sin.

As for their beautiful ornament, they had put it on high, and had made the images of their disgusting and hated things in it: for this cause I have made it an unclean thing to them.

And I will give it into the hands of men from strange lands who will take it by force, and to the evil-doers of the earth to have for themselves; and they will make it unholy.

And he said to me, Son of man, have you seen what the responsible men of the children of Israel do in the dark, every man in his room of pictured images? for they say, The Lord does not see us; the Lord has gone away from the land.

Then he said to me, Have you seen this, O son of man? you will see even more disgusting things than these.

Then he said to me, Have you seen this, O son of man? is it a small thing to the children of Judah that they do the disgusting things which they are doing here? for they have made the land full of violent behaviour, making me angry again and again: and see, they put the branch to my nose.

For this reason I will let loose my wrath: my eye will not have mercy, and I will have no pity.

And to these he said in my hearing, Go through the town after him using your axes: do not let your eyes have mercy, and have no pity:

And as for me, my eye will not have mercy, and I will have no pity, but I will send the punishment of their ways on their heads.

Then the man clothed in linen, who had the inkpot at his side, came back and said, I have done what you gave me orders to do.

And the spirit of the Lord came on me, and he said to me, Say, These are the words of the Lord: This is what you have said, O children of Israel; what comes into your mind is clear to me.

You have made great the number of your dead in this town, you have made its streets full of dead men.

For this reason the Lord has said: Your dead whom you have put down in its streets, they are the flesh, and this town is the cooking-pot: but I will make you come out from inside it.

You have been fearing the sword, and I will send the sword on you, says the Lord.

And you will be certain that I am the Lord: for you have not been guided by my rules or given effect to my orders, but you have been living by the orders of the nations round about you.

Son of man, your countrymen, your relations, and all the children of Israel, all of them, are those to whom the people of Jerusalem have said, Go far from the Lord; this land is given to us for a heritage:

For this reason say, This is what the Lord has said: Though I have had them moved far off among the nations, and though I have sent them wandering among the countries, still I have been a safe place for them for a little time in the countries where they have come.

Then say, This is what the Lord has said: I will get you together from the peoples, and make you come out of the countries where you have been sent in flight, and I will give you the land of Israel.

Son of man, you are living among an uncontrolled people, who have eyes to see but see not, and ears for hearing but they do not give ear; for they are an uncontrolled people.

And before their eyes, take your goods on your back and go out in the dark; go with your face covered: for I have made you a sign to the children of Israel.

Say, I am your sign: as I have done, so will it be done to them: they will go away as prisoners.

And the ruler who is among them will take his goods on his back in the dark and go out: he will make a hole in the wall through which to go out: he will have his face covered so that he may not be seen.

Son of man, what is this saying which you have about the land of Israel, The time is long and every vision comes to nothing?

For this cause say to them, This is what the Lord has said: I have made this saying come to an end, and it will no longer be used as a common saying in Israel; but say to them, The days are near, and the effect of every vision.

This is what the Lord has said: A curse on the foolish prophets who go after the spirit which is in them and have seen nothing!

O Israel, your prophets have been like jackals in the waste places.

You have not gone up into the broken places or made up the wall for the children of Israel to take your place in the fight in the day of the Lord.

They have seen visions without substance and made use of secret arts, who say, The Lord has said; and the Lord has not sent them: hoping that the word would have effect.

Have you not seen a vision without substance and have you not falsely made use of secret arts, when you say, The Lord has said; though I have said nothing?

Because, even because they have been guiding my people into error, saying, Peace; when there is no peace; and in the building of a division wall they put whitewash on it:

For this reason, the Lord has said: I will have it broken in two by a storm-wind in my passion; and there will be an overflowing shower in my wrath, and you, O ice-drops, will come raining angrily down.

So I will let the wall, which you were covering with whitewash, be broken down; I will have it levelled to the earth so that its base is uncovered: it will come down, and destruction will come on you with it; and it will be clear to you that I am the Lord.

And you have put me to shame among my people for a little barley and some bits of bread, sending death on souls for whom there is no cause of death, and keeping those souls living who have no right to life, by the false words you say to my people who give ear to what is false.

And I will have your veils violently parted in two, and will make my people free from your hands, and they will no longer be in your power for you to go after them; and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

Because with your false words you have given pain to the heart of the upright man when I had not made him sad; in order to make strong the hands of the evil-doer so that he may not be turned from his evil way and get life:

Son of man, these men have taken their false gods into their hearts and put before their faces the sin which is the cause of their fall: am I to give ear when they come to me for directions?

So as to take the children of Israel in the thoughts of their hearts, because they have become strange to me through their false gods.

But truly, there will still be a small band who will be safe, even sons and daughters: and they will come out to you, and you will see their ways and their doings: and you will be comforted about the evil which I have sent on Jerusalem, even about everything I have sent on it.

They will give you comfort when you see their ways and their doings: and you will be certain that not for nothing have I done all the things I have done in it, says the Lord.

For this cause the Lord has said: Like the vine-tree among the trees of the woods which I have given to the fire for burning, so will I give the people of Jerusalem.

And my face will be turned against them; and though they have come out of the fire they will be burned up by it; and it will be clear to you that I am the Lord when my face is turned against them.

And I will make the land a waste because they have done evil, says the Lord.

And when I went past you and saw you stretched out in your blood, I said to you, Though you are stretched out in your blood, have life;

Now, then, my hand is stretched out against you, cutting down your fixed amount, and I have given you up to the desire of your haters, the daughters of the Philistines who are shamed by your loose ways.

For you have made your arched room at the top of every street, and your high place in every open place; though you were not like a loose woman in getting together your payment.

For this cause I will get together all your lovers with whom you have taken your pleasure, and all those to whom you have given your love, with all those who were hated by you; I will even make them come together against you on every side, and I will have you uncovered before them so that they may see your shame.

And you will be judged by me as women are judged who have been untrue to their husbands and have taken life; and I will let loose against you passion and bitter feeling.

I will give you into their hands, and your arched room will be overturned and your high places broken down; they will take your clothing off you and take away your fair jewels: and when they have done, you will be uncovered and shamed.

And they will have you burned with fire, sending punishments on you before the eyes of great numbers of women; and I will put an end to your loose ways, and you will no longer give payment.

And the heat of my wrath against you will have an end, and my bitter feeling will be turned away from you, and I will be quiet and will be angry no longer.

Because you have not kept in mind the days when you were young, but have been troubling me with all these things; for this reason I will make the punishment of your ways come on your head, says the Lord, because you have done this evil thing in addition to all your disgusting acts.

Still you have not gone in their ways or done the disgusting things which they have done; but, as if that was only a little thing, you have gone deeper in evil than they in all your ways.

By my life, says the Lord, Sodom your sister never did, she or her daughters, what you and your daughters have done.

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

And Samaria has not done half your sins; but you have made the number of your disgusting acts greater than theirs, making your sisters seem more upright than you by all the disgusting things which you have done.

And you yourself will be put to shame, in that you have given the decision for your sisters; through your sins, which are more disgusting than theirs, they are more upright than you: truly, you will be shamed and made low, for you have made your sisters seem upright.

So that you will be shamed and made low because of all you have done, when I have mercy on you.

Before your shame was uncovered? Now you have become like her a word of shame to the daughters of Edom and all who are round about you, the daughters of the Philistines who put shame on you round about.

For this is what the Lord has said: I will do to you as you have done, you who, putting the oath on one side, have let the agreement be broken.

So that, at the memory of these things, you may be at a loss, never opening your mouth because of your shame; when you have my forgiveness for all you have done, says the Lord.

He had it planted in a good field by great waters so that it might put out branches and have fruit and be a strong vine.

Say, This is what the Lord has said: Will it do well? will he not have its roots pulled up and its branches cut off, so that all its young leaves may become dry and it may be pulled up by its roots?

All his best fighting-men will be put to the sword, and the rest will be sent away to every wind: and you will be certain that I the Lord have said it.

This is what the Lord has said: Further, I will take the highest top of the cedar and put it in the earth; cutting off from the highest of his young branches a soft one, I will have it planted on a high and great mountain;

It will be planted on the high mountain of Israel: it will put out branches and have fruit and be a fair cedar: under it all birds of every sort will make their living-place, resting in the shade of its branches.

And it will be clear to all the trees of the field that I the Lord have made low the high tree and made high the low tree, drying up the green tree and making the dry tree full of growth; I the Lord have said it and have done it.

Why do you make use of this saying about the land of Israel, The fathers have been tasting bitter grapes and the children's teeth are on edge?

By my life, says the Lord, you will no longer have this saying in Israel.

Not one of the sins which he has done will be kept in memory against him: in the righteousness which he has done he will have life.

Have I any pleasure in the death of the evil-doer? says the Lord: am I not pleased if he is turned from his way so that he may have life?