"'This is because they have led my people astray saying, "All is well," when things are not well. When anyone builds a wall without mortar, they coat it with whitewash.

Then for your part take an iron frying pan and set it up as an iron wall between you and the city. Set your face toward it. It is to be under siege; you are to besiege it. This is a sign for the house of Israel.

I will set my face against them -- although they have escaped from the fire, the fire will still consume them! Then you will know that I am the Lord, when I set my face against them.

Into his right hand comes the portent for Jerusalem -- to set up battering rams, to give the signal for slaughter, to shout out the battle cry, to set up battering rams against the gates, to erect a siege ramp, to build a siege wall.

Recite a proverb to this rebellious house and say to them, 'This is what the sovereign Lord says: "'Set on the pot, set it on, pour water in it too;

I made the nations shake at the sound of its fall, when I threw it down to Sheol, along with those who descend to the pit. Then all the trees of Eden, the choicest and the best of Lebanon, all that were well-watered, were comforted in the earth below.

Indeed! All lives are mine -- the life of the father as well as the life of the son is mine. The one who sins will die.

"'Your mother was like a vine in your vineyard, planted by water. It was fruitful and full of branches because it was well-watered.

Pile up the bones, kindle the fire; cook the meat well, mix in the spices, let the bones be charred.

"And you, son of man, this is what will happen on the day I take from them their stronghold -- their beautiful source of joy, the object in which their eyes delight, and the main concern of their lives, as well as their sons and daughters:

For this reason no watered trees will grow so tall; their tops will not reach into the clouds, nor will the well-watered ones grow that high. For all of them have been appointed to die in the lower parts of the earth; they will be among mere mortals, with those who descend to the pit.