¹ Your borders are in the heart of the seas; your builders have perfected your beauty.

Her princes ¹  within her are like a roaring lion tearing its prey; they have devoured lives. They take away riches and valuable things; they have made many women widows ²  within it.

So I have poured my anger on them, and destroyed them with the fire of my fury. I hereby repay them for what they have done, ¹  declares the sovereign Lord.”

You exalted yourselves against me with your speech ¹  and hurled many insults against me ²  – I have heard them all!

Then you will know that I, the Lord, have heard all the insults you spoke against the mountains of Israel, saying, “They are desolate, they have been given to us for food.”

And I said, “Ah, sovereign Lord, I have never been ceremonially defiled before. I have never eaten a carcass or an animal torn by wild beasts; from my youth up, unclean meat ¹  has never entered my mouth.”

I too will clap my hands together, I will exhaust my rage; I the Lord have spoken.”

Then the nations which remain around you will know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruins and replanted what was desolate. I, the Lord, have spoken – and I will do it!’

They have sex with their father’s wife within you; ¹  they violate women during their menstrual period within you. ² 

Have you not seen a false vision and announced a lying omen when you say, “the Lord declares,” although I myself never spoke?

“Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Because you are more arrogant ¹  than the nations around you, ²  you have not followed my statutes and have not carried out my regulations. You have not even ³  carried out the regulations of the nations around you!

“I have made your face adamant ¹  to match their faces, and your forehead hard to match their foreheads.

so that you may bear your disgrace and be ashamed of all you have done in consoling them.

You have followed the ways of your sister, so I will place her cup of judgment ¹  in your hand.

The traders among the peoples hiss at you; you have become a horror, and will be no more.’”

When you have finished purifying it, you will offer an unblemished young bull and an unblemished ram from the flock.

He said to me, “Son of man, I am sending you to the house ¹  of Israel, to rebellious nations ²  who have rebelled against me; both they and their fathers have revolted ³  against me to this very day.

They will console you when you see their behavior and their deeds, because you will know that it was not without reason that I have done everything which I have done in it, declares the sovereign Lord.”

As for my sheep, they must eat what you trampled with your feet, and drink what you have muddied with your feet!

Foreigners from the most terrifying nations have cut it down and left it to lie there on the mountains. In all the valleys its branches have fallen, and its boughs lie broken in the ravines of the land. All the peoples of the land ¹  have departed ²  from its shade and left it.