I will seek the lost and bring back the strays; I will bandage the injured and strengthen the sick, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them – with judgment!

“‘I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries; then I will bring you to your land.

Thus they will provide the lamb, the grain offering, and the olive oil morning by morning, as a perpetual burnt offering.

I gave them my statutes ¹  and revealed my regulations to them. The one ²  who carries ³  them out will live by them! ⁴ 

So I opened my mouth and he fed me the scroll.

“Son of man, confront Jerusalem ¹  with her abominable practices

you slaughtered my children and sacrificed them to the idols. ¹ 

You must bear your punishment for your obscene conduct and your abominable practices, declares the Lord.

I will make you pass under ¹  the shepherd’s staff, ²  and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant.

You have not strengthened the weak, healed the sick, bandaged the injured, brought back the strays, or sought the lost, but with force and harshness ¹  you have ruled over them.

But I will throw my net over him, and he will be caught in my snare. I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans ¹  (but he will not see it), ²  and there he will die. ³ 

I will vent my rage against the wall, and against those who coated it with whitewash. Then I will say to you, “The wall is no more and those who whitewashed it are no more –

At the head of every street you erected your pavilion and you disgraced ¹  your beauty when you spread ²  your legs to every passerby and multiplied your promiscuity.

“‘I will restore their fortunes, the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters, and the fortunes of Samaria and her daughters (along with your fortunes among them),

Then you will remember your conduct, and be ashamed when you receive your older and younger sisters. I will give them to you as daughters, but not on account of my covenant with you.

I also swore ¹  to them in the wilderness that I would scatter them among the nations and disperse them throughout the lands. ² 

Then you will know that I am the Lord when I bring you to the land of Israel, to the land I swore ¹  to give to your fathers.

“Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Because you have forgotten me and completely disregarded me, ¹  you must bear now the punishment ²  for your obscene conduct and prostitution.”

The Lord said to me: “Son of man, are you willing to pronounce judgment ¹  on Oholah and Oholibah? Then declare to them their abominable deeds!

I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and I will place my sword in his hand, but I will break the arms of Pharaoh, and he will groan like the fatally wounded before the king of Babylon. ¹