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"But Oholibah carried her depravity further, for she saw men pictured on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans (Babylonians) sketched and portrayed in vermilion (bright red pigment),

"But they committed adultery with her as they would with a prostitute. So they went in to Oholah (Israel) and to Oholibah (Judah), the lewd women.

'Your turbans will be on your heads and your sandals on your feet. You will not mourn or weep, but you will rot away in your sins and you will groan to one another.

then I will bring you down with those who descend into the pit (the place of the dead), to the people of old, and I will make you [Tyre] live in the depths of the earth, like the ancient ruins, with those who go down to the pit, so that you will not be inhabited; but I will set glory and splendor in the land of the living.

'Will you still say, "I am a god," In the presence of him who kills you? But you are [only] a man [made of earth] and not God, In the hands of those who wound and profane you.

'I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon and put My sword in his hand; but I will break Pharaoh's arms and he will groan before him (Nebuchadnezzar) with the groanings of a [mortally] wounded man.

'But I will strengthen and hold up the arms of the king of Babylon and the arms of Pharaoh will fall down. Then the people [of Egypt] will know that I am the LORD, when I put My sword into the hand of the king of Babylon and he stretches it out against the land of Egypt.

"Son of man, take up a dirge (funeral poem to be sung) over Pharaoh king of Egypt and say to him, 'You have compared yourself to a young lion among the nations, But you are like a monster in the seas; You burst into your rivers And disturbed and muddied the waters with your feet And fouled their rivers [the source of their prosperity].'"

"But you will be broken in the midst of the uncircumcised and you will lie [without honors] with those who are slain by the sword.

'He heard the sound of the trumpet but did not take warning; his blood shall be on himself. But if he had taken warning, he would have saved his life.

'But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any one of them, he is taken away because of his corruption and sin; but I will require his blood from the watchman's hand.'

"When I say to the wicked, 'O wicked man, you will certainly die,' and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man will die because of his sin; but I will require his blood from your hand.

"But if you on your part warn the wicked man to turn from his [evil] way and he does not turn from his [evil] way, he will die in his sin; but you have saved your life.

"Say to them, 'As I live,' says the Lord GOD, 'I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back (change your way of thinking), turn back [in repentance] from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?'

"When I say to the righteous that he will most certainly live, and he trusts in his [previous acts of] righteousness [to save him] and commits injustice, none of his righteous deeds will be remembered; but he will die for his injustice that he committed.

"But when I say to the wicked, 'You will certainly die,' and he turns from his sin and practices that which is just (fair) and right—

"Yet your people [who are in exile in Babylon] say, 'The way of the Lord is not right;' but as for them, it is their own way that is not right.

"But when a wicked man turns back from his wickedness and practices what is just (fair) and right, he will live because of it.

"Son of man, those [back in Palestine] who inhabit these ruins in the land of Israel are saying, 'Abraham was [only] one man and he took possession of the land, but we are many; the land has [most certainly] been given to us [to possess] as property.'

"But as for you, son of man, your people who talk about you by the walls and in the doorways of the houses say one to another, every one to his brother, 'Come now and hear what the message is that comes from the LORD.'