¹And the word of the Lord came to me and said, ²“As for you, son of Adam, will you judge, will you judge the City of Blood, and will you make all its abominations known to it? ³So you will say, ‘This is what my Lord the Lord says: «As for the city which sheds blood in its own precincts, its time is about to come, for it has made idols to defile itself. ⁴You have become guilty of your blood which you have shed, and you have become unclean by your idols which you have made, and you have brought your days near, and you have come to your years, which is why I have made you an object of reproach to the nations and an object of scorn to all the various countries. ⁵Those near and far from you will mock you, you who are of sullied name and great turmoil. ⁶Look, you officials of Israel. Each one in you, Jerusalem, had it in his power to shed blood. ⁷Those in you have despised their father and mother; in your precincts people have dealt with the foreigner with extortion, and in you they have oppressed the orphan and the widow. ⁸You have despised my holy things, and you have profaned my Sabbaths. ⁹In you were slanderers, so as to shed blood, and in you some ate on the mountains. In your precincts they engaged in intrigue. ¹⁰In you one has uncovered his father's nakedness; in you they have violated her who was unclean by reason of menstruation. ¹¹And a man has committed an abomination with his neighbour's wife, and a man has defiled his daughter-in-law through depravity, and a man in you has violated his sister – his father's daughter. ¹²In you some have accepted a bribe for the purpose of shedding blood. You have taken interest and financial gain, and you have defrauded your neighbours with extortion, and me you have forgotten, says the Lord, the Lord. ¹³And look, I have struck my hand at your unjust gain which you have made, and at your blood which has been in your confines. ¹⁴Will your heart stand firm, and will your hands hold out in the days when I deal with you? I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will do it. ¹⁵And I will scatter you among the Gentiles, and I will disperse you among the various countries, and I will purge your uncleanness from you. ¹⁶And you will be profaned by your own self in the eyes of the Gentiles, and you will know that I am the Lord.» ’ ” ¹⁷Then the word of the Lord came to me and said, ¹⁸“Son of Adam, the house of Israel has become dross to me. They are all copper and tin and iron and lead in the furnace. They have become the dross of silver. ¹⁹So this is what the Lord, the Lord, says: ‘Because you have all become dross, I am about to gather you into Jerusalem. ²⁰Like a mixture of silver and copper and iron and lead and tin inside a furnace, to have fire blown on it to melt it, so I will gather you in my anger and in my fury, and I will keep you in place and melt you. ²¹And I will gather you, and I will blow on you with my irate fire, and you will be melted in it. ²²As is the smelting of silver in the furnace, so you will be smelted in it, and you will know that I, the Lord, have poured out my fury on you.’ ” ²³Then the word of the Lord came to me and said, ²⁴“Son of Adam, say to her, ‘You are a land which has not been cleansed, which had no rain on the day of indignation. ²⁵There is a conspiracy of her prophets within her, like a roaring lion tearing at prey. They devour people, they take riches and valuables; they have increased the number of widows she has within her confines. ²⁶Her priests have done violence to my law, and they have profaned my holy things. They have not made a distinction between holy and profane, and they have not made the difference known between unclean and clean, and they have hidden their eyes from my Sabbaths, so I have been profaned in their midst. ²⁷Her officials at her centre are like wolves tearing at prey, shedding blood, destroying people in order to make unjust gain. ²⁸And her prophets have plastered over these things with lime, seeing false visions and divining falsely to them, saying, «This is what my Lord the Lord says», when the Lord has not spoken. ²⁹The people of the land have committed extortion, and they have snatched away plunder and oppressed the poor and needy, and they have maltreated the foreigner without justice. ³⁰And I sought from them a man who would build a wall, and who would stand at the breach before me, for the sake of the land, to prevent its destruction, but I didn't find anyone. ³¹So I have poured out my indignation over them. I have made an end of them in my irate fire. I have put their way on their head, says my Lord the Lord.’ ”