Ezekiel 21:24

²There is cursing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break boundaries, and bloodshed causes bloodshed.

²⁴“Son of man, tell her, ‘You are a land that is not cleansed nor rained on in the day of indignation.’ ²⁵There is a conspiracy of her prophets within it, like a roaring lion ravening the prey. They have devoured souls. They take treasure and precious things. They have made many widows within it. 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 caused men to discern between the unclean and the clean, and have hidden their eyes from my Sabbaths. So I am profaned among them. ²⁷Her princes within it are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood and to destroy souls, that they may get dishonest gain. ²⁸Her prophets have plastered for them with whitewash, seeing false visions, and divining lies to them, saying, ‘The Lord GOD says,’ when the LORD has not spoken. ²⁹The people of the land have used oppression and exercised robbery. Yes, they have troubled the poor and needy, and have oppressed the foreigner wrongfully.

³⁰“I sought for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I would not destroy it; but I found no one. ³¹Therefore I have poured out my indignation on them. I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath. I have brought their own way on their heads,” says the Lord GOD.

²Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men, that I might leave my people and go from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. ³“They bend their tongue, as their bow, for falsehood. They have grown strong in the land, but not for truth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they don’t know me,” says the LORD. ⁴“Everyone beware of his neighbor, and don’t trust in any brother; for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will go around like a slanderer. ⁵Friends deceive each other, and will not speak the truth. They have taught their tongue to speak lies. They weary themselves committing iniquity. ⁶Your habitation is in the middle of deceit. Through deceit, they refuse to know me,” says the LORD.

⁷Therefore the LORD of Armies says, “Behold, I will melt them and test them; for how should I deal with the daughter of my people?

⁷“‘“For the blood she shed is in the middle of her. She set it on the bare rock. She didn’t pour it on the ground, to cover it with dust.

³⁴Also the blood of the souls of the innocent poor is found in your skirts. You didn’t find them breaking in, but it is because of all these things.

⁵“Oholah played the prostitute when she was mine. She doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbors, ⁶who were clothed with blue—governors and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses. ⁷She gave herself as a prostitute to them, all of them the choicest men of Assyria. She defiled herself with the idols of whomever she lusted after. ⁸She hasn’t left her prostitution since leaving Egypt; for in her youth they lay with her. They caressed her youthful nipples and they poured out their prostitution on her.

⁹“Therefore I delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians on whom she doted. ¹⁰These uncovered her nakedness. They took her sons and her daughters, and they killed her with the sword. She became a byword among women; for they executed judgments on her.

¹¹“Her sister Oholibah saw this, yet she was more corrupt in her lusting than she, and in her prostitution which was more depraved than the prostitution of her sister. ¹²She lusted after the Assyrians, governors and rulers—her neighbors, clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men. ¹³I saw that she was defiled. They both went the same way.

¹⁴“She increased her prostitution; for she saw men portrayed on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with red, ¹⁵dressed with belts on their waists, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them looking like princes, after the likeness of the Babylonians in Chaldea, the land of their birth. ¹⁶As soon as she saw them, she lusted after them and sent messengers to them into Chaldea. ¹⁷The Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their prostitution. She was polluted with them, and her soul was alienated from them. ¹⁸So she uncovered her prostitution and uncovered her nakedness. Then my soul was alienated from her, just like my soul was alienated from her sister. ¹⁹Yet she multiplied her prostitution, remembering the days of her youth, in which she had played the prostitute in the land of Egypt. ²⁰She lusted after their lovers, whose flesh is as the flesh of donkeys, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. ²¹Thus you called to memory the lewdness of your youth, in the caressing of your nipples by the Egyptians because of your youthful breasts.

¹I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said, “Strike the tops of the pillars, that the thresholds may shake. Break them in pieces on the head of all of them. I will kill the last of them with the sword. Not one of them will flee away. Not one of them will escape. ²Though they dig into Sheol,^[+] there my hand will take them; and though they climb up to heaven, there I will bring them down. ³Though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out from there; and though they be hidden from my sight in the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent, and it will bite them.

⁹The look of their faces testify against them. They parade their sin like Sodom. They don’t hide it. Woe to their soul! For they have brought disaster upon themselves.

¹⁷Behold, the LORD will overcome you and hurl you away violently. Yes, he will grasp you firmly. ¹⁸He will surely wind you around and around, and throw you like a ball into a large country. There you will die, and there the chariots of your glory will be, you disgrace of your lord’s house.

²It will happen when they ask you, ‘Where shall we go out?’ then you shall tell them, ‘The LORD says: “Such as are for death, to death; such as are for the sword, to the sword; such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for captivity, to captivity.”’