See her seated by herself, the town which was full of people! She who was great among the nations has become like a widow! She who was a princess among the countries has come under the yoke of forced work!

She is sorrowing bitterly in the night, and her face is wet with weeping; among all her lovers she has no comforter: all her friends have been false to her, they have become her haters.

Judah has been taken away as a prisoner because of trouble and hard work; her living-place is among the nations, there is no rest for her: all her attackers have overtaken her in a narrow place.

The ways of Zion are sad, because no one comes to the holy meeting; all her doorways are made waste, her priests are breathing out sorrow: her virgins are troubled, and it is bitter for her.

Those who are against her have become the head, everything goes well for her haters; for the Lord has sent sorrow on her because of the great number of her sins: her young children have gone away as prisoners before the attacker.

And all her glory has gone from the daughter of Zion: her rulers have become like harts with no place for food, and they have gone in flight without strength before the attacker.

Jerusalem keeps in mind, in the days of her sorrow and of her wanderings, all the desired things which were hers in days gone by; when her people came into the power of her hater and she had no helper, her attackers saw their desire effected on her and made sport of her destruction.

Great is the sin of Jerusalem; for this cause she has become an unclean thing: all those who gave her honour are looking down on her, because they have seen her shame: now truly, breathing out grief, she is turned back.

In her skirts were her unclean ways; she gave no thought to her end; and her fall has been a wonder; she has no comforter: see her sorrow, O Lord; for the attacker is lifted up.

The hand of her hater is stretched out over all her desired things; for she has seen that the nations have come into her holy place, about whom you gave orders that they were not to come into the meeting of your people.

Breathing out grief all her people are looking for bread; they have given their desired things for food to give them life: see, O Lord, and take note; for she has become a thing of shame.

The Lord has given up to destruction all the living-places of Jacob without pity; pulling down in his wrath the strong places of the daughter of Judah, stretching out on the earth the wounded, even her king and her rulers.

The Lord has become like one fighting against her, sending destruction on Israel; he has sent destruction on all her great houses, making waste his strong places: increasing the grief and the sorrow of the daughter of Judah.

The Lord has given up his altar and has been turned in hate from his holy place; he has given up into the hands of the attacker the walls of her great houses: their voices have been loud in the house of the Lord as in the day of a holy meeting.

Her doors have gone down into the earth; he has sent destruction on her locks: her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not; even her prophets have had no vision from the Lord.

All your haters are opening their mouths wide against you; making hisses and whistling through their teeth, they say, We have made a meal of her: certainly this is the day we have been looking for; it has come, we have seen it.

For the punishment of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of Sodom, which was overturned suddenly without any hand falling on her.

Her holy ones were cleaner than snow, they were whiter than milk, their bodies were redder than corals, their form was as the sapphire:

It is because of the sins of her prophets and the evil-doing of her priests, by whom the blood of the upright has been drained out in her.

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:

And you, son of man, take a sharp sword, using it like a haircutter's blade, and making it go over your head and the hair of your chin: and take scales for separating the hair by weight.

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.

And they will put haircloth round them, and deep fear will be covering them; and shame will be on all faces, and the hair gone from all their heads.

And he put out the form of a hand and took me by the hair of my head; and the wind, lifting me up between the earth and the heaven, took me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the way into the inner door facing to the north; where was the seat of the image of envy.

And he said to me, Son of man, do you see what they are doing? even the very disgusting things which the children of Israel are doing here, causing me to go far away from my holy place? but you will see other most disgusting things.

And he said to me, Go in and see the evil and disgusting things which they are doing here.

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.

And six men came from the way of the higher doorway looking to the north, every man with his axe in his hand: and one man among them was clothed in linen, with a writer's inkpot at his side. And they went in and took their places by the brass altar.

Even the prophets of Israel who say words to Jerusalem, who see visions of peace for her when there is no peace, says the Lord.

Son of man, make clear to Jerusalem her disgusting ways,

And be increased in number like the buds of the field; and you were increased and became great, and you came to the time of love: your breasts were formed and your hair was long; but you were uncovered and without clothing.

The untrue wife who takes strange lovers in place of her husband!

See, in every common saying about you it will be said, As the mother is, so is her daughter.

You are the daughter of your mother whose soul is turned in disgust from her husband and her children; and you are the sister of your sisters who were turned in disgust from their husbands and their children: your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite.

Your older sister is Samaria, living at your left hand, she and her daughters: and your younger sister, living at your right hand, is Sodom and her daughters.

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

Truly, this was the sin of your sister Sodom: pride, a full measure of food, and the comforts of wealth in peace, were seen in her and her daughters, and she gave no help to the poor or to those in need.

And I will let their fate be changed, the fate of Sodom and her daughters, and the fate of Samaria and her daughters, and your fate with theirs.

And your sisters, Sodom and her daughters, will go back to their first condition, and Samaria and her daughters will go back to their first condition, and you and your daughters will go back to your first condition.

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.

What was your mother? Like a she-lion among lions, stretched out among the young lions she gave food to her little ones.

And one of her little ones came to growth under her care, and became a young lion, learning to go after beasts for his food; and he took men for his meat.

Now when she saw that her hope was made foolish and gone, she took another of her little ones and made him into a young lion.

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.

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;

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.

And you, son of man, will you be a judge, will you be a judge of the town of blood? then make clear to her all her disgusting ways.

And you are to say, This is what the Lord has said: A town causing blood to be drained out in her streets so that her time may come, and making images in her to make her unclean!

Son of man, say to her, You are a land on which no rain or thunderstorm has come in the day of wrath.

Her rulers in her are like a loud-voiced lion violently taking his food; they have made a meal of souls; they have taken wealth and valued property; they have made great the number of widows in her.

Her priests have been acting violently against my law; they have made my holy things unclean: they have made no division between what is holy and what is common, and they have not made it clear that the unclean is different from the clean, and their eyes have been shut to my Sabbaths, and I am not honoured among them.

Her rulers in her are like wolves violently taking their food; putting men to death and causing the destruction of souls, so that they may get their profit.

And her prophets have been using whitewash, seeing foolish visions and making false use of secret arts, saying, This is what the Lord has said, when the Lord has said nothing.

Their names were Oholah, the older, and Oholibah, her sister: and they became mine, and gave birth to sons and daughters. As for their names, Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem, Oholibah

And Oholah was untrue to me when she was mine; she was full of desire for her lovers, even for the Assyrians, her neighbours,

And she gave her unclean love to them, all of them the noblest men of Assyria: and she made herself unclean with the images of all who were desired by her.

And she has not given up her loose ways from the time when she was in Egypt; for when she was young they were her lovers, and by them her young breasts were crushed, and they let loose on her their unclean desire.

For this cause I gave her up into the hands of her lovers, into the hands of the Assyrians on whom her desire was fixed.

By these her shame was uncovered: they took her sons and daughters and put her to death with the sword: and she became a cause of wonder to women; for they gave her the punishment which was right.

And her sister Oholibah saw this, but her desire was even more unmeasured, and her loose behaviour was worse than that of her sister.

She was full of desire for the Assyrians, captains and rulers, her neighbours, clothed in blue, horsemen going on horses, all of them young men to be desired.

And her loose behaviour became worse; for she saw men pictured on a wall, pictures of the Chaldaeans painted in bright red

And the Babylonians came to her, into the bed of love, and made her unclean with their loose desire, and she became unclean with them, and her soul was turned from them.

So her loose behaviour was clearly seen and her shame uncovered: then my soul was turned from her as it had been turned from her sister.

But still she went on the more with her loose behaviour, keeping in mind the early days when she had been a loose woman in the land of Egypt

And she was full of desire for her lovers, whose flesh is like the flesh of asses and whose seed is like the seed 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

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.

You have gone in the way of your sister; and I will give her cup into your 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 they put jewels on her hands and beautiful crowns on her head.

Then I said ... now she will go on with her loose ways.

And they went in to her, as men go to a loose woman: so they went in to Oholibah, the loose woman.

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.

For her blood is in her; she has put it on the open rock not draining it on to the earth so that it might be covered with dust;

In order that it might make wrath come up to give punishment, she has put her blood on the open rock, so that it may not be covered.

And I will put her on the coals so that she may be heated and her brass burned, so that what is unclean in her may become soft and her waste be completely taken away.

I have made myself tired to no purpose: still all the waste which is in her has not come out, it has an evil smell.

Say to the people of Israel, The Lord has said, See, I will make my holy place unclean, the pride of your strength, the pleasure of your eyes, and the desire of your soul; and your sons and daughters, who did not come with you here, will be put to the sword.

To the children of the east I have given her for a heritage, as well as the children of Ammon, so that there may be no memory of her among the nations:

And they will give the walls of Tyre to destruction and have its towers broken: and I will take even her dust away from her, and make her an uncovered rock

She will be a place for the stretching out of nets in the middle of the sea; for I have said it, says the Lord: and her goods will be given over to the nations.

And her daughters in the open country will be put to the sword: and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

And they will send up a song of grief for you, and say to you, What destruction has come on you, how are you cut off from the sea, the noted town, which was strong in the sea, she and her people, causing the fear of them to come on all the dry land!

And they will have the hair of their heads cut off because of you, and will put haircloth on their bodies, weeping for you with bitter grief in their souls, even with bitter sorrow.

These are the words of the Lord: See, I am against you, O Zidon; and I will get glory for myself in you: and they will be certain that I am the Lord, when I send my punishments on her, and I will be seen to be holy in her.

And I will send on her disease and blood in her streets; and the wounded will be falling in the middle of her, and the sword will be against her on every side; and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

I will make the land of Egypt a waste among the countries which are made waste, and her towns will be unpeopled among the towns which have been made waste, for forty years: and I will send the Egyptians in flight among the nations and wandering through the countries.

Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, made his army do hard work against Tyre, and the hair came off every head and every arm was rubbed smooth: but he and his army got no payment out of Tyre for the hard work which he had done against it.

For this cause the Lord has said: See, I am giving the land of Egypt to Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon: he will take away her wealth, and take her goods by force and everything which is there; and this will be the payment for his army.

And a sword will come on Egypt, and cruel pain will be in Ethiopia, when they are falling by the sword in Egypt; and they will take away her wealth and her bases will be broken down.

This is what the Lord has said: The supporters of Egypt will have a fall, and the pride of her power will come down: from Migdol to Syene they will be put to the sword in it, says the Lord.