Passage: Ezekiel 22, 23, 24 (RSV)


Ezekiel 22


1Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
2"And you, son of man, will you judge, will you judge the bloody city? Then declare to her all her abominable deeds.
3You shall say, Thus says the Lord GOD: A city that sheds blood in the midst of her, that her time may come, and that makes idols to defile herself!
4You have become guilty by the blood which you have shed, and defiled by the idols which you have made; and you have brought your day near, the appointed time of your years has come. Therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations, and a mocking to all the countries.
5Those who are near and those who are far from you will mock you, you infamous one, full of tumult.
6"Behold, the princes of Israel in you, every one according to his power, have been bent on shedding blood.
7Father and mother are treated with contempt in you; the sojourner suffers extortion in your midst; the fatherless and the widow are wronged in you.
8You have despised my holy things, and profaned my sabbaths.
9There are men in you who slander to shed blood, and men in you who eat upon the mountains; men commit lewdness in your midst.
10In you men uncover their fathers' nakedness; in you they humble women who are unclean in their impurity.
11One commits abomination with his neighbor's wife; another lewdly defiles his daughter-in-law; another in you defiles his sister, his father's daughter.
12In you men take bribes to shed blood; you take interest and increase and make gain of your neighbors by extortion; and you have forgotten me, says the Lord GOD.
13"Behold, therefore, I strike my hands together at the dishonest gain which you have made, and at the blood which has been in the midst of you.
14Can your courage endure, or can your hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with you? I the LORD have spoken, and I will do it.
15I will scatter you among the nations and disperse you through the countries, and I will consume your filthiness out of you.
16And I shall be profaned through you in the sight of the nations; and you shall know that I am the LORD."
17And the word of the LORD came to me:
18"Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to me; all of them, silver and bronze and tin and iron and lead in the furnace, have become dross.
19Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Because you have all become dross, therefore, behold, I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem.
20As men gather silver and bronze and iron and lead and tin into a furnace, to blow the fire upon it in order to melt it; so I will gather you in my anger and in my wrath, and I will put you in and melt you.
21I will gather you and blow upon you with the fire of my wrath, and you shall be melted in the midst of it.
22As silver is melted in a furnace, so you shall be melted in the midst of it; and you shall know that I the LORD have poured out my wrath upon you."
23And the word of the LORD came to me:
24"Son of man, say to her, You are a land that is not cleansed, or rained upon in the day of indignation.
25Her princes in the midst of her are like a roaring lion tearing the prey; they have devoured human lives; they have taken treasure and precious things; they have made many widows in the midst of her.
26Her priests have done violence to my law and have profaned my holy things; they have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they taught the difference between the unclean and the clean, and they have disregarded my sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them.
27Her princes in the midst of her are like wolves tearing the prey, shedding blood, destroying lives to get dishonest gain.
28And her prophets have daubed for them with whitewash, seeing false visions and divining lies for them, saying, `Thus says the Lord GOD,' when the LORD has not spoken.
29The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery; they have oppressed the poor and needy, and have extorted from the sojourner without redress.
30And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found none.
31Therefore I have poured out my indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath; their way have I requited upon their heads, says the Lord GOD."

Ezekiel 23


1The word of the LORD came to me:
2"Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother;
3they played the harlot in Egypt; they played the harlot in their youth; there their breasts were pressed and their virgin bosoms handled.
4Oho'lah was the name of the elder and Ohol'ibah the name of her sister. They became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Oho'lah is Sama'ria, and Ohol'ibah is Jerusalem.
5"Oho'lah played the harlot while she was mine; and she doted on her lovers the Assyrians,
6warriors clothed in purple, governors and commanders, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses.
7She bestowed her harlotries upon them, the choicest men of Assyria all of them; and she defiled herself with all the idols of every one on whom she doted.
8She did not give up her harlotry which she had practiced since her days in Egypt; for in her youth men had lain with her and handled her virgin bosom and poured out their lust upon her.
9Therefore I delivered her into the hands of her lovers, into the hands of the Assyrians, upon whom she doted.
10These uncovered her nakedness; they seized her sons and her daughters; and her they slew with the sword; and she became a byword among women, when judgment had been executed upon her.
11"Her sister Ohol'ibah saw this, yet she was more corrupt than she in her doting and in her harlotry, which was worse than that of her sister.
12She doted upon the Assyrians, governors and commanders, warriors clothed in full armor, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men.
13And I saw that she was defiled; they both took the same way.
14But she carried her harlotry further; she saw men portrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chalde'ans portrayed in vermilion,
15girded with belts on their loins, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them looking like officers, a picture of Babylonians whose native land was Chalde'a.
16When she saw them she doted upon them, and sent messengers to them in Chalde'a.
17And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their lust; and after she was polluted by them, she turned from them in disgust.
18When she carried on her harlotry so openly and flaunted her nakedness, I turned in disgust from her, as I had turned from her sister.
19Yet she increased her harlotry, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the harlot in the land of Egypt
20and doted upon her paramours there, whose members were like those of asses, and whose issue was like that of horses.
21Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians handled your bosom and pressed your young breasts."
22Therefore, O Ohol'ibah, thus says the Lord GOD: "Behold, I will rouse against you your lovers from whom you turned in disgust, and I will bring them against you from every side:
23the Babylonians and all the Chalde'ans, Pekod and Sho'a and Ko'a, and all the Assyrians with them, desirable young men, governors and commanders all of them, officers and warriors, all of them riding on horses.
24And they shall come against you from the north with chariots and wagons and a host of peoples; they shall set themselves against you on every side with buckler, shield, and helmet, and I will commit the judgment to them, and they shall judge you according to their judgments.
25And I will direct my indignation against you, that they may deal with you in fury. They shall cut off your nose and your ears, and your survivors shall fall by the sword. They shall seize your sons and your daughters, and your survivors shall be devoured by fire.
26They shall also strip you of your clothes and take away your fine jewels.
27Thus I will put an end to your lewdness and your harlotry brought from the land of Egypt; so that you shall not lift up your eyes to the Egyptians or remember them any more.
28For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will deliver you into the hands of those whom you hate, into the hands of those from whom you turned in disgust;
29and they shall deal with you in hatred, and take away all the fruit of your labor, and leave you naked and bare, and the nakedness of your harlotry shall be uncovered. Your lewdness and your harlotry
30have brought this upon you, because you played the harlot with the nations, and polluted yourself with their idols.
31You have gone the way of your sister; therefore I will give her cup into your hand.
32Thus says the Lord GOD: "You shall drink your sister's cup which is deep and large; you shall be laughed at and held in derision, for it contains much;
33you will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow. A cup of horror and desolation, is the cup of your sister Sama'ria;
34you shall drink it and drain it out, and pluck out your hair, and tear your breasts; for I have spoken, says the Lord GOD.
35Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Because you have forgotten me and cast me behind your back, therefore bear the consequences of your lewdness and harlotry."
36The LORD said to me: "Son of man, will you judge Oho'lah and Ohol'ibah? Then declare to them their abominable deeds.
37For they have committed adultery, and blood is upon their hands; with their idols they have committed adultery; and they have even offered up to them for food the sons whom they had borne to me.
38Moreover this they have done to me: they have defiled my sanctuary on the same day and profaned my sabbaths.
39For when they had slaughtered their children in sacrifice to their idols, on the same day they came into my sanctuary to profane it. And lo, this is what they did in my house.
40They even sent for men to come from far, to whom a messenger was sent, and lo, they came. For them you bathed yourself, painted your eyes, and decked yourself with ornaments;
41you sat upon a stately couch, with a table spread before it on which you had placed my incense and my oil.
42The sound of a carefree multitude was with her; and with men of the common sort drunkards were brought from the wilderness; and they put bracelets upon the hands of the women, and beautiful crowns upon their heads.
43"Then I said, Do not men now commit adultery when they practice harlotry with her?
44For they have gone in to her, as men go in to a harlot. Thus they went in to Oho'lah and to Ohol'ibah to commit lewdness.
45But righteous men shall pass judgment on them with the sentence of adulteresses, and with the sentence of women that shed blood; because they are adulteresses, and blood is upon their hands."
46For thus says the Lord GOD: "Bring up a host against them, and make them an object of terror and a spoil.
47And the host shall stone them and dispatch them with their swords; they shall slay their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses.
48Thus will I put an end to lewdness in the land, that all women may take warning and not commit lewdness as you have done.
49And your lewdness shall be requited upon you, and you shall bear the penalty for your sinful idolatry; and you shall know that I am the Lord GOD."

Ezekiel 24


1In the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, the word of the LORD came to me:
2"Son of man, write down the name of this day, this very day. The king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem this very day.
3And utter an allegory to the rebellious house and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Set on the pot, set it on, pour in water also;
4put in it the pieces of flesh, all the good pieces, the thigh and the shoulder; fill it with choice bones.
5Take the choicest one of the flock, pile the logs under it; boil its pieces, seethe also its bones in it.
6"Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose rust is in it, and whose rust has not gone out of it! Take out of it piece after piece, without making any choice.
7For the blood she has shed is still in the midst of her; she put it on the bare rock, she did not pour it upon the ground to cover it with dust.
8To rouse my wrath, to take vengeance, I have set on the bare rock the blood she has shed, that it may not be covered.
9Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Woe to the bloody city! I also will make the pile great.
10Heap on the logs, kindle the fire, boil well the flesh, and empty out the broth, and let the bones be burned up.
11Then set it empty upon the coals, that it may become hot, and its copper may burn, that its filthiness may be melted in it, its rust consumed.
12In vain I have wearied myself; its thick rust does not go out of it by fire.
13Its rust is your filthy lewdness. Because I would have cleansed you and you were not cleansed from your filthiness, you shall not be cleansed any more till I have satisfied my fury upon you.
14I the LORD have spoken; it shall come to pass, I will do it; I will not go back, I will not spare, I will not repent; according to your ways and your doings I will judge you, says the Lord GOD."
15Also the word of the LORD came to me:
16"Son of man, behold, I am about to take the delight of your eyes away from you at a stroke; yet you shall not mourn or weep nor shall your tears run down.
17Sigh, but not aloud; make no mourning for the dead. Bind on your turban, and put your shoes on your feet; do not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of mourners."
18So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife died. And on the next morning I did as I was commanded.
19And the people said to me, "Will you not tell us what these things mean for us, that you are acting thus?"
20Then I said to them, "The word of the LORD came to me:
21`Say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will profane my sanctuary, the pride of your power, the delight of your eyes, and the desire of your soul; and your sons and your daughters whom you left behind shall fall by the sword.
22And you shall do as I have done; you shall not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of mourners.
23Your turbans shall be on your heads and your shoes on your feet; you shall not mourn or weep, but you shall pine away in your iniquities and groan to one another.
24Thus shall Ezekiel be to you a sign; according to all that he has done you shall do. When this comes, then you will know that I am the Lord GOD.'
25"And you, son of man, on the day when I take from them their stronghold, their joy and glory, the delight of their eyes and their heart's desire, and also their sons and daughters,
26on that day a fugitive will come to you to report to you the news.
27On that day your mouth will be opened to the fugitive, and you shall speak and be no longer dumb. So you will be a sign to them; and they will know that I am the LORD."



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