He said to me: “Son of man, eat what you find here. Eat this scroll, then go and speak to the house of Israel.”

And thou, take to thee an iron pan and give it a wall of iron between thee and between the city: and prepare thy face against it, and she was in siege, and press upon her. This a sign to the house of Israel.

And to the siege of Jerusalem thou shalt prepare thy face, and thine arm being uncovered and prophesy against her

Look here, I will tie you up with ropes, so you cannot turn from one side to the other until you complete the days of your siege.

And he said to me, Son of man, see, I will take away from Jerusalem her necessary bread: they will take their bread by weight and with care, measuring out their drinking-water with fear and wonder:

"This is what the sovereign Lord says: This is Jerusalem; I placed her in the center of the nations with countries all around her.

Then she defied my regulations and my statutes, becoming more wicked than the nations and the countries around her. Indeed, they have rejected my regulations, and they do not follow my statutes.

The end is here: The end, I say, that waiteth for thee is come already.

Behold: the day is here, the day is come, the hour is run out, the rod flourisheth, willfulness waxeth green,

The time hath come. The day hath arrived, The buyer, let him not rejoice, and The seller, let him not mourn, - For indignation, is against all her multitude.

For the seller, unto that which is to be sold, shall not return, though yet among the living, were their life, for the vision is against all her multitude. He shall not return, And line man by his punishment, shall strengthen his life.

They have blown the trumpet, even to make All ready, Yet is there none going to the battle; For mine indignation is against all her multitude.

He said to me, "Son of man, do you see what they are doing -- the great abominations that the people of Israel are practicing here, to drive me far from my sanctuary? But you will see greater abominations than these!"

He said to me, "Go in and see the evil abominations they are practicing here."

He said to me, "Do you see, son of man? Is it a trivial thing that the house of Judah commits these abominations they are practicing here? For they have filled the land with violence and provoked me to anger still further. Look, they are putting the branch to their nose!

He cried also with a loud voice in mine ears, saying, "Come here, ye rulers of the city; every man with his weaponed hand to the slaughter."

Then said Yahweh unto him. Pass along through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, - and set thou a mark upon the foreheads of the men who are sighing and crying over all the abominations that are being done in her midst.

Ye have multiplied your slain in this city,- And have fled her streets with slain.

Therefore Thus, saith My Lord Yahweh, Your Main. whom ye have laid in her midst, They are the flesh, and She is the caldron, - when ye are taken out of her midst.

So will I take you forth out of her midst, and will deliver you into the hand of foreigners, - and will execute upon you judgments.

This city shall not be your pot, nor shall you be the flesh in her midst. But I will judge you in the border of Israel,

So shall they come in thither, - and take away all her detestable things, and all her abominations, out of her;

and say unto the people of the land, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah concerning the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the land of Israel: They shall eat their bread with fearfulness, and drink their water in dismay, that her land may be desolate, and despoiled of all that is therein, because of the violence of all them that dwell therein.

And I will break down the wall that you have daubed with lime, and touch it to the ground; yea, I will bare its base. And it shall fall, and you shall be destroyed in her midst; and you shall know that I am Jehovah.

along with the [false] prophets of Israel who prophesy [deceitfully] to Jerusalem, and who see [false] visions of peace for her when there is no peace,’ says the Lord God.

and [if] Noah, Daniel, and Job [were] in the midst of her, {as surely as I live}," {declares} the Lord Yahweh, "surely not son, surely not daughter will they save by their righteousness; they would save {themselves}."

Yet lo! there hath been left therein remnant of fugitives to be brought forth - sons and daughters - There they are! coming forth unto you, And so ye shall see their way, and their doings, and be consoled over the calamity which I have brought in upon Jerusalem even all that I have brought in upon her.

Yea they shall console you, when ye see their way and their doings, - So shall ye know that not without cause, have I done, anything that I have done with her, Declareth My Lord Yahweh.

"Son of man, confront Jerusalem with her abominable practices

So see here, I have stretched out my hand against you and cut off your rations. I have delivered you into the power of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed by your obscene conduct.

Building thy stews at the head of every street, and thy brothel houses in all places? Thou hast not been as another whore, that maketh boast of her winning;

"'Adulterous wife, who prefers strangers instead of her own husband!

“Behold, everyone who uses proverbs will use this proverb against you: ‘Like mother, like daughter.’

You are the daughter of your mother, who detested her husband and her sons, and you are the sister of your sisters who detested their husbands and their sons. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite.

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

As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, your sister Sodom and her daughters never behaved as wickedly as you and your daughters have behaved.

"'See here -- this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters had majesty, abundance of food, and enjoyed carefree ease, but they did not help the poor and needy.

"'I will restore their fortunes, the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters, and the fortunes of Samaria and her daughters (along with your fortunes among them),

As for your sisters, Sodom and her daughters will be restored to their former status, Samaria and her daughters will be restored to their former status, and you and your daughters will be restored to your former status.

before your evil was exposed? Now you have become an object of scorn to the daughters of Aram and all those around her and to the daughters of the Philistines -- those all around you who despise you.

And there was another great eagle with great wings and many feathers; and behold, from the beds of her plantation, this vine did bend her roots unto him, and shot forth her branches toward him, that he might water it.

Say thou, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Shall it prosper? shall he not pull up the roots thereof, and cut off the fruit thereof, that it wither? it shall wither in all the leaves of her spring, even without great power or many people to pluck it up by the roots thereof.

"Say to the rebellious house of Israel: 'Don't you know what these things mean?' Say: 'See here, the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and took her king and her officials prisoner and brought them to himself in Babylon.

does not eat pagan sacrifices on the mountains or pray to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor's wife, does not have sexual relations with a woman during her period,

But you will say, 'The way of the Lord is not equal.' Here I pray you, ye house of Israel. Is not my way equal?

and say: "'What a lioness was your mother among the lions! She lay among young lions; she reared her cubs.

She reared one of her cubs; he became a young lion. He learned to tear prey; he devoured people.

"'When she realized that she waited in vain, her hope was lost. She took another of her cubs and made him a young lion.

"As for thy mother, she is like a vine in thy blood, planted by the waterside: her fruits and branches are grown out of many waters,

her stalks were so strong that men might have made staves thereof for officers, she grew so high in her stalks. So when men saw that she exceeded the height and multitude of her branches,

But she was uprooted in burning wrath, and made low on the earth; the east wind came, drying her up, and her branches were broken off; her strong rod became dry, the fire made a meal of it.

And fire has gone out from her rod, causing the destruction of her branches, so that there is no strong rod in her to be the ruler's rod of authority. This is a song of grief, and it was for a song of grief.

and say to the scrub land of the Negev, 'Hear the word of the Lord: This is what the sovereign Lord says: Look here, I am about to start a fire in you, and it will devour every green tree and every dry tree in you. The flaming fire will not be extinguished, and the whole surface of the ground from the Negev to the north will be scorched by it.

Son of man, let your face be turned to Jerusalem, let your words be dropped in the direction of her holy place, and be a prophet against the land of Israel;

And it shall be, when they say unto thee, Wherefore dost thou sigh? that thou shalt say, Because of the tidings, for it cometh; and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall languish, and all knees shall melt into water: behold, it cometh; it is here, saith the Lord Jehovah.

Put a pillar at the top of the road for the sword to come to Rabbah in the land of the children of Ammon, and to Judah and to Jerusalem in the middle of her.

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

"As for you, son of man, are you willing to pronounce judgment, are you willing to pronounce judgment on the bloody city? Then confront her with all her abominable deeds!

Then say, 'This is what the sovereign Lord says: O city, who spills blood within herself (which brings on her doom), and who makes herself idols (which results in impurity),

In thee have they uncovered their fathers nakedness; in thee have they humbled her that was unclean in her impurity.

And I gathered you and blew upon you in the fire of my wrath, and ye were melted in her midst

As silver being melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in her midst; And ye knew that I Jehovah poured out my wrath upon you.

Son of man, say unto her, Thou art the land that is not cleansed, nor rained upon in the day of indignation.

There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls; they have taken the treasure and precious things; they have made her many widows in the midst thereof.

Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shewed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.

Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain.

And her prophets have daubed them with untempered morter, seeing vanity, and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord GOD, when the LORD hath not spoken.

Then sought I from among them, a man Who could bud up a wall And stand in the breach before me in behalf of the land So that I might not destroy her, - But I found none.

"Son of Man, here are two sisters who are daughters from the same mother.

And the names of them were Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her sister: and they were mine, and they bare sons and daughters. Thus were their names; Samaria is Aholah, and Jerusalem Aholibah.

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

which had to do with her: even the princes and lords, that were decked in costly array: fair young men, lusty riders of horses.

Thus she committed her whoredoms with them, with all them that were the chosen men of Assyria, and with all on whom she doted: with all their idols she defiled herself.

Neither left she her whoredoms brought from Egypt: for in her youth they lay with her, and they bruised the breasts of her virginity, and poured their whoredom upon her.

Wherefore I have delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, upon whom she doted.

These discovered her nakedness: they took her sons and her daughters, and slew her with the sword: and she became famous among women; for they had executed judgment upon her.

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 doted upon the Assyrians her neighbours, captains and rulers clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them desirable young men.

And that she increased her whoredoms: for when she saw men pourtrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans pourtrayed with vermilion,

And as soon as she saw them with her eyes, she doted upon them, and sent messengers unto them into Chaldea.

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 multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot 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 she made the memory of the loose ways of her early years come back to mind, when her young breasts were crushed by the Egyptians

"Therefore, Oholibah, this is what the sovereign Lord says: Look here, I am about to stir up against you the lovers with whom you were disgusted; I will bring them against you from every side:

The Babylonians and all the Chaldaeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them: young men to be desired, captains and rulers all of them, and chiefs, her neighbours, all of them on horseback.

"For this is what the sovereign Lord says: Look here, I am about to deliver you over to those whom you hate, to those with whom you were disgusted.

Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister; therefore will I give her cup into thine hand.

Then the Lord said to me: Son of man, will you be the judge of Oholibah? then make clear to her the disgusting things she has done

For she has been false to me, and blood is on her hands, and with her images she has been untrue; and more than this, she made her sons, whom she had by me, go through the fire to them to be burned up.

For when she had made an offering of her children to her images, she came into my holy place to make it unclean; see, this is what she has done inside my house.

And she even sent for men to come from far away, to whom a servant was sent, and they came: for whom she was washing her body and painting her eyes and making herself fair with ornaments.

And she took her seat on a great bed, with a table put ready before it on which she put my perfume and my 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?

Yet they went in unto her, as they go in unto a woman that playeth the harlot: so went they in unto Aholah and unto Aholibah, the lewd women.

And upright men will be her judges, judging her as false wives and women who take lives are judged; because she has been untrue to me and blood is on her hands.

For this is what the Lord has said: I will make a great meeting of the people come together against her, and will send on her shaking fear and take everything from her.

And the meeting, after stoning her with stones, will put an end to her with their swords; they will put her sons and daughters to death and have her house burned up with fire.