The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel 22 The Abominations of Jerusalem

 The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel 22

The Abominations of Jerusalem

1 The word of the Lord came to me:

2 “Son of man, will you judge this bloody city? Make known to it all its abominations.

3 Say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to the city that sheds blood in its midst, that its time may come, that makes idols against itself to defile itself!

4 By your blood that you have shed you have become guilty, and by your idols that you have made you have defiled yourself. You have brought your days to an end, and you have reached the end of your years. Therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations and a scorn to all the lands.

5 Those who are near and those who are far from you will mock you, infamous and full of unrest.

6 Behold, the princes of Israel, each according to his power, ruled over you, to shed blood.

7 They despised father and mother in you; they oppressed the stranger in your midst; they oppressed the fatherless and the widow in you.

8 You despised my holy things and profaned my Sabbaths.

9 Slanderers were found in you, to shed blood; they ate on the mountains in you; they committed wickedness in your midst.

10 They uncovered the shame of the father in you; they humiliated the unclean woman in her separation in your midst.

11 One committed abomination with his neighbor's wife; another defiled his daughter-in-law abominably; and another humiliated his sister, his father's daughter, in your midst.

12 Gifts were received in your midst to shed blood; You have taken usury and profit, and you have dealt greedily with your neighbor, oppressing him; but you have forgotten me, declares the Lord God.

13 And behold, I have struck my hands against your greed, which you have practiced, and because of your bloodshed that was in your midst.

14 Will your heart be firm? Will your hands be strong, in the days when I deal with you? I, the Lord, have spoken it, and I will do it.

15 And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will disperse you throughout the lands, and I will put an end to your uncleanness.

16 And you will be profaned in yourself in the eyes of the nations, and you will know that I am the Lord.

17 Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

18 Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to me; They are all bronze, and tin, and iron, and lead in the midst of the furnace: they have become dross of silver.

19 Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have all become dross, behold, you have become dross, behold, I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem.

20 As silver, and bronze, and iron, and lead, and tin are gathered into the midst of the furnace, to blow fire upon them, that they may melt, so will I gather you in my anger and in my fury, and there I will leave you and melt you.

21 And I will gather you and blow upon you the fire of my fury; and you shall be melted in the midst of it.

22 As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall you be melted in the midst of it; And you will know that I, the Lord, have poured out my wrath upon you.

23 Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

24 Son of man, say to them: You are a land that is not cleansed, and that has no rain on the day of indignation.

25 There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst of her, like a roaring lion tearing its prey; they devour souls; they take treasures and precious things, they multiply her widows in the midst of her.

26 Her priests have transgressed my law and profaned my holy things; they have made no distinction between the holy and the profane, nor have they discerned between the unclean and the clean; and they have hidden their eyes from my Sabbaths, and so I am profaned in the midst of them.

27 Her princes in the midst of her are like wolves tearing their prey, to shed blood, to destroy souls, to pursue greed.

28 And their prophets have plastered them with untempered mortar, seeing vanity and predicting lies to them, saying, “Thus says the Lord God,” when the Lord has not spoken.

29 They oppress the people of the land severely, and they rob them, and they do violence to the afflicted and needy, and they oppress the foreigner without cause.

30 And I sought for a man among them, who would make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.

31 Therefore I poured out my indignation upon them; I consumed them with the fire of my wrath; I made their way fall upon their own heads, says the Lord God.