The Babylonian Exile

They will treat you with hatred, take all for which you have worked, and leave you naked and bare, so that the shame of your prostitution will be exposed. Your indecency and promiscuity

have brought these things upon you, because you have prostituted yourself with the nations and defiled yourself with their idols.

Because you have followed the path of your sister, I will put her cup into your hand.’

This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘You will drink your sister’s cup, a cup deep and wide. It will bring scorn and derision, for it holds so much.

You will be filled with drunkenness and grief, with a cup of devastation and desolation, the cup of your sister Samaria.

You will drink it and drain it; you will dash it to pieces, and tear your breasts. For I have spoken,’ declares the Lord GOD.

Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because you have forgotten Me and have cast Me behind your back, you must bear the consequences of your indecency and prostitution.’”

Then the LORD said to me: “Son of man, will you pass judgment against Oholah and Oholibah? Then declare to them their abominations.

For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands. They have committed adultery with their idols. They have even sacrificed their children, whom they bore to Me, in the fire as food for their idols.

They have also done this to Me: On that very same day, they defiled My sanctuary and profaned My Sabbaths.

On the very day they slaughtered their children for their idols, they entered My sanctuary to profane it. Yes, they did this inside My house.

Furthermore, you sisters sent messengers for men who came from afar; and behold, when they arrived, you bathed for them, painted your eyes, and adorned yourself with jewelry.

You sat on a couch of luxury with a table spread before it, on which you had set My incense and My oil,

accompanied by the sound of a carefree crowd. Drunkards were brought in from the desert along with men from the rabble, who put bracelets on your wrists and beautiful crowns on your head.

Then I said of her who had grown old in adulteries: ‘Now let them use her as a prostitute, for that is all she is!’

And they slept with her as with a prostitute; they slept with Oholah and Oholibah, those lewd women.

But righteous men will sentence them to the punishment of those who commit adultery and bloodshed, because they are adulteresses with blood on their hands.

This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Bring a mob against them and consign them to terror and plunder.

The mob will stone them and cut them down with their swords. They will kill their sons and daughters and burn down their houses.

So I will put an end to indecency in the land, and all the women will be admonished not to imitate your behavior.

They will repay you for your indecency, and you will bear the consequences of your sins of idolatry. Then you will know that I am the Lord GOD.’”

In the ninth year, on the tenth day of the tenth month, the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

“Son of man, write down today’s date, for on this very day the king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem.

Now speak a parable to this rebellious house and tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Put the pot on the fire; put it on and pour in the water.

Put in the pieces of meat, every good piece— thigh and shoulder— fill it with choice bones.