In your days of majesty, ¹  was not Sodom your sister a byword in your mouth,

“‘Your mother was like a vine in your vineyard, ¹  planted by water. It was fruitful and full of branches because it was well-watered.

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

Consider Assyria, ¹  a cedar in Lebanon, ²  with beautiful branches, like a forest giving shade, and extremely tall; its top reached into the clouds.

This is what the sovereign Lord says: The enemy has spoken against you, saying “Aha!” and, “The ancient heights ¹  have become our property!”’

“Son of man, when the house of Israel was living on their own land, they defiled it by their behavior ¹  and their deeds. In my sight their behavior was like the uncleanness of a woman having her monthly period.

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

The hand ¹  of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and placed ²  me in the midst of the valley, and it was full of bones.

Cry out and moan, son of man, for it is wielded against my people; against all the princes of Israel. They are delivered up to the sword, along with my people. Therefore, strike your thigh. ¹ 

They will sing this lament over you: ¹  “‘How you have perished – you have vanished ²  from the seas, O renowned city, once mighty in the sea, she and her inhabitants, who spread their terror! ³ 

Now the hand of the Lord had been on me ¹  the evening before the refugee reached me, but the Lord ²  opened my mouth by the time the refugee arrived ³  in the morning; he opened my mouth and I was no longer unable to speak. ⁴ 

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 ¹  was struck down, on this very day, ²  the hand ³  of the Lord was on me, and he brought me there. ⁴ 

“‘They must not come near a dead person or they will be defiled; ¹  however, for father, mother, son, daughter, brother or sister, they may defile themselves.