In your days of majesty,<n id="1" /> was not Sodom your sister a byword in your mouth,

<p class="poetry">&#8220;&#8216;Your mother was like a vine in your vineyard,<n id="1" /> planted by water.p> <p class="poetry">It was fruitful and full of branches because it was well-watered.p>

The desolate land will be plowed, instead of being desolate in the sight of everyone who passes by.

<p class="poetry">Consider Assyria,<n id="1" /> a cedar in Lebanon,<n id="2" />p> <p class="poetry">with beautiful branches, like a forest giving shade,p> <p class="poetry">and extremely tall;p> <p class="poetry">its top reached into the clouds.p>

This is what the sovereign <sc>Lordsc> says: The enemy has spoken against you, saying &#8220;Aha!&#8221; and, &#8220;The ancient heights<n id="1" /> have become our property!&#8221;&#8217;

&#8220;Son of man, when the house of Israel was living on their own land, they defiled it by their behavior<n id="1" /> and their deeds. In my sight their behavior was like the uncleanness of a woman having her monthly period.

They will say, &#8220;This desolate land has become like the garden of Eden; the ruined, desolate, and destroyed cities are now fortified and inhabited.&#8221;

<t /><p class="bodytext">The hand<n id="1" /> of the <sc>Lordsc> was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the <sc>Lordsc> and placed<n id="2" /> me in the midst of the valley, and it was full of bones.

<p class="poetry">Cry out and moan, son of man,p> <p class="poetry">for it is wielded against my people;p> <p class="poetry">against all the princes of Israel.p> <p class="poetry">They are delivered up to the sword, along with my people.p> <p class="poetry">Therefore, strike your thigh.<n id="1" />p>

They will sing this lament over you:<n id="1" />p> <p class="poetry">&#8220;&#8216;How you have perished &#8211; you have vanished<n id="2" /> from the seas,p> <p class="poetry">O renowned city, once mighty in the sea,p> <p class="poetry">she and her inhabitants, who spread their terror!<n id="3" />p>

Now the hand of the <sc>Lordsc> had been on me<n id="1" /> the evening before the refugee reached me, but the <sc>Lordsc><n id="2" /> opened my mouth by the time the refugee arrived<n id="3" /> in the morning; he opened my mouth and I was no longer unable to speak.<n id="4" />

<t /><p class="bodytext">In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city<n id="1" /> was struck down, on this very day,<n id="2" /> the hand<n id="3" /> of the <sc>Lordsc> was on me, and he brought me there.<n id="4" />

<p class="bodytext">&#8220;&#8216;They must not come near a dead person or they will be defiled;<n id="1" /> however, for father, mother, son, daughter, brother or sister, they may defile themselves.