Ezekiel, 22

1. The word of Yahweh was addressed to me as follows,

2. 'Son of man, are you ready to judge? Are you ready to judge the blood-stained city? Confront her with all her loathsome practices!

3. Say, "The Lord Yahweh says this: City shedding blood inside yourself to hasten your doom, making foul idols on your soil to defile yourself,

4. you have incurred guilt by the blood you have shed, you have defiled yourself with the foul idols you have made, you have shortened your days, you have come to the end of your years. This is why I have made you an object of scorn to the nations and a laughing-stock to every country.

5. From far and near they will taunt you with your infamous disorders.

6. "Look! In you the princes of Israel, one and all, have furthered their own interests at the cost of bloodshed;

7. in you people have despised their fathers and mothers; in you they have ill-treated the settler; in you they have oppressed the widow and orphan.

8. You have treated my sanctuary with contempt, you have profaned my Sabbaths.

9. In you informers incite to bloodshed; in you people eat on the mountains and act licentiously;

10. in you they have sexual intercourse with their fathers; in you they force themselves on women in their periods;

11. in you one man engages in loathsome practices with his neighbour's wife, another lewdly defiles his daughter-in-law, another violates his sister, his own father's daughter.

12. In you people take bribes for shedding blood; you lend for profit and charge interest, you profit from your fellow by extortion and have forgotten about me -- declares the Lord Yahweh.

13. "Now I shall clap my hands at your acts of banditry and the blood that flows in you.

14. Will your heart be able to resist, will your hands be steady, the day when I call you to account? I, Yahweh, have spoken and shall act.

15. I shall scatter you among the nations and disperse you in foreign countries, and so put an end to the filthiness now inside you;

16. through your own fault, you will be profaned in the eyes of the nations, and you will know that I am Yahweh!" '

17. The word of Yahweh was addressed to me as follows,

18. 'Son of man, for me, the House of Israel has become dross: copper, tin, iron, lead, all mixed up together in the melting-pot; they are dross.

19. And so, Lord Yahweh says this, "Since you have all become dross, right! I shall collect you inside Jerusalem.

20. As silver, copper, iron, lead and tin are collected in the melting-pot, and the fire is blown underneath to melt them down, so I shall collect you in my furious anger and have you melted down;

21. I shall collect you and blow up the fire of my rage for you and have you melted down inside the city.

22. As silver is melted in the melting-pot, so you will be melted down inside the city, and you will know that I, Yahweh, have vented my fury on you." '

23. The word of Yahweh was addressed to me as follows,

24. 'Son of man, say to her, "You are a land that has not received rain or shower on the day of anger.

25. In you, the princes are like a roaring lion tearing its prey. They have eaten the people, seized wealth and jewels and widowed many inside her.

26. Her priests have violated my law and desecrated my sanctuary; they have made no distinction between sacred and profane, they have not taught people the difference between clean and unclean; they have turned their eyes away from my Sabbaths and I have been dishonoured by them.

27. In her the leaders are wolves tearing their prey, shedding blood and killing people to steal their possessions.

28. Her prophets have plastered these things over with their empty visions and lying prophecies, saying: Yahweh says this, although Yahweh has not spoken.

29. The people of the country have taken to extortion and banditry; they have oppressed the poor and needy and ill-treated the settler in a way that is unjustifiable.

30. I have been looking for someone among them to build a barricade and oppose me in the breach, to defend the country and prevent me from destroying it; but I have found no one.

31. Hence I have vented my fury on them; I have put an end to them in the fire of my rage. I have made their conduct recoil on their own heads -- declares the Lord Yahweh." '