Ezekiel 22-23
The sins of Jerusalem
1The word of the Lord came to me, saying, 2You, son of man, will you not judge, will you not judge the bloodshed city, and will you show him all his abominations? 3 You shall therefore say, Thus saith the Lord GOD: A city that sheds blood in its midst, that its hour may come, and that has made idols against itself to defile itself! 4In your blood that you shed you have sinned, and you have polluted yourself in your idols that you made; and you have brought near your day, and you have come to the end of your years; therefore I have given you a reproach to the nations, and a derision to all the lands. 5Those who are near you and those who are far away will laugh at you, defiled in name, and in great embarrassment. 6Behold, the princes of Israel, each according to his power, strive to shed blood. 7 They despised father and mother in you; abroad they treated with violence in the midst of you; the orphan and the widow they stripped in you 8My sanctuaries you despised, and my sabbaths you have profaned. 9 There were slanderers in you to shed blood; and on the mountains they ate in you; They did wicked things in your midst. 10The nakedness of the father they discovered in you, and in you they did violence to which she was unclean by her menses. 11Each one did abomination with his neighbor's wife, each pervertedly defiled his daughter-in-law, and each violated in you his sister, the daughter of his father. 12Price received in you to shed blood; interest and usury you took, and your neighbors you defrauded with violence; you have forgotten me, says the Lord God. 13And behold, I clapped my hands because of your greed that you have committed, and because of the blood that you have shed in your midst. 14Is your heart steadfast? Will your hands be strong in the days when I proceed against you? I the Lord have spoken, and I will. 15I will scatter you among the nations, and I will scatter you through the lands; and I will destroy your filth. 16And for yourself you will be degraded in the sight of the nations; and you will know that I am Jehovah. 17The word of the Lord came to me, saying, 18Son of man, the house of Israel has become filth to me; they are all bronze and tin and iron and lead in the midst of the furnace; and they became silver dross. 19Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Because all of you have become scum, therefore, behold, I will gather you in the midst of Jerusalem. 20As one who gathers silver and bronze and iron and lead and tin in the middle of the furnace, to kindle fire in it to melt them, so I will gather you in my fury and in my wrath, and I will put you there, and I will melt you. 21I will gather you together and blow on you in the fire of my fury, and in the midst of it you will be melted. 22As silver is melted in the middle of the furnace, so you will be melted in the middle of it; and you will know that I, the LORD, have poured out my anger on you. 23The word of the LORD came to me, saying, 24Son of man, say to her, Thou art not a clean land, nor sprinkled with rain in the day of wrath. 25There is a conspiracy of her prophets in her midst, like a roaring lion that snatches prey; they devoured souls, they took possessions and honor, they multiplied her widows in her midst. 26Your priests violated my law, and polluted my sanctuaries; between the holy and the profane they made no difference, nor did they distinguish between unclean and clean; and they have turned away their eyes from my sabbaths, and I have been profaned in the midst of them. 27Her princes in her midst are like wolves that snatch prey, shedding blood, to destroy souls, for unjust gain. 28Y the prophets of her they covered with loose mud, prophesying vanity to them and guessing falsehood to them, saying: Thus says the Lord God; and Jehovah had not spoken. 29The people of the land used oppression and committed robbery, they did violence to the afflicted and needy, and they oppressed the foreigner without right. 30And I looked for a man among them who would make a wall and stand in the gap before me, on behalf of the land, so that I would not destroy it; and I didn't find it. 31Therefore I have poured out my wrath on them; with the heat of my anger I consumed them; I have turned their way upon their own heads, saith the Lord GOD.