Woe, sinful nation, a people heavy with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children who corrupt! They have forsaken Jehovah; they have scorned the Holy One of Israel. They are estranged backward.

And I said: O my God, I am too ashamed and humiliated to lift up my face to You, my God; for our iniquities have increased over our heads, and our guilt has grown up to the Heavens.

Lift up your eyes to the desolate heights, and see. Where have you not been lain with and ravished? By the highways you have sat for them, like an Arabian in the wilderness; and you have polluted the land with your harlotry and with your evil.

O Jehovah, are not Your eyes on the truth? You have stricken them, but they have not grieved; You have destroyed them, but they have refused to receive correction; they have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to return.

I will go to the great men, and will speak to them; for they have known the way of Jehovah and the judgment of their God. But these have broken the yoke together and have torn off the bonds!

How shall I pardon you for this? Your children have forsaken Me, and have sworn by those that are not gods. When I adjured them, then they committed adultery, and gathered themselves by troops in a harlot's house.

Shall I not punish for these things? says Jehovah. And shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withheld good from you.

Like a cage full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit; therefore they have become great and grown rich.

Shall I not punish for these things? says Jehovah. Shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

Behold, you trust in lying words that are of no benefit.

and then come and stand before Me in this house which is called by My name, and say, We are delivered to do all those abominations?

And she has rebelled against My judgments by doing wickedness more than the nations, and against My statutes more than the lands that are all around her; for they have rejected My judgments, and they have not walked in My statutes.

Make a chain, for the land is filled with bloody judgments, and the city is full of violence.

Then He said to me, Son of man, dig into the wall; and when I dug into the wall, there was an opening.

So I went in and saw; and behold, every sort of creeping thing, abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, carved all around on the wall.

Then He said to me, Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the room of his idols? For they say, Jehovah does not see us, Jehovah has forsaken the land.

So He brought me to the door of the north gate of the house of Jehovah; and behold, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz.

So He brought me into the inner court of the house of Jehovah; and behold, at the door of the temple of Jehovah, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs toward the temple of Jehovah and their faces toward the east, and they were bowing down to the sun toward the east.

Samaria did not commit half of your sins; but you have multiplied your abominations more than they, and have justified your sisters by all the abominations which you have done.

You who judged your sisters, bear your own shame also, because your sins were more abominable than theirs; they are more righteous than you. Yes, be disgraced also, and bear your own shame, because you justified your sisters.

And you, son of man, will you judge, will you judge the bloody city? Yes, show her all her abominations!

You are guilty by the blood which you have shed, and have defiled yourself with the idols which you have made. You have caused your days to draw near, and have come to your years. Therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations, and a mockery to all lands.

Behold, the rulers of Israel: each one was in you by his power to shed blood in you.

You have despised My holy things and profaned My Sabbaths.

In you men uncover the nakedness of their fathers; in you they humble women during their menstrual impurity.

In you they take bribes to shed blood; you take usury and increase; you have made profit from your neighbors by extortion, and have forgotten Me, declares the Lord Jehovah.

Son of man, say to her: You are a land that is not cleansed or rained on in the day of indignation.

Her priests have violated My Law and defiled My holy things; they have not divided between the holy and profane, nor have they declared between the unclean and the clean; and they have hidden their eyes from My Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them.

Her prophets plastered them with whitewash, seeing vain visions, and divining lies to them, saying, Thus says the Lord Jehovah, when Jehovah has not spoken.

So I sought for a man among them who would close up the wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.

Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother.

Their names: Oholah the elder and Oholibah her sister; they were Mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem is Oholibah.

who were clothed in purple, captains and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses.

She has never given up her harlotry brought from Egypt, for in her youth they had lain with her, fondled her virgin breasts, and poured out their immorality upon her.

They uncovered her nakedness, took away her sons and daughters, and slew her with the sword; she became a byword among women, for they had executed judgment on her.

She lusted for the neighboring Assyrians, captains and rulers, clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men.

But she added to her harlotry; she looked at men portrayed on the wall, images of Chaldeans portrayed in vermilion,

As soon as her eyes saw them, she lusted for them and sent messengers to them in Chaldea.

So she uncovered her harlotry and uncovered her nakedness. Then My soul was alienated from her, just as My soul was alienated from her sister.

For she lusted for her paramours, whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.

Therefore, Oholibah, thus says the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will stir up your lovers against you, from whom your soul is alienated, and I will bring them against you from every side:

And they shall come against you with chariots, wagons, and wheels, with a company of people. They shall array against you buckler, shield, and helmet all around. I will entrust judgment to them, and they shall judge you according to their judgments.

They shall also strip you of your clothes and take away your beautiful jewelry.

For thus says the Lord Jehovah: Surely I will deliver you into the hand of those you hate, into the hand of those from whom your soul is alienated.

I will do these things to you because you have gone whoring after the nations, because you have become defiled by their idols.

Thus says the Lord Jehovah: You shall drink of your sister's cup, deep and wide; you shall be laughed to scorn and held in derision; for it contains much.

You shall drink and drain it, you shall break its shards, and tear off your own breasts; for I have spoken, declares the Lord Jehovah.

Jehovah also said to me: Son of man, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah? Then declare to them their abominations.

Moreover they have done this to Me: They have defiled My sanctuary on the same day and profaned My Sabbaths.

Furthermore you sent for men to come from afar, to whom a messenger was sent; and there they came. And you washed yourself for them, painted your eyes, and adorned yourself with ornaments.

And the sound of a multitude at ease was with her, and drunkards were brought from the wilderness with men of the common sort, who put bracelets on their wrists and beautiful crowns on their heads.

Yet they went in to her, as men go in to a woman of harlotry; thus they went in to Oholah and Oholibah, the lewd women.

For thus says the Lord Jehovah: Bring up an assembly against them, give them up to terror and plunder.

Thus I will bring an end to lewdness from the land, that all women may be taught not to do according to your lewdness.

Therefore thus says the Lord Jehovah: Woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose scum is in it, and whose scum is not gone from it! Bring it out piece by piece. Let no lot fall on it.

That it may raise up fury and take vengeance, I have set her blood on top of a rock, that it may not be covered.

Heap on the wood, kindle the fire; cook the flesh well, mix in the spices, and let the bones be burned.

She has grown weary with toil, and her great scum has not gone from her. Let her scum be in the fire!

I, Jehovah, have spoken it; it shall come to pass, and I will do it; I will not hold back, nor will I spare, nor will I have compassion; according to your ways and according to your deeds they will judge you, declares the Lord Jehovah.

Swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and the committing of adultery burst forth. And blood touches against blood.

Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers.

Serpents! Offspring of vipers! How will you escape the condemnation of Gehenna?

who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have driven us out; and they do not please God and are contrary to all men,

forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, so as always to fill up the measure of their sins; but wrath has come upon them to the end.

O Jehovah, though our iniquities testify against us, work for Your name's sake; for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against You.

And the pride of Israel testifies to his face. Therefore Israel and Ephraim shall stumble in their iniquity. Judah shall also stumble with them.

And the pride of Israel testifies to his face. And they do not return to Jehovah their God, nor seek Him for all this.

Now we know that whatever the Law says, it says to those who are under the Law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

Therefore by the deeds of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for through the Law is the full true knowledge of sin.

And after all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great guilt, since You our God have held back from the bending down in punishment of our iniquities, and have given us such deliverance as this,

However You are just in all that has come upon us; for You have dealt faithfully, but we have done wickedly.

we have sinned and have committed iniquity and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from Your commandments and from Your judgments.

O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us the shame of face, as it is this day to the men of Judah, and to those living in Jerusalem, and to all Israel, who are near and who are afar in all the lands where You have driven them for their unfaithfulness which they have trespassed against You.