¹And the word of the Lord came to me and said,

²“Son of Adam, there were two women,

Daughters of the same mother.

³And they engaged in prostitution in Egypt

– It was in their youth that they engaged in prostitution.

There their breasts were fondled,

And there their virgin nipples were caressed.

⁴And their names were Aholah the elder one

And Aholibah her sister.

And they were mine,

And they gave birth to sons and daughters,

Whose names were Samaria-Aholah

And Jerusalem-Aholibah.

⁵And Aholah acted promiscuously beneath me,

And she made love to her lovers,

With the Assyrians who were near,

⁶Dressed in blue

– Governors and administrators,

All of them attractive young men –

Horsemen riding on horses.

⁷And she gave her immoral favours to them,

All of them being choice sons of Assyria,

And she became unclean by all with whom she made love,

Through all their idols.

⁸And she did not abandon her immoral practices

Brought back from Egypt,

For they lay with her in her youth,

And they caressed her virgin nipples,

And they poured out their immorality on her.

⁹Therefore I have delivered her into the hand of her lovers,

Into the hand of the Assyrians,

With whom she made love.

¹⁰They revealed her nakedness;

They took her sons and her daughters,

And they killed her with the sword,

And she became notorious among women,

For judgment had been passed on her.

¹¹And her sister Aholibah saw it,

And she was more perverse than her in her lovemaking,

And she was more profuse in her promiscuous acts than her sister

In her immoral ways.

¹²She made love to the Assyrians,

Governors and administrators who were near,

Dressed immaculately,

Horsemen riding on horses

– All attractive young men.

¹³And I saw that she had become unclean.

The two of them had the same conduct.

¹⁴And she added to her promiscuous deeds

When she saw an engraving of men on a wall

– Images of Chaldeans

Engraved in red ochre –

¹⁵Wearing a belt around their waist,

Wearing loose hanging dyed turbans on their heads,

All in the style of brigadiers,

With imagery of the sons of Babylon

– Chaldeans –

And their native land.

¹⁶And she lusted after them when her eyes saw them,

And she sent messengers to them in Chaldea.

¹⁷Then the Babylonians came to her

To lie making love,

And they defiled her with their promiscuity,

And she was defiled by them.

Then her sentiments became alienated from them.

¹⁸When she had revealed her promiscuous acts

And had revealed her nakedness,

My sentiments became alienated from her,

As my sentiments had become alienated from her sister.

¹⁹And she did more promiscuous acts,

Remembering the days of her youth

When she was promiscuous in the land of Egypt.

²⁰And she lusted after their lovers,

Whose flesh was the flesh of donkeys,

And whose emission was the emission of horses.

²¹And you have looked about

For the unchaste way of your youth,

With caressing of your nipples,

As was done in Egypt on account of your youthful breasts.

²²Therefore, Aholibah, this is what the Lord, the Lord, says:

‘I am about to stir your lovers up against you,

Those from whom your sentiments have become alienated,

And I will bring them against you all around,

²³The sons of Babylon and all the Chaldeans:

Pekod and Shoa and Koa,

And all the sons of Assyria with them

– All of them attractive young men,

Governors and administrators,

Brigadiers and celebrities,

All of them horseriders.

²⁴And a battalion will come against you,

Chariots and vehicles,

With a contingent of various peoples,

Who will beset you all around,

With shield and buckler and helmet.

And I will allow judgment to take place before them,

And they will judge you with their own legal processes.

²⁵And I will set my zeal against you,

And they will deal with you in fury.

They will remove your nose and your ears,

And your posterity will fall by the sword.

They will capture your sons and your daughters,

And your posterity will be consumed by fire.

²⁶And they will strip your clothes off

And take your magnificent articles away.

²⁷And I will put an end to your unchaste way

And your promiscuity which came from the land of Egypt,

And you will not raise your eyes to them,

And you will no longer remember Egypt.

²⁸For this is what the Lord, the Lord, says: «I am about to deliver you into the hand of those you hate – into the hand of those from whom your sentiments have become alienated. ²⁹And they will deal with you with hatred, and they will take all your hard-earned possessions and leave you naked and destitute. And the nakedness of your promiscuous acts and your unchaste behaviour and your immoral ways will be revealed. ³⁰They will do these things to you, because you have gone whoring after the Gentiles, whereby you have become unclean with their idols. ³¹You have gone the way of your sister, and I will put her cup in your hand.» ³²This is what the Lord, the Lord, says:

«You will drink your sister's deep and wide cup.

It will be an occasion of derision and mocking

– A lot to stomach.

³³You will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow

With the cup of astonishment and desolation

– The cup of your sister Samaria.

³⁴And you will drink it and drain it,

And you will gnaw its broken pieces,

And you will tear your breasts away,

For I have spoken,

Says the Lord, the Lord».

³⁵Therefore this is what the Lord, the Lord, says:

«Because you have forgotten me,

And you have cast me behind your back,

You too must bear your unchaste behaviour

And immoral ways.» ’ ”

³⁶Then the Lord said to me, “Son of Adam, will you judge Aholah and Aholibah, and tell them their abominations? ³⁷For they have committed adultery, and there is blood on their hands, and it is with their idols that they have committed adultery, and also with their sons whom they have borne to me, whom they have made pass through fire, consuming them. ³⁸They have also done this to me: they defiled my sanctuary on that day, and they have profaned my Sabbaths. ³⁹And when they slaughtered their sons to their idols, they came to my sanctuary on the same day to profane it, and so you see what they have done inside my house. ⁴⁰‘And moreover you have sent for men to come from far away, to whom a messenger was sent, and look, they have come – they for whom you washed yourself and put eye-shadow on and decked yourself with ornaments. ⁴¹And you reclined on a magnificent bed, with a table laid in front of it, and you put my incense and my oil on it. ⁴²And there was the sound of a carefree crowd in it, and these were men from the common masses, Sabaeans brought from the desert, who put bracelets on their wrists and a magnificent crown on their heads.’ ⁴³And I said concerning her who is worn out with adulteries, ‘Will they now behave immorally with her in her prostitution, with the way she is?’ ⁴⁴And they went to her as one goes to a prostitute. So they went to Aholah and Aholibah, the unchaste women. ⁴⁵And it is righteous men who will judge them by the law of adulteresses and the law of those who shed blood, for they are adulteresses, and there is blood on their hands. ⁴⁶For this is what the Lord, the Lord, says: ‘Bring a contingent up against them, and consign them to atrocity and to being plundered. ⁴⁷And the contingent will stone them and cut them down with their swords. They will kill their sons and their daughters and burn their houses with fire. ⁴⁸And I will banish unchaste behaviour from the land, and all the women will be admonished, and they will not behave in your unchaste way. ⁴⁹And your unchaste way will be requited upon you, and you will bear the sins committed with your idols, and you will know that I am the Lord, the Lord.’ ”