Ezekiel 23 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
The word of Yahweh came to me:
of there were two women, daughters of the same mother."
They gave themselves away in selling their bodies while they were still young. Their breasts were fondled there, their virgin bodies groped.
The older one was named and her sister was They became mine and gave birth to sons and daughters. As for their real identities — Oholah is and is Jerusalem.
Oholah at other while she was still mine. She was obsessed with the — her neighbors,
warriors dressed in governors and commanders — all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses.
She gave herself to all of them — the elite of Assyria. She made herself with every idol of everyone she lusted after.
She never stopped the prostitution she'd started back in Egypt, where men had slept with her since she was young, groping her virgin body and drowning her in their lust.
So I handed her over to her lovers — the Assyrians she was so obsessed with.
They stripped her naked, took her sons and daughters, and executed her with the sword. She became a among women — a warning of what happens when judgment falls.
Her sister Oholibah saw all of this — and yet she became even more depraved in her lust, even worse than her sister in her unfaithfulness.
She too was obsessed with the Assyrians — governors and commanders, warriors in full dress, horsemen on horses, all of them desirable young men.
I saw that she had made herself filthy too. Both sisters had gone down the same road.
But she took her unfaithfulness even further. She saw images of men carved on the wall — figures of etched in bright red,
with belts around their waists and flowing turbans on their heads. They all looked like officers — the image of Babylonian commanders from the land of
The moment she saw them, she wanted them. She sent messengers to them in Chaldea.
So the Babylonians came to her, to the bed of love, and they made her filthy with their lust. But after she'd been defiled by them, she was disgusted and pulled away.
When she flaunted her unfaithfulness so openly and exposed her naked body, I was disgusted and from her — just as I had from her sister.
Yet she multiplied her unfaithfulness even more, reminiscing about her younger days when she sold her body in Egypt.
She lusted after her lovers there, whose were and whose emissions were stallions.
So you went back to the depravity of your youth, when the Egyptians groped your body and fondled your young breasts.
Therefore, Oholibah, this is what Yahweh, the says: Watch — I am stirring up your lovers against you, the ones you got disgusted with and pulled away from. I am bringing them against you from every direction:
the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans — Pekod, and — along with all the Assyrians with them: desirable young men, governors and commanders, officers and men of rank, all of them riding horses.
They will come against you with weapons, chariots, and wagons, with a massive coalition of peoples. They will surround you with heavy shields, light shields, and helmets. I will hand judgment over to them, and they will you by their own
I will direct my against you, and they will deal with you in fury. They will and What's left of people will fall by the sword. They will take sons and daughters, and whatever remains will be consumed by fire.
They will strip your clothes off you and take away your beautiful jewelry.
I will put an end to your depravity and to the prostitution you started in Egypt. You will no longer look to them or remember Egypt anymore.
For this is what Yahweh, the Sovereign One, says: Watch — I am handing you over to those you hate, to those you got disgusted with and pulled away from.
They will deal with you in hatred, take everything you've worked for, and leave you stripped naked and bare. The shame of your unfaithfulness will be exposed — your depravity and your prostitution.
These things will be done to you because you chased after other nations, because you made yourself filthy with their
You walked the same road as your sister, so I will put her into your hand.
This is what Yahweh, the Sovereign One, says: You will drink your sister's cup, deep and wide — you will become an object of mockery and scorn, for it holds so much.
You will be filled with drunkenness and grief — the cup of devastation and desolation, the cup of your sister Samaria.
You will drink it, drain it dry, then gnaw on its broken shards and tear at your own breasts. I have spoken, declares Yahweh, the Sovereign One.
Therefore, this is what Yahweh, the Sovereign One, says: Because you have forgotten me and me you will carry the full weight of depravity and unfaithfulness.
Yahweh said to me: "Son of man, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah? Then confront them with their
Because they have committed adultery and blood is on their hands. They committed adultery with their idols, and even offered their own children — the ones they bore for me — as food for the idols, them the
And this is what else they did to me: On that very same day, they made my unfit and violated my
On the very day they slaughtered their children for their idols, they walked into my sacred space and made it unfit. That is what they did — right inside my own house.
"And beyond all that — they sent messengers to men who came from far away. When the messengers arrived, you bathed yourself, and put on jewelry for them."
You sat on a luxurious couch with a table spread before it, and you placed my and my on it.
The sound of a carefree crowd surrounded her. Common drunks were brought in from the desert along with men from the rabble, and they put bracelets on the women's wrists and beautiful crowns on their heads.
Then I said about the one worn out by adultery: 'Now let them use her for their own prostitution — for that is all she is.'
And they went to her the way men go to a prostitute. That is how they went to Oholah and Oholibah, those depraved women.
But the will judge them with the sentence for adultery and the sentence for bloodshed, because they are adulteresses with blood on their hands.
For this is what Yahweh, the Sovereign One, says: Bring a mob against them and hand them over to and
The mob will stone them and cut them down with their swords. They will kill their sons and daughters and burn their houses with fire.
I will put an end to depravity in the land, so that all women will be warned and will not imitate your depravity.
They will bring your depravity down on your own heads, and you will bear the consequences of your with Then you will that I am the Sovereign One.