Isaiah 1:21

¹Woe to her who is rebellious and polluted, the oppressing city! ²She didn’t obey the voice. She didn’t receive correction. She didn’t trust in the LORD. She didn’t draw near to her God.

³Her princes within her are roaring lions. Her judges are evening wolves. They leave nothing until the next day.

³The LORD says: “I have returned to Zion, and will dwell in the middle of Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall be called ‘The City of Truth;’ and the mountain of the LORD of Armies, ‘The Holy Mountain.’”

¹Moreover the LORD’s word came to me, saying, ²“You, son of man, will you judge? Will you judge the bloody city? Then cause her to know all her abominations. ³You shall say, ‘The Lord GOD says: “A city that sheds blood within herself, that her time may come, and that makes idols against herself to defile her! ⁴You have become guilty in your blood that you have shed, and are defiled in your idols which you have made! You have caused your days to draw near, and have come to the end of your years. Therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations, and a mocking to all the countries. ⁵Those who are near and those who are far from you will mock you, you infamous one, full of tumult.

⁶“‘“Behold, the princes of Israel, everyone according to his power, have been in you to shed blood. ⁷In you have they treated father and mother with contempt. ^[+] Among you they have oppressed the foreigner. In you they have wronged the fatherless and the widow. ⁸You have despised my holy things, and have profaned my Sabbaths. ⁹Slanderous men have been in you to shed blood. In you they have eaten on the mountains. They have committed lewdness among you. ¹⁰In you have they uncovered their fathers’ nakedness. In you have they humbled her who was unclean in her impurity. ¹¹One has committed abomination with his neighbor’s wife, and another has lewdly defiled his daughter-in-law. Another in you has humbled his sister, his father’s daughter. ¹²In you have they taken bribes to shed blood. You have taken interest and increase, and you have greedily gained of your neighbors by oppression, and have forgotten me,” says the Lord GOD.

¹³“‘“Behold, therefore I have struck my hand at your dishonest gain which you have made, and at the blood which has been shed within you. ¹⁴Can your heart endure, or can your hands be strong, in the days that I will deal with you? I, the LORD, have spoken it, and will do it. ¹⁵I will scatter you among the nations, and disperse you through the countries. I will purge your filthiness out of you. ¹⁶You will be profaned in yourself in the sight of the nations. Then you will know that I am the LORD.”’”

¹⁷The LORD’s word came to me, saying, ¹⁸“Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to me. All of them are bronze, tin, iron, and lead in the middle of the furnace. They are the dross of silver. ¹⁹Therefore the Lord GOD says: ‘Because you have all become dross, therefore, behold, I will gather you into the middle of Jerusalem. ²⁰As they gather silver, bronze, iron, lead, and tin into the middle of the furnace, to blow the fire on it, to melt it, so I will gather you in my anger and in my wrath, and I will lay you there and melt you. ²¹Yes, I will gather you, and blow on you with the fire of my wrath, and you will be melted in the middle of it. ²²As silver is melted in the middle of the furnace, so you will be melted in the middle of it; and you will know that I, the LORD, have poured out my wrath on you.’”

²³The LORD’s word came to me, saying,

¹“They say, ‘If a man puts away his wife, and she goes from him, and becomes another man’s, should he return to her again?’ Wouldn’t that land be greatly polluted? But you have played the prostitute with many lovers; yet return again to me,” says the LORD.

²You who hate the good, and love the evil; who tear off their skin, and their flesh from off their bones; ³who also eat the flesh of my people, and peel their skin from off them, and break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as meat within the cauldron.

²²But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable multitudes of angels,

⁸Their dead bodies will be in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.

¹Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised, in the city of our God, in his holy mountain.

³“But draw near here, you sons of a sorceress, you offspring of adulterers and prostitutes. ⁴Whom do you mock? Against whom do you make a wide mouth and stick out your tongue? Aren’t you children of disobedience and offspring of falsehood, ⁵you who inflame yourselves among the oaks, under every green tree; who kill the children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks? ⁶Among the smooth stones of the valley is your portion. They, they are your lot. You have even poured a drink offering to them. You have offered an offering. Shall I be appeased for these things? ⁷On a high and lofty mountain you have set your bed. You also went up there to offer sacrifice. ⁸You have set up your memorial behind the doors and the posts, for you have exposed yourself to someone besides me, and have gone up. You have enlarged your bed and made a covenant for yourself with them. You loved what you saw on their bed. ⁹You went to the king with oil, increased your perfumes, sent your ambassadors far off, and degraded yourself even to Sheol.

³⁴“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, like a hen gathers her own brood under her wings, and you refused!