Study Desk

Look! The princes of Israel, each one according to his strength, they are in you for the shedding of blood.

And look! I strike my hand for your ill-gotten gain that you have made and at your blood that was in the midst of you.

like the gathering of silver and bronze and iron and lead and tin to the middle of a furnace to blow fire on it for melting. Thus I will gather in my anger and in my rage, and I will deposit you, and I will melt you.

And for them its prophets plaster whitewash; they are seeing falseness and are practicing divination for them by lying, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh,' and Yahweh has not spoken.

And so I sought for them somebody, one repairing the wall and standing in the breach before me on behalf of the land not to destroy it, but I did not find anyone,

Now as for their names, the older was Oholah, and Oholibah was her sister. And they became mine, and they bore sons and daughters, and their names are Samaria for Oholah, and Jerusalem for Oholibah.

And Oholah prostituted herself while she was still mine, and she lusted for her lovers, for Assyria who was nearby,

And her whorings from the time of Egypt she did not abandon, for they slept with her in her childhood, and they caressed the bosoms of her virginity, and they poured out their fornication on her.

They uncovered her nakedness; they took her sons and her daughters, and they killed her with the sword. And she became a name for the women, and they executed judgments against her.

And she lusted for them when her eyes saw them, and she sent messengers to them at Chaldea.

And so the Babylonians came to her for the bed of lovemaking; and they defiled her with their fornication, and she was defiled by them, and she turned from them.

For thus says the Lord Yahweh: ‘Look! I am giving you into the hand of those you hated, into the hand of those from whom you turned away.

You will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, for a cup of horror and desolation is the cup of your sister, Samaria.

And you will drink it, and you will drain it, and its potsherds you will gnaw, and you will tear out your breasts, for I myself spoke," declares the Lord Yahweh.

For they committed adultery, and blood is on their hands, and they committed adultery with their idols, and even their children that they had borne for me—they sacrificed them as food!

and when they slaughtered their children for their idols, they came to my sanctuary on that day to profane it. And look, this is what they did in my house!

What is worse, they sent for men who come from a distant place, to whom a messenger was sent to them, and look! They came! Men for whom you bathed and painted your eyes, and you adorned yourself with an ornament.

But righteous men, they will judge them with the judgment of committing adultery, and with the judgment of shedding blood; for they were committing adultery, and blood was on their hands."

For thus says the Lord Yahweh: "Bring up against them an assembly, and make them as a thing of horror and as plunder.

"Son of man, write for yourself the name of the day, this very day. The king of Babylon laid siege to Jerusalem on exactly this day!