You used some of your clothes to decorate your places of worship, and just like a prostitute, you gave yourself to everyone.

You took the embroidered clothes I gave you and put them on the images, and you offered to the images the olive oil and incense I had given you.

"Then you took the sons and the daughters you had borne me and offered them as sacrifices to idols. Wasn't it bad enough to be unfaithful to me,

During your disgusting life as a prostitute you never once remembered your childhood---when you were naked, squirming in your own blood."

Tell the city what I, the Sovereign LORD, am saying: Because you have murdered so many of your own people and have defiled yourself by worshiping idols, your time is coming.

Countries nearby and countries far away sneer at you because of your lawlessness.

None of you in the city honor your parents. You cheat foreigners and take advantage of widows and orphans.

Some of your people tell lies about others in order to have them put to death. Some of them eat sacrifices offered to idols. Some are always satisfying their lusts.

Some commit adultery, and others seduce their daughters-in-law or their half sisters.

"Mortal man," he said, "tell the Israelites that their land is unholy, and so I am punishing it in my anger.

The priests break my law and have no respect for what is holy. They make no distinction between what is holy and what is not. They do not teach the difference between clean and unclean things, and they ignore the Sabbath. As a result the people of Israel do not respect me.

The prophets have hidden these sins like workers covering a wall with whitewash. They see false visions and make false predictions. They claim to speak the word of the Sovereign LORD, but I, the LORD, have not spoken to them.

I looked for someone who could build a wall, who could stand in the places where the walls have crumbled and defend the land when my anger is about to destroy it, but I could find no one.

Although she was mine, Oholah continued to be a prostitute and was full of lust for her lovers from Assyria.

She was the whore for all the Assyrian officers, and her lust led her to defile herself by worshiping Assyrian idols.

So I handed her over to her Assyrian lovers whom she wanted so much.

"Even though her sister Oholibah saw this, she was wilder and more of a prostitute than Oholah had ever been.

I saw that she was completely immoral, that the second sister was as bad as the first.

(SEE 23:14)

The Babylonians came to have sex with her. They used her and defiled her so much that finally she became disgusted with them.

She became more of a prostitute than ever, acting the way she did as a young woman, when she was a prostitute in Egypt.

(Oholibah, you wanted to repeat the immorality you were guilty of as a young woman in Egypt, where men played with your breasts and you lost your virginity.)

There was murder in the city, but the blood was not spilled on the ground where the dust could hide it; it was spilled on a bare rock.

Their prejudices will be held against them. They sin as openly as the people of Sodom did. They are doomed, and they have brought it on themselves.

Your clothes are stained with the blood of the poor and innocent, not with the blood of burglars. "But in spite of all this,

Look up at the hilltops. Is there any place where you have not acted like a prostitute? You waited for lovers along the roadside, as an Arab waits for victims in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution.

Just as a hunter fills a cage with birds, they have filled their houses with loot. That is why they are powerful and rich,

why they are fat and well fed. There is no limit to their evil deeds. They do not give orphans their rights or show justice to the oppressed.

Were they ashamed because they did these disgusting things? No, they were not at all ashamed; they don't even know how to blush. And so they will fall as others have fallen; when I punish them, that will be the end of them. I, the LORD, have spoken."

My people, were you ashamed because you did these disgusting things? No, you were not ashamed at all; you don't even know how to blush! And so you will fall as others have fallen; when I punish you, that will be the end of you. I, the LORD, have spoken.

I wish I had a place to stay in the desert where I could get away from my people. They are all unfaithful, a mob of traitors.

Everyone must be on guard against their friends, and no one can trust their relatives; for all relatives are as deceitful as Jacob, and everyone slanders their friends.

(SEE 9:5)

They make promises and break them; they lie, murder, steal, and commit adultery. Crimes increase, and there is one murder after another.

You are building God's city, Jerusalem, on a foundation of murder and injustice.

And so, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a pile of ruins, and the Temple hill will become a forest.

You may be important, but the LORD will pick you up and throw you away.

He will pick you up like a ball and throw you into a much larger country. You will die there beside the chariots you were so proud of. You are a disgrace to your master's household.

When they ask you where they should go, tell them that I have said: Some are doomed to die by disease--- that's where they will go! Others are doomed to die in war--- that's where they will go! Some are doomed to die of starvation--- that's where they will go! Others are doomed to be taken away as prisoners--- that's where they will go!

I saw the Lord standing by the altar. He gave the command: "Strike the tops of the Temple columns so hard that the foundation will shake. Break them off and let them fall on the heads of the people. I will kill the rest of the people in war. No one will get away; not one will escape.

If they hide on the top of Mount Carmel, I will search for them and catch them. If they hide from me at the bottom of the sea, I will command the sea monster to bite them.