And also my Sabbaths I gave to them to be a sign between me and between them {so they would know} that I, Yahweh, [am] [the one] sanctifying them.

And -- rebel against me do the house of Israel in the wilderness, In My statutes they have not walked, And My judgments they have despised, Which the man who doth -- liveth by them. And My sabbaths they have greatly polluted, And I say to pour out My fury on them in the wilderness, to consume them.

But I wrought for my name's sake, that it should not be polluted before the heathen, in whose sight I brought them out.

But mine eye spared them so as not to destroy them, neither did I make a full end of them in the wilderness.

And I say to their sons in the wilderness: In the statutes of your fathers ye walk not, And their judgments ye do not observe, And with their idols ye are not defiled.

I, Yahweh, [am] your God, [so] go in my statutes and keep my regulations and do them.

Keep My Sabbaths holy, and they will be a sign between Me and you, so you may know that I am Yahweh your God.

And -- the sons rebel against Me, In My statutes they have not walked, And My judgments they have not observed -- to do them, Which the man who doth -- liveth by them. My sabbaths they have polluted, And I say to pour out My fury upon them, To complete Mine anger against them in the wilderness.

Nevertheless I withdrew mine hand, and wrought for my name's sake, that it should not be polluted in the sight of the heathen, in whose sight I brought them forth.

So I gave them statutes that weren't good and ordinances by which they could not live.

And I defile them by their own gifts, By causing to pass away every opener of a womb, So that I make them desolate, So that they know that I am Jehovah.

Therefore, son of man, speak unto the house of Israel, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Yet in this your fathers have blasphemed me, in that they have committed a trespass against me.

For when I had brought them into the land, for the which I lifted up mine hand to give it to them, then they saw every high hill, and all the thick trees, and they offered there their sacrifices, and there they presented the provocation of their offering: there also they made their sweet savour, and poured out there their drink offerings.

Then I said unto them, What meaneth the high place whereunto ye go? So the name thereof is called Bamah unto this day.

Wherefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Are ye polluted after the manner of your fathers? and commit ye whoredom after their abominations?

When you offer your gifts, making your children pass through the fire, you continue to defile yourselves with all your idols to this day. So should I be consulted by you, house of Israel? As I live”—this is the declaration of the Lord God—“I will not be consulted by you!

And that which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say, We will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone.

Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord GOD.

I will make you pass under the shepherd's staff, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant.

And will sever from you those who are rebelling and those who are transgressing against me, Out of the land of their sojournings, will I bring them forth, Yet upon the so of Israel, shall they not enter, So shall ye know that, I, am Yahweh.

And you, O house of Israel, so says the Lord Jehovah: Every man go and serve his idols, and do so from now on if you will not listen to Me. But never again defile My holy name with your gifts and with your idols.

For on My holy mountain, Israel’s high mountain”—the declaration of the Lord God—“there the entire house of Israel, all of them, will serve Me in the land. There I will accept them and will require your contributions and choicest gifts, all your holy offerings.

"When I will have brought you from among the people and have gathered you from the lands where you were scattered, I'll accept you as a pleasing aroma. I'll reveal my holiness among you, and the entire world will see it.

So shall ye know that I am Yahweh, Through my bringing you in unto the so of Israel, Unto the land as to which I lifted up my hand, to give it unto your fathers.

And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have wrought with you for my name's sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt doings, O ye house of Israel, saith the Lord GOD.

And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.

And all flesh shall see that I the LORD have kindled it: it shall not be quenched.

Then said I, Ah Lord GOD! they say of me, Doth he not speak parables?

Son of man Set thy face against Jerusalem, And drop thy word against the holy places And prophesy against the so of Israel.

And say to the land of Israel, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I am against thee, and will draw forth my sword out of his sheath, and will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked.

So all the people will know that I, Yahweh, have taken My sword from its sheath—it will not be sheathed again.

Sigh therefore, thou son of man, with the breaking of thy loins; and with bitterness sigh before their eyes.

And it shall be, when they say unto thee, Wherefore sighest thou? that thou shalt answer, For the tidings; because it cometh: and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and all knees shall be weak as water: behold, it cometh, and shall be brought to pass, saith the Lord GOD.

Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith the LORD; Say, A sword, a sword is sharpened, and also furbished:

So as to slaughter a slaughter it is sharpened. So as to have brightness it is polished, Desire hath rejoiced the sceptre of my son, It is despising every tree.

And I have given it to the polisher so that it may be taken in the hand: he has made the sword sharp, he has had it polished, to put it into the hand of him who gives death.

"Cry and wail, you Son of Man! It's headed against my people. It's also against all the princes of Israel, who have been tossed to the sword, along with my people. So it's time to grieve like you mean it,

“Therefore, son of man, prophesy and strike your hands together; and let the sword be doubled the third time [in intensity], the sword for the slain. It is the sword for the great slaughter which surrounds them [so that no one can escape, even by hiding in their inner rooms],

so that a heart melts, and the fallen {multiply} at all of their gates. I gave a sword for slaughter, [and] alas! It is made for flashing, it is grasped for slaughtering.

“Now you, son of man, mark out two roads that the sword of Babylon’s king can take. Both of them should originate from the same land. And make a signpost at the fork in the road to each city.

"Meanwhile, Babylon's king is standing at the fork of the road, where he can head in either of two directions, and that's where he is practicing divination. Shaking his arrows, he's asking questions of his teraphim while he examines livers.

And it will be to them like practicing divination falsely in their eyes; {they have sworn oaths for themselves}. But he [will] bring [their] guilt to remembrance [so as] to seize them.

Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because ye have made your iniquity to be remembered, in that your transgressions are discovered, so that in all your doings your sins do appear; because, I say, that ye are come to remembrance, ye shall be taken with the hand.

"So now, you dishonored and wicked prince of Israel, whose day has come in this time of final punishment,

thus says the Lord God, ‘Remove the turban and take off the crown; things shall not remain as they have been. Exalt that which is low and abase the high.

And thou, son of man, prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD concerning the Ammonites, and concerning their reproach; even say thou, The sword, the sword is drawn: for the slaughter it is furbished, to consume because of the glittering:

Whiles they see vanity unto thee, whiles they divine a lie unto thee, to bring thee upon the necks of them that are slain, of the wicked, whose day is come, when their iniquity shall have an end.

Then say thou, Thus saith the Lord GOD, The city sheddeth blood in the midst of it, that her time may come, and maketh idols against herself to defile herself.

Whether they be nigh or far from thee, they shall laugh thee to scorn; thou that hast gotten thee so foul a name, and art full of mischief.

See, the rulers of Israel, every one in his family, have been causing death in you.

In you there are men who say evil of others, causing death; in you they have taken the flesh with the blood for food; in your streets they have put evil designs into effect.

Men within you have sexual intercourse with their father’s wife and violate women during their menstrual impurity.

And one hath committed abomination with his neighbour's wife; and another hath lewdly defiled his daughter in law; and another in thee hath humbled his sister, his father's daughter.

They take a bribe among you in order to shed blood; and you take usury, and you make gain [from] your neighbors by extortion, and [so] you have forgotten me, {declares} the Lord Yahweh.

See, then, I have made my hands come together in wrath against your taking of goods by force and against the blood which has been flowing in you.

So shalt thou be profaned in thyself, before the eyes of nations, Thus shalt thou know that, I, am Yahweh.

For this cause the Lord has said: Because you have all become waste metal, see, I will get you together inside Jerusalem.

As they gather silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it; so will I gather you in mine anger and in my fury, and I will leave you there, and melt you.

And I will gather you, and I will blow on you with the fire of my wrath, and [so] I will melt [you] in the midst of her.

As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof; and ye shall know that I the LORD have poured out my fury 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 [false] prophets in her midst, like a roaring lion tearing the prey. They have devoured [human] life; they have taken [in their greed] treasure and precious things; they have made many widows among her.

Its priests treat my law violently, and they profane my holy objects; they do not distinguish between holy object and what is unholy, or between the clean and the unclean. They do not teach the difference, and they hide their eyes from my Sabbaths, and [so] I am profaned in the midst of 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.

Her prophets plaster with whitewash for them by seeing false visions and lying divinations, and they say, ‘This is what the Lord God says,’ when the Lord has not spoken.

The people of the land have been acting cruelly, taking men's goods by force; they have been hard on the poor and those in need, and have done wrong to the man from a strange land.

And [so] I sought for them somebody, one repairing [the] wall and standing in the breach {before me} on behalf of the land not to destroy it, but I did not find [anyone],

and [so] I poured out my indignation on them. With the fire of my wrath I destroyed them; I returned their way upon their head," {declares} the Lord Yahweh.

Then became Oholah unchaste after she had become mine- And lusted after her lovers, For Assyrians, so warlike,

So sire bestowed her unchastities upon them, The choicest men of Assyria all of them,- And with whomsoever she lusted after-with all their manufactured gods:, she defiled herself.

Wherefore, I delivered her into the hands of her lovers, even the Assyrians, whom she so loved.

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.

After the sons of Assyria:, she lusted Governors and deputies so warlike. Clothed in splendid array, Horsemen, riding on horses, Attractive young men, all of them.

Then I saw that she was defiled, that they took both one way,

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 so the {Babylonians} came to her [for the] bed of lovemaking; and they defiled her with their fornication, and she was defiled by them, and she turned 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.

So she lusted after their courtiers,- Whose flesh was the flesh of asses, and Whose issue was the issue of horses.

So you revisited the indecency of your youth, when the Egyptians caressed your nipples to enjoy your youthful breasts.

For this cause, O Oholibah, this is what the Lord has said: See, I will make your lovers come up against you, even those from whom your soul is turned away in disgust; and I will make them come up against you on every side;

I'll expend my jealousy on you so they'll deal with you in anger. They'll cut off your noses and your ears. Your survivors will die violently. They'll take your sons and daughters away from you, but your survivors will be incinerated.

Thus will I make thy lewdness to cease from thee, and thy whoredom brought from the land of Egypt: so that thou shalt not lift up thine eyes unto them, nor remember Egypt any more.

For this is what the Lord has said: See, I will give you up into the hands of those who are hated by you, into the hands of those from whom your soul is turned away in disgust:

And they shall deal with thee in hatred, and shall take away all thy labour, and shall leave thee naked and bare; so that the nakedness of thy whoredoms shall be discovered, both thy lewdness and thy fornications.

You have walked in the way of your sister (Samaria); therefore I will give her cup [of judgment] into your hand.’

Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou shalt drink of thy sister's cup deep and large: thou shalt be laughed to scorn and had in derision; it containeth much.

The same shalt thou drink, and sup it out even to the dregs. Yea, thou shalt eat up the broken pieces of it, and so tear thine own breasts: for even I have spoken it, sayeth the LORD God.

So this is what the Lord has said: Because you have not kept me in your memory, and because your back has been turned to me, you will even undergo the punishment of your evil designs and your loose ways.

And Jehovah will say to me, Son of man, wilt thou judge Aholah and Aholibah, and announce to them their abominations?

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.

The sound of a carefree crowd was there. Drunkards from the desert were brought in, along with common men. They put bracelets on the women’s hands and beautiful crowns on their heads.

And I say of the worn-out one in adulteries, Now they commit her whoredoms -- she also!

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.

For so says the Lord Jehovah: I will bring up a company on them, and will give them to be removed and stripped.

So I will put an end to indecency in the land, and all the women will be admonished not to imitate your indecent behavior.

And so they shall lay your filthiness upon your own selves, and ye shall be punished for the sins that ye have committed with your Idols: and ye shall know that I am the LORD."

Again in the ninth year [of King Jehoiachin’s captivity by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon], in the tenth month, on the tenth [day] of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

“Son of man, write down today’s date, this very day. The king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem this very day.

And utter a parable unto the rebellious house, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Set on a pot, set it on, and also pour water into it: