The hand of the Lord was on me there, and He said to me, “Arise, go out to the plain, and I will speak to you.”

And I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you cannot talk and you cannot be a man who rebukes the people, for they are a rebellious house.

I made you (Israel) multiply like plants [which grow] in the field, and you grew up and became tall and you reached the age for [wearing] fine jewelry; your breasts were formed and your hair had grown, yet you were naked and bare.

‘The waters nourished it, the deep [underground waters] made it grow tall.
Its rivers ran all around the place where it was planted,
Sending out its streams to all the trees (other nations) of the field.

“But as for you, son of man, your people who talk about you by the walls and in the doorways of the houses say one to another, every one to his brother, ‘Come now and hear what the message is that comes from the Lord.’

therefore prophesy and say, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “For good reason they have made you a desolation, and they crushed you from every side so that you would become a possession of the rest of the nations and you have become the talk and the whispering of the people.”’”