And she has rebelled against My ordinances more wickedly than the [pagan] nations and against My statutes more than the countries that are around her; for Israel has rejected My ordinances and has not walked in My statutes.’

And I [the Lord God] will judge you like women who commit adultery or shed blood are judged; and I will bring on you the blood of wrath and jealousy.

Now your older sister is Samaria, she with her daughters (outlying cities) who live north of you; and your younger sister is Sodom, she with her daughters who live south of you.

As I live,” says the Lord God, “Sodom, your sister and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done.

Behold, this was the sin of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters (outlying cities) had arrogance, abundant food, and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy.

and say,

‘What was your mother [Jerusalem and Judah]?
A lioness among lions!
She lay down among young lions,
She reared her cubs.

‘When she [the royal mother-city] brought up [Jehoahaz] one of her cubs,
He became a [young] lion,
And he learned to catch and tear the prey;
He devoured men.

‘When she saw, as she waited,
That her hope was lost,
She took another of her cubs
And made him a young lion.

You have become guilty by the blood which you have shed, and you are defiled by the idols which you have made. Thus you have caused your day [of judgment and punishment] to approach and have arrived at [the completion of] your years; therefore, I have made you an object of scorn to the [pagan] nations and a thing to be mocked by all countries.

“Behold, the princes of Israel, every one according to his power, have been intending to shed blood in you.

In you are men who slander for the purpose of shedding blood, and in your presence they have eaten [food offered to idols] at the mountain shrines; in your midst they have committed acts of lewdness.

In you they have accepted bribes to shed blood; you have taken [forbidden] interest and [a percentage of] profits, and you have injured your neighbors for gain by oppression and extortion, and you have forgotten Me,” says the Lord God.

“Oholah played the prostitute while she was Mine; and she adored and lusted after her lovers (allies), the Assyrians, her neighbors,

She bestowed [freely] her immoralities on them, the choicest men of Assyria, all of them; and with all whom she adored and lusted after, she defiled herself with their idols.

She did not give up the acts of prostitution that originated during her time in Egypt; for in her youth men had lain with her, and they handled her virgin bosom and poured out their depravity on her.

Therefore, I placed her in the hand of her lovers (allies), into the hand of the Assyrians whom she adored.

“Now her sister Oholibah saw this, yet she was more corrupt in her lust than she, and her acts of prostitution were more [wanton] than the immoralities of her sister.

She lusted after the Assyrians—governors and officials, her neighbors, magnificently clothed, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men.

I saw that she had defiled herself; they both behaved the same way.

But Oholibah carried her depravity further, for she saw men pictured on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans (Babylonians) sketched and portrayed in vermilion (bright red pigment),

When she saw [the sketches of] them, she lusted after them and sent messengers to them in Chaldea.

The Babylonians came to her to the bed of love and they defiled her with their evil desire; and when she had been defiled by them, she (Jerusalem) broke the relationship and pushed them away from her in disgust.

So she flaunted her acts of prostitution and exposed her nakedness; then I became disgusted with her [and turned away], as I had become disgusted with her sister [and turned away].

Yet she multiplied her depravities, remembering the days of her youth, when she was actively immoral 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.

“Then I said concerning the one (Oholah) worn out by adulteries, ‘Will they now commit adultery with her when she is like this?’

And they, righteous men, will judge and condemn them with the judgment (punishment) of adulteresses and with the judgment of women who shed blood, because they are adulteresses and blood is on their hands.

“For her blood [that she has shed] remains in her midst;
She put it on the bare rock;
She did not pour it on the ground
To cover it with dust.

“She has wearied Me with toil,
Yet her great rust has not left her;
Her thick rust and filth will not be burned away by fire [no matter how hot the flame].

“Son of man, because Tyre has said against Jerusalem, ‘Aha! The gateway of the people is broken; she is open to me. I will be filled, now that she is a desolate waste,’

Her island in the midst of the sea will become a dry place to spread nets, for I have spoken,’ says the Lord God, ‘and she will become a prey and a spoil for the nations.

They will take up a dirge (funeral poem to be sung) for you and say to you,

‘How you have perished and vanished, O renowned city,
From the seas, O renowned city,
Which was mighty on the sea,
She and her inhabitants,
Who imposed her terror
On all who lived there!

then I will bring you down with those who descend into the pit (the place of the dead), to the people of old, and I will make you [Tyre] live in the depths of the earth, like the ancient ruins, with those who go down to the pit, so that you will not be inhabited; but I will set glory and splendor in the land of the living.

They will fall among those who are slain by the sword. She (Egypt) is handed over to the sword; they have drawn her and all her hordes away [to judgment].

Therefore say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “You eat meat with the blood in it and raise your eyes to your idols and shed blood. Should you take possession of the land?

So I poured out My wrath on them for the blood which they had shed on the land and because they had defiled it with their idols.