IEZEKIEL
TO THE READER

EDITION OF THE GREEK TEXT

The NETS version of Iezekiel (Ezekiel) follows the Greek edition by Joseph Ziegler Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum Auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum XVI.1: Ezekiel (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977) in all points with the exception of some matters of punctuation and sentence divisions.

With the MT as the point of comparison, the LXX text features numerous omissions as well as some additions. Larger omissions occur in chaps. 32 and 33, where all of 32.19; and 33.26 are absent from the Septuagint text, and the larger part of 32.23, 25, 31; 33.25 and 27 are lacking. Larger plusses occur in Iezek 40.6–8 and 43 and 44. The reader will also note a shuffling in the order of verses at the beginning of chap. 7.

TRANSLATION PROFILE OF THE GREEK

The Greek translators follow an isomorphic model of translation quite closely, preferring to employ a Greek item to represent each Hebrew item. But within this approach, (explained as the interlinear model; see “TO THE READER OF NETS”), the Greek translators employ relative freedom in the choice of the exact terms used in various contexts. The translation shows both semantic leveling, as one Greek term can be used to represent several Hebrew terms, but it also shows a great deal of semantic differentiation, as many Greek terms can be used to render one Hebrew term. To cite a particularly clear example of semantic differentiation, the single Hebrew term “sword” is translated by four different Greek terms: “sword” , “dagger” , “hand-knife” and “rapier” . The first two terms alternate as the most common translation of depending on the political context of the prophesies, while the latter two terms occur only five times overall, being reserved for specific contexts. In chaps. 5–24 where the prophecies concern Israel, the standard translation is “sword” , occurring 34x, whereas “dagger” only occurs twice in these same chapters. The relative frequency inverts in chaps. 25–32 where the focus of the prophecies shifts to other nations. There “dagger” occurs 27x compared to only 7 for “sword” . Then in chap. 33 the situation inverts again as the focus of the prophecies shifts back to Israel and “sword” occurs 5x compared to one for “dagger” . In yet another reversal the prophecies concerning Gog and Magog in chaps. 38 and 39 “dagger” occurs four times as the exclusive translation for . “Hand-knife” occurs only three times, in 21.3, 4 and 5, where it describes the Lord’s own weapon, and “rapier” occurs only in 16.40 and 23.47, in both contexts describing a lover’s sword used to slay a prostitute.

The choice of terms in many cases possibly reflects changes made according to political contexts, since terms seem to vary based upon the nation being discussed, be it Israel, Egypt, Idumea (Edom), Tyre, Sidon or others. While it is possible that the translators were trying to be sensitive to political nuances, another explanation would be that different translators handled different materials and therefore word choices reflect the individual preferences of separate translators.

So for example, the terms for political leaders show both semantic leveling and differentiation that generally correspond to political contexts. The translators seem to avoid using royal language to describe the rulers of Israel, even when the Hebrew employs royal language to describe them. Instead, to describe the leaders in Israel the translators use the rather generic terms “leader/guide” and “guide/leader” or “ruler” . So even when the Hebrew uses the term “king” three times to describe the kings of Israel in 43.7 and 9, the Greek translators use the term “guide/leader” . Elsewhere, the translators regularly use the royal term “king” to translate , but in those contexts it does not describe the kings of Israel but rather the kings of Babylon (17.12 and 16 and elsewhere), of the earth (27.33), of the islands (27.35), of Egypt (29.2; 30.10 and elsewhere). The only king of Israel or Judah who bears the title “king” is Ioakim in 1.2. Even Dauid is not described as “king” in 37.24 but rather as “ruler” , even though the Hebrew reads “king” . Likewise, the term , which the NRSV translates as “prince” when referring to princes in Israel, is rendered with the terms “ruler” , “leader/guide” and “guide/leader” (see 12.12; 46.2; 45.7).

The translators also (possibly) show variations in their choice of terms to describe the destruction of different political entities, including cities and countries. So they translate the term “desolation” as “annihilation” , i.e., devastation to the point of complete disappearance, when describing the destruction of Israel in chaps. 6–23. But when describing the “desolation” of Egypt in chap. 29, the Greek has the term “destruction/ruin” , and then “desolation” when describing Mount Seir in chap. 35, which implies that the land is emptied but still exists. So “wilderness” translates the term “wilderness” in chaps. 6–20, when the discussion concerns Israel; then it translates “ruins” in chaps. 25–30 when the discussion switches to Edom, Tyre and Egypt. In chaps. 33–35 where the discussion concerns the mountains of Seir and Israel, “wilderness” translates “desolation” . Then in chaps. 36 and 38, which promise the restoration of the ruined areas in Israel, “wilderness” once again translates “ruins” . Other words for destruction in both noun and verb forms show similar patterns of differentiation.

As a final set of examples of possible political contextualization, the terms regarding sin show a high degree of differentiation in various political contexts, although not as consistently as the terms for rulers or even the terms for destruction. So the term “misdeed” is rendered as “injustice” in chaps. 3–24, regarding the sin of Israel. An exception occurs in 16.49, in the long comparison of Israel to a prostitute where “misdeed” is translated as “lawless act” . But the same term “misdeed” is rendered as “sin” regarding the ruler of Tyre in 28.18 and as “lawlessness” regarding the misdeeds of Egypt, Mosoch (Meshech) and Thobel (Tubal) in 29.16 and 32.27. Then, in chaps. 33–44, where the discussion reverts to Israel, “misdeed” is translated by four different terms, “lawlessness” , “impiety” , “sin” and “injustice” in 33.8; 33.9; 39.23 and 44.10, respectively.

The variation of terms found in the Greek translation does not concern only political contexts but is reflected in many other terms as well. For example, the term “spirit” or “wind” is translated by six different Greek terms: “wind” , “spirit/wind” , “blast/breath” , “fervor” , “face” and “part” , depending on the precise linguistic context.

As a result of the nuancing of their terms, the translators produce a Greek text that is, for the most part, quite understandable, although their excessive literalism can present problems for the reader of the Greek text. Very problematic is the lack of nuance shown in rendering the Hebrew word “give,” which can also mean “to set,” “establish,” “appoint” or “turn into.” But despite the variations of the Hebrew meanings, the translators almost always render it with “give,” which does not have the same extended range of meanings as does Hebrew , with the result that many turns of phrase must have sounded odd to a Greek ear.

Also problematic is the literal translation of the Hebrew oath formula, as exemplified in 16.48: “I live, says the Lord, if your sister Sodoma has acted, she and her daughters, as you and your daughters acted! …” What follows the “if” clause is left unspoken, so the reader is left with an unresolved conditional clause and a sentence fragment.

THE NETS TRANSLATION

There are two ways to depart from a literal one-for-one correspondence of Greek terms for Hebrew terms. Either several Greek terms can be used to translate a single Hebrew term or a single Greek term can be used for several Hebrew terms. Both are commonplace in the Greek translation of Iezekiel in a way that cannot be characterized as either pure semantic leveling or as pure semantic nuancing, because one-for-many and many-for-one substitutions occur for the same terms. So, for example, the Greek term “stretch out” translates five different Hebrew terms: (1.11); (1.23); (2.9); (1.22); and (37.6). Taken by itself it would appear to be a case of semantic leveling. But if one looks at , one of the Hebrew terms translated by is itself translated by five distinct Greek terms: (3.6); (7.3); (8.3); (14.19); (44.20). As a result, it is impossible to assert that the translators were leveling the translations for the term and related terms. There is an interlocking pattern of both one-for-many and many-for-one substitutions.

As a result where there is a pattern of one-for-one translations for terms, NETS also follows a straight one-for-one substitution following the NRSV, as much as possible. But where there is a many-for-one pattern interwoven with a one-for-many pattern, NETS varies the terms that are used for the Greek terms, as much as possible. Each Greek-for-Hebrew translation couplet is represented by distinct English terms. So when translates , it is represented in NETS by “extend,” but when it translates , it is represented by “stretch out,” since is being used in two different ways. Likewise, when is translated by , NETS uses “send,” whereas when is translated by , again NETS uses “extend,” because two different terms are being used to translate a single Greek term. Since the translations display neither pure leveling nor nuancing, the departures from literal one-for-one substitutions are both marked by a variation of the terms in NETS.

As for the exceptional one-for-one literalism in the use of for , NETS seeks to represent the problem by rendering “give” with synonyms for “give,” even when they produce a somewhat forced translation, to try to represent the literalism of the Greek translation with regard to the term.

Finally, there are numerous cases of disagreement between subject and verb of the sentence, where a plural noun disagrees with a singular verb. In these cases, the offending noun and pronoun or verb are rendered as they are in Greek to indicate a disruption of the normal pattern of grammatical agreement. For example 3.7 reads: “But the house of Israel shall not be willing to listen to you, for they do not wish to listen to me, because all the house of Israel are contentious and hard-hearted.” The singular “house of Israel” does not agree with the plural forms of the verb in the next clauses, resulting in a lack of agreement in the NETS translation.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

I would like to thank Albert Pietersma for all his insightful comments regarding the translation of Iezekiel, Benjamin Wright for his efforts to organize the project and keep it on track, and Matt Olsen and my wife, Meredyth Hubler, for their patient proofreading. Good use has been made of the standard grammars and lexica.

J. NOEL HUBLER

1 And it happened in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth of the month, and I was in the middle of the captivity by the river Chobar, and the heavens were opened, and I saw divine appearances. ²On the fifth of the month (this was the fifth year of the captivity of King Ioakim) (³)and a word of the Lord came to the priest Iezekiel son of Bouzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chobar, ³and the hand of the Lord came upon me.

4 And I looked, and behold, a rising wind was coming out of the north, and a great cloud was in it, and radiance was all around it and fire flashing forth, and in the middle of it^a was something like a sight of electrum in the middle of the fire, and radiance was in it^b. ⁵And in the middle was something like a likeness of four living beings, and this was their appearance: a human likeness was upon them, ⁶and one had four faces, and one had four wings. ⁷And their legs were straight, and their feet were winged, and there were sparks like flashing bronze, and their wings were nimble. ⁸And a human hand was underneath their wings on their four parts, and the faces of the four ⁹were not veering when they were going. Each was moving opposite their face. ¹⁰And as for the resemblance of their faces: there was a face of a human, and the four had a face of a lion on the right, and the four had a face of a calf on the left, and the four had a face of an eagle. ¹¹And the four had their wings, stretched out above. Each had two adjoined to each other, and two were covering up over their body. ¹²And each was moving according to its face. Wherever was the spirit as it moved, they were moving and were not veering. ¹³And in the middle of the living beings was an appearance like burning coals of fire, as the look of torches coming together between the living beings, and a radiance of the fire, and lightning was issuing from the fire.

15 And I looked, and behold, the four had one wheel on the ground, close to the living beings. ¹⁶ And the aspect of the wheels was like the aspect of tharsis^c, and the four had one likeness, and their construction was just as if a wheel was within a wheel. ¹⁷They were moving upon their four parts, and they were not veering when they were moving, ¹⁸ nor were their backs, and they had height, and I looked at them, and the four had their backs full of eyes all around. ¹⁹And when the living beings were moving, the wheels were moving next to them, and when the living beings rose from the ground, the wheels were raised. ²⁰Wherever was the cloud, there was the spirit to move; the living beings were moving, and the wheels were being raised with them, for a spirit of life was in the wheels. ²¹When the living beings were moving, they were moving, and when the living beings stopped, they stopped, and when the living beings rose from the ground, they were raised with them, for a spirit of life was in the wheels.

22 And over the head of the living beings, they had a likeness just like a firmament—like a sight of ice—stretched out on their wings from above. ²³ And under the firmament, their wings were stretched out, flapping, one against the other. Each had two wings covering over their bodies. ²⁴And when they were moving, I heard the sound of their wings, like the sound of abundant water, and when they were pausing, their wings were resting. ²⁵ And behold, a voice from above the firmament that was over their heads.

26 Like an appearance of a lapis lazuli stone was the likeness of a throne upon it, and on the likeness of the throne was a likeness just as a form of a human above. ²⁷And I saw something like the view of electrum from the appearance of the loin and up, and from the appearance of the loin and all the way down, I saw something like an appearance of fire, and its radiance was all around. ²⁸Like an appearance of a bow whenever it is in the cloud in a day of rain, so was the vision of the radiance all around.

2 This was the appearance of a likeness of the glory of the Lord, and I looked and fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one speaking.

(2.1) And he said to me: Son of man, stand upon your feet, and I will speak to you. ²And a spirit came upon me and took me up and raised me and set me upon my feet, and I heard him speaking to me, ³and he said to me, Son of man, I am sending you out to the house of Israel, those who are embittering me—who embittered me, they and their fathers, to this very day, ⁴and you shall say to them, “This is what the Lord says.” ⁵ Whether then they hear or are terrified (for it is an embittering house), they shall also know that you are a prophet in their midst. ⁶And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them nor be dismayed from before them, because they will sting and band together against you all around, and you live in the midst of scorpions; do not be afraid of their words, and do not be dismayed from before them, for it is an embittering house. ⁷And you shall speak my words to them, whether then they hear or are terrified (for it is an embittering house).

8 And you, son of man, hear the one speaking to you. Do not become one who embitters just like the embittering house; open wide your mouth, and eat the things that I give you. ⁹And I saw and, behold, a hand stretched out to me, and in it was a scroll of a book. ¹⁰And he^a unrolled it before me, and on it the front and back were inscribed, and lamentation and strain and woe had been inscribed.

3 And he said to me, Son of man, devour this scroll, and go, and speak to the sons of Israel. ² And I opened wide my mouth, and he fed me the scroll. ³And he said to me, Son of man, your mouth shall eat, and your belly shall be filled with this scroll that has been given to you. And I ate it, and in my mouth it was like sweet honey.

4 And he said to me, Son of man, go, enter to the house of Israel, and speak my words to them, ⁵ for not to a thick-lipped and heavy-tongued people are you being sent out, to the house of Israel—⁶ nor to many people of other languages or other tongues, neither being robust with their tongue, whose words you will not understand. Even if I had sent you out to such, these would have listened to you. ⁷But the house of Israel shall not be willing to listen to you, for they do not wish to listen to me, because all the house of Israel are contentious and hard-hearted. ⁸And behold, I have rendered your face powerful against their faces, and I will make strong your contention^b against their contention^b, ⁹and it shall be continually stronger than rock. Do not be afraid of them, nor be terrified from before them, for it is an embittering house. ¹⁰And he said to me, Son of man, all the words that I have spoken with you, take into your heart, and hear with your ears, ¹¹and go, enter into the captivity, to the sons of your people, and you will speak to them and say to them, “This is what the Lord says”; whether, then, they hear, whether, then, they give in.

12 And a spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me a sound of a great shaking, “Blessed is the glory of the Lord from his place.” ¹³And I perceived the sound of the wings of the living beings as they flapped, one against the other. And there was a sound of the wheels beside them, and a sound of the shaking. ¹⁴And the spirit lifted me up and took me up, and I went in a rush of my spirit, and the hand of the Lord came strong upon me. ¹⁵ And I came into the captivity high up and went around those living by the river Chobar, those that were there, and I sat there seven days face about among them.

16 And after seven days, a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ¹⁷Son of man, I have given you as a sentinel to the house of Israel, and you shall hear a word from my mouth, and you shall warn them from me. ¹⁸When I say to the lawless, “By death you shall be put to death,” and you did not give him strict orders, nor did you speak in order to give the lawless one strict orders to turn back from his ways that he might live, that lawless one shall die for his injustice, and I will demand his blood from your hand. ¹⁹And if you give the lawless one strict orders and he does not turn back from his lawlessness and his way, that lawless one shall die for his injustice, and you shall rescue your soul. ²⁰And when a righteous one turns away from his righteous acts, and if he commits transgression, and I will ^cgive the test in front of him^c, he shall die, because you did not give him strict orders. And he shall die in his sins, for his righteous acts that he did shall not be remembered, and I will demand his blood from your hand. ²¹But you, if you give the righteous strict orders not to sin, and he does not sin, the righteous shall live by life, because you gave him strict orders, and you shall rescue your own soul.

22 And the hand of the Lord came upon me, and he said to me, “Rise up, and go out into the plain, and there it shall be spoken to you.” ²³And I rose up and went out into the plain, and behold, the glory of the Lord stood there, just like the appearance and just like the glory that I saw by the river Chobar, and I fell upon my face. ²⁴And a spirit came upon me and set me on my feet, and he spoke to me and said to me: Enter, and be closed in within your house. ²⁵As for you, son of man, behold, bands have been given upon you, and they shall bind you with them, and you shall not go out from their midst. ²⁶And I will bind fast your tongue, and you shall be made mute, and to them you shall not be as a man who reproves, for it is an embittering house. ²⁷And when I speak to you, I will open your mouth, and you shall say to them, “This is what the Lord says.” Let the one who hears hear, and let the one who refuses refuse, for it is an embittering house.

4 And you, son of man, take for yourself a brick, and you shall set it in front of you and portray upon it a city, Ierousalem. ²And you shall give an enclosure against it and build siege walls against it and cast a palisade against it and give camps against it and line up the batteries of war engines all around. ³And take for yourself an iron fryingpan, and you shall place it as an iron wall between you and between the city^a, and you shall ready your face against it. And it shall be in an enclosing, and you shall enclose it^a. This is a sign for the sons of Israel.

4 And you shall lie on your left side, and you shall place the injustices of the house of Israel upon it^b, in number, one hundred fifty days, during which you lie upon it^b, and you shall receive their injustices. ⁵And I have given to you their two injustices for a number of days, one hundred ninety days. And you shall take the injustices of the house of Israel, ⁶and you shall complete these things, and you shall lie on your right side and take the injustices of the house of Ioudas for forty days. A day for a year I have assigned you. ⁷And for the enclosing of Ierousalem you shall ready your face, and you shall make firm your arm and prophesy against it^c. ⁸As for me, behold, I have given bands upon you, and do not turn from your side to your side until the days of your enclosing are completed.

9 And you, take for yourself wheat and barley and beans and lentils and millet and spelt, and you shall put them into one earthen vessel and make them into bread for yourself, and during the number of days that you lie on your side, one hundred ninety days, you shall eat them. ¹⁰And your food that you shall eat shall be twenty shekels a day by weight. From time to time you shall eat them. ¹¹And you shall drink water, by measure, one sixth of a hin^d. From time to time you shall drink. ¹²And you shall eat them as an ash-baked loaf of barley. You shall cover them before their eyes with pieces of human dung. ¹³And you shall say: This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says, “Thus shall the sons of Israel eat unclean things among the nations.” ¹⁴And I said, “In no way, O Lord, God of Israel, if my soul has not been defiled in uncleanness and from my birth until now I have not eaten a carcass or that which was killed by animals, and no day-old meat has come into my mouth.” ¹⁵And he said to me, “Behold, I have given you dung of cattle instead of human dung, and you shall prepare your bread upon it.”

16 And he said to me, Son of man, behold, I am shattering the support of bread in Ierousalem, and they shall eat bread by weight and in need and drink water in measure and in annihilation ¹⁷so that they be in need of bread and water, and a person and his brother shall be annihilated, and they shall waste away in their injustices.

5 And you, son of man, take for yourself a sharp sword. Just like a barber’s razor you shall acquire it for yourself and lay it upon your head and upon your beard. And you shall take a balance of weights and divide them^e. ²A quarter you shall burn in the fire in the midst of the city according to the completion of the days of the enclosing, and you shall take a quarter, and you shall burn it up in its^f midst, and a quarter you shall cut up with a sword around it^g; a quarter you shall scatter by the wind, and I will unsheathe a dagger after them^e. ³ And from there you shall take a few in number and bundle them^e in your robe. ⁴And you shall take some from them^e again and throw theme into the midst of the fire and burn them^e up in the fire; from it a fire shall go forth.

And you shall say to all the house of Israel, ⁵ This is what the Lord says: This is Ierousalem. I have set her and the countries surrounding her in the midst of the nations. ⁶And you shall speak my statutes and my laws to the lawless one out of the nations, out of the countries around her, for they rejected my statutes and in my precepts they have not walked in them. ⁷Therefore, this is what the Lord says: Because your starting point was from the nations around you and you did not walk in my precepts and did not perform my statutes—on the contrary, you have not even acted according to the statutes of the nations around you—8therefore, this is what the Lord says: Behold, I am against you, and I will execute judgment in your midst before the nations, ⁹and I will do in you what I have not done and the like of which I will not do again because of all your abominations. ¹⁰Therefore, fathers shall eat children in your midst, and children shall eat fathers, and I will execute judgments against you, and I will scatter all your survivors to every wind. ¹¹Therefore, I live, says the Lord. Surely, because you defiled my holy places with all your abominations, I will also thrust you aside. My eye shall not spare, and I will have no pity. ¹²A quarter of you shall be dispensed by death, and a quarter of you shall be finished off by famine in your midst, and a quarter of you, to every wind I will scatter them, and a quarter of you shall fall by the sword around you, and a dagger I will unsheathe after them.

13 And my wrath and my fury shall be completed upon them, and you shall recognize that I, the Lord, have spoken in my jealousy, when I spend my anger on them. ¹⁴And I will make you and your daughters around you into a wilderness before every passer-by. ¹⁵And you shall be mourned and be wretched among the nations around you when I execute my judgments against you in the punishment of my wrath; I, the Lord, have spoken. ¹⁶When I send out my missiles of famine upon them, they shall also become a wiping out, and I will shatter your support of bread. ¹⁷ And I will send out famine and harmful animals against you, and I will take vengeance against you, and death and blood shall pass through upon you, and I will bring a sword upon you from all around; I, the Lord, have spoken.

6 And word of the Lord came to me, saying, ² Son of man, set your face upon the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them. ³And you shall say, As for the mountains of Israel—hear a word of the Lord. This is what the Lord says to the mountains and the hills and the ravines and the dells: Behold, I myself am bringing a sword upon you, and I will utterly destroy your high places, ⁴and your altars and your sacred precincts shall be shattered, and I will throw down your wounded in front of your idols. ⁵And I will scatter your bones around your altars. ⁶In every habitation of yours the cities shall be devastated, and the high places will be annihilated so that your altars shall be utterly destroyed and your idols broken and your sacred precincts razed. ⁷And the wounded shall fall in your midst, and you shall recognize that I am the Lord.

8 When there are some of you who are rescued from the sword among the nations and are in your dispersion among the countries, ⁹the rescued ones of you shall also remember me among the nations, there where they were taken prisoner. I have sworn to their heart that is whoring away from me and to their eyes that play the whore after their practices, and they shall strike their faces for all their abominations, ¹⁰and they shall recognize that I, the Lord, have spoken.

11 This is what the Lord says: Clap your hand, and stomp your foot, and say, Good, good! For all the abominations of the house of Israel, they shall fall by the sword and by death and by famine. ¹² The one who is near shall fall by the sword, while the one who is far away shall come to an end by death, and the one gripped by hunger shall be finished off, and I will spend my anger upon them. ¹³ And you shall know that I am the Lord, when your wounded are in the midst of your idols around your altars, on every lofty hill and under a shady tree, where they gave an odor of fragrance to all their idols. ¹⁴And I will stretch out my hand against them and make their land into an annihilation and destruction from the wilderness of Deblatha, out of every habitation, and you shall recognize that I am the Lord.

7 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ² And you, son of man, say, This is what the Lord says to the land of Israel:

An end has come. The end has come
upon the four extremities of the land.

³⁽⁶⁾ The end has come

⁴⁽⁷⁾ upon you, the inhabitant of the land.

The time has come near; the day has arrived
not with tumult or with anguish.

⁵⁽⁸⁾ Now close by I will pour out my anger upon
         you
and will spend my fury against you,

and I will judge you by your ways
and will give against you all your
         abominations.

⁶⁽⁹⁾ My eye will not spare, nor will I show pity,
    for I will give your ways against you

and your abominations shall be in your
         midst,

and you shall recognize that it is I, the
Lord, who strike.

⁷⁽³⁾ Now the end is upon you,
and I will send it upon you,

and I will punish you for your ways,
and I will give against you all your
         abominations.

⁸⁽⁴⁾ My eye will not spare, nor will I show pity,
for I will give your way against you
and your abominations shall be in your
         midst.

And you shall recognize that I am the Lord,

⁹⁽⁵⁾ because this is what the Lord says:

¹⁰ Behold, the end has come,
behold, a day of the Lord.

Even if the rod has blossomed, insolence
         has arisen.

¹¹ And it shall shatter a support of a lawless
         one

and not with tumult or with haste.

¹² The time has come, behold, the day;
let not the buyer be glad, and let not the
         seller mourn,

¹³ for the buyer shall no longer return to the
         seller,

and a person shall not gain control of his
life by his eye.

¹⁴ Trumpet with a trumpet, and judge all
         things.

¹⁵ War by the sword is from without,
and famine and death from within.

The one on the plain shall come to an end
         by the sword,

while those in the city famine and death
shall finish off.

¹⁶ And the survivors of them shall survive
and shall be upon the mountains;

I will slay them all, each in his injustices.

¹⁷ All hands shall grow feeble, and all thighs shall be sullied with
moisture.

¹⁸ And they shall gird themselves round with
         sackcloth,

and amazement shall cover them.

And shame shall be on every face on them,
and baldness on every head.

¹⁹ Their silver shall be thrown into the streets,
and their gold shall be despised.

Their souls shall not be satisfied, and their bellies shall not be filled, for a test of their injustices has occurred. ²⁰Choice things of decoration—they made them into arrogance, and they made from them^a images of their abominations; therefore I have given them^a to them as impurity.

²¹ And I will hand them^a over into the hands
         of foreigners to seize them^a

and to the pestiferous ones of the earth as
plunder,

and they shall profane them^a.

²² And I will turn back my face from them,
and they shall defile my visitation.

And they will enter into them^a without
         precaution,

and they will profane them^a.

²³ And they shall create disorder,
because the land is full of peoples
and the city is full of lawlessness.

²⁴ And I will turn back the wantonness of their
         strength,

and their holy things^b shall be defiled.

²⁵ Atonement shall come, and it shall seek
         peace,

and it shall not be.

²⁶ Woe shall be upon woe,
and rumor shall be upon rumor.

And vision shall be sought from a prophet,
and law shall perish from the priest,
and counsel from the elders.

²⁷ And a ruler shall be clothed in annihilation,
and the hands of the people of the land
         shall be disabled.

According to their ways I will deal with
         them,
and by their judgments I will judge them.

And they shall know that I am the Lord.

8 And it happened in the eighth year, in the fifth month, on the fifth of the month, I was sitting in my house, and the elders of Ioudas were sitting before me, and the hand of the Lord came upon me, ²and I saw, and behold, a likeness of a man, and from his loin and all the way down was fire, and from the loin up was as an appearance of white gold. ³And a likeness of a hand extended and lifted me up by the top of my head, and a spirit took me up between earth and between sky and brought me to Ierousalem in a divine vision to the entry of the gate looking north, where the stele of the buyer was. ⁴And behold, the glory of the Lord God of Israel was there like the vision that I saw in the plain.

5 And he said to me, “Son of man, look up with your eyes to the north.” And I looked up with my eyes to the north, and behold, from the north to the gate to the east! ⁶And he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what these are doing? They are committing great acts of lawlessness here by keeping themselves far from my holy things. And you will see still greater acts of lawlessness.”

7 And he brought me to the entry of the court ⁸ and said to me, “Son of man, dig.” And I dug and behold, one door. ⁹And he said to me, “Go in, and see the lawless acts that they are committing here.” ¹⁰ And I went in and looked, and behold, vain abominations and all the idols of the house of Israel were portrayed on it all around, ¹¹and seventy men from the elders of the house of Israel; Iezonias the son of Saphan stood in the midst of them in front of them, and each had his censer in his hand, and the vapor of the incense was ascending. ¹² And he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing, each of them in their hidden bedroom? For they said, ‘The Lord does not see; the Lord has forsaken the land.’ “ ¹³And he said to me, “You will see still greater acts of lawlessness that these are committing.”

14 And he brought me to the entry of the gate of the house of the Lord looking north, and behold, women sitting there, lamenting Thammouz, ¹⁵ and he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen? And you will see still practices greater than these.”

16 And he brought me into the inner court of the house of the Lord, and behold, at the entry of the shrine of the Lord, between the^c ailam^d and between the altar there were about twenty men, their behinds to the shrine of the Lord and their faces opposite, and they were doing obeisance to the sun. ¹⁷And he said to me. “Have you seen, son of man? Is it only a small thing for the house of Ioudas to commit the lawless acts that they have committed here? For they filled the land with lawlessness, and behold, they are like ones that turn their nose up. ¹⁸And I will act against them with wrath; my eye shall not spare, nor will I show pity.”

9 And he cried out into my ears in a loud voice, saying, “The judgment of the city has come near,” and each had the instruments of annihilation in his hand. ²And behold, six men were coming from the way of the high gate looking north, and each had an ax in his hand, and one man in the midst of them wearing a full-length robe, and a sapphire^e belt was upon his loin, and they entered and stood close to the bronze altar.

3 And the glory of the God of Israel ascended from the cheroubin. It was upon them up to the atrium of the house. And he summoned the man who wore the full-length robe who had the belt upon his loin. ⁴And he said to him, “Pass through the middle of Ierousalem, and give the mark upon the foreheads of the men who sigh and have been afflicted over all the lawless acts that happen in their midst.” ⁵And to these he said as I was listening, “Go over after him into the city, and smite, and do not spare with your eyes, and you shall show no pity; ⁶exterminate elder and young man and unmarried girl and little children and women unto obliteration, but you shall not approach anyone upon whom is the mark, and begin from my holy places.” And they began from the men who were inside, in the house. ⁷And he said to them, “Defile the house, and fill the roads with the dead as you go out, and smite.” ⁸And it happened, when they were smiting, I also fell upon my face and shouted out and said, “Woe is me, O Lord, are you wiping out the survivors from Israel when you pour out your wrath upon Ierousalem?” ⁹And he said to me, “The injustice of the house of Israel and Ioudas has become very, very great, because the land was filled with many people and the city was filled with injustice and uncleanness, for they said, ‘The Lord has forsaken the land; the Lord does not watch.’ ¹⁰And my eye shall not spare, nor shall I show pity; I have given their ways against their heads.”

11 And behold, the man who wore the full-length robe and girded with a belt on his loin and he answered, saying, “I have done as you commanded me.”

10 And I saw, and behold, above the firmament over the head of the cheroubin was something like a lapis lazuli stone; a likeness of a throne was upon them. ²And he said to the man clothed in the robe, “Go into the midst of the wheelworks under the cheroubin, and fill your hands with coals from the fire in the midst of the cheroubin, and scatter them upon the city.” And he went in before me. ³And the cheroubin stood on the right of the house when the man was entering, and the cloud filled the inner court. ⁴And the glory of the Lord arose from the cheroubin into the atrium of the house, and the cloud filled the house, and the court was filled with the radiance of the glory of the Lord. ⁵And a sound of wings of the cheroubin was heard as far as the outer court like a voice of God Saddai when he speaks.

6 And it happened, when he was commanding the man clothed in the holy robe, saying, “Take fire from the midst of the wheelworks from the midst of the cheroubin,” and he went in and stood close to the wheels. ⁷And he extended his hand into the midst of the fire that was among the cheroubin and took and gave it into the hands of the one clothed in the holy robe, and he took it and went out. ⁸And I saw the cheroubin; a likeness of human hands was underneath their wings.

9 And I saw, and behold, four wheels stood close to the cheroubin, one wheel close to one cheroub, and the appearance of the wheels was as the appearance of a stone of carbuncle. ¹⁰And their appearance was one likeness belonging to the four, as whenever a wheel is in the midst of a wheel. ¹¹ When they^a were moving, they were moving in their four parts. They were not veering when they were moving, because they were moving to whichever place ^bthe one first element^b looked, and they were not veering when they were moving. ¹² And their backs and their hands and their wings and their wheels were full of eyes all around the four wheels. ¹³Now, as I was listening, the name Gelgel was assigned to these wheels.

15 And the cheroubin rose up. This is the living being that I saw by the river of Chobar. ¹⁶And when the cheroubin were moving, the wheels were moving, and they were close to them. And when the cheroubin were lifting up their wings to be borne aloft from the earth, their wheels were not veering. ¹⁷When they^a stopped, they^b stopped, and when they^a were being borne aloft, they^b were being borne aloft with them, for a spirit of life was in them.

18 And the glory of the Lord went out from the house and mounted upon the cheroubin, ¹⁹and the cheroubin lifted up their wings, and they were borne aloft from the earth before me when they went out together with the wheels beside them, and they stood at the entry of the opposite gate of the house of the Lord, and the glory of God of Israel was upon them from above.

20 This is the living being that I saw below the God of Israel by the river Chobar, and I knew that they were cheroubin. ²¹One had four faces, and one had eight wings, and a likeness of human hands was underneath their wings. ²²As for the resemblance of their faces: these were the faces that I saw below the glory of the God of Israel by the river Chobar, and they were moving, each in front of them.

11 And a spirit lifted me up and brought me to the opposite gate of the house of the Lord, the one looking east, and behold, at the entry of the gate were about twenty-five men, and in the midst of them I saw Iezonias the son of Ezer and Phaltias the son of Banaias, the commanders of the people. ²And the Lord said to me, “Son of man, these are the men who devise empty things and deliberate wicked counsel in this city, ³the ones who say, ‘Have not the dwellings been built recently? This^c is the cauldron while we are the meat.’ ⁴Therefore, prophesy against them; prophesy, son of man.”

5 And a spirit fell upon me and said to me, “This is what the Lord says: Speak thus, O house of Israel, I understand even the deliberation of your spirit. ⁶You multiplied your dead in this city and packed full your roads with the wounded. ⁷Therefore this is what the Lord says: Your dead that you have set out in its^c midst—these are the meat, and this^c is the cauldron—and I will take you out from its^c midst. ⁸You fear a sword, and I will bring a sword upon you, says the Lord. ⁹And I will take you out from its midst and give you over to the hands of foreigners, and I will execute judgments among you. ¹⁰You shall fall by the sword, I will judge you at the borders of Israel, and you shall recognize that I am the Lord. ¹¹This^a shall not be for you as a cauldron, and you shall not become in its midst as meat. I will judge you at the borders of Israel, ¹²and you shall recognize that I am the Lord.”

13 And it happened, while I was prophesying, and Phaltias son of Banaias died, and I fell upon my face, and I shouted with a loud voice and said, “Woe is me; woe is me, O Lord; are you making an end of the remnant of Israel?”

14 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ¹⁵ Son of man, your brothers and the men of your captivity and the entire house of Israel have been finished off, those to whom the inhabitants of Ierousalem have said, “You keep far from the Lord. To us the land has been given as a portion.” ¹⁶ Therefore, say: This is what the Lord says, “I will drive them away into the nations, and I will scatter them into all the earth, and I will be for them as a small holy precinct in the countries, there where they enter.” ¹⁷Therefore I said, This is what the Lord says: And I will take them in from the nations and will assemble them from the countries, in them where I dispersed them, and I will give them the land of Israel. ¹⁸And they shall enter there, and they shall remove all its abominations and all its lawless acts from it. ¹⁹And I will give them another heart, and I will impart a new spirit in them, and I will draw forth the heart of stone from their flesh, and I will give them a heart of flesh ²⁰so that they might walk by my ordinances and keep my statutes and perform them, and they shall be for me as a people, and I will be a god for them. ²¹And against the heart of their abominations and of their lawless acts—just as their heart was going, I have given their ways against their heads, says the Lord.

22 And the cheroubin lifted up their wings, and their wheels were beside them, and the glory of the God of Israel was upon them, above them, ²³ and the glory of the Lord ascended from the midst of the city and stopped on the mountain that was opposite the city. ²⁴And a spirit took me up and brought me to the land of the Chaldeans, into the captivity, in a vision, in a divine spirit, and I ascended from the vision that I saw, ²⁵and I spoke to the captivity all the words of the Lord that he showed me.

12 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ² Son of man, you are living in the midst of their injustices—they who have eyes to see but do not see and have ears to hear but do not hear, because it is an embittering house. ³And you, son of man, make for yourself baggage of captivity by day before them, and you shall be taken captive from your place to another place before them so that they see, for^b it is an embittering house. ⁴And you shall carry out your baggage, baggage of captivity, by day before their eyes, and you shall go out in the evening as a captive goes out. ⁵Before them dig through for yourself into the wall, and you shall go out through it. ⁶Before them you shall be lifted up on shoulders, and you shall go out concealed. You shall veil your face, and you shall not see the earth at all, for I have given you as a sign to the house of Israel.

7 And I did so in everything that he commanded me, and I carried it out as the baggage of captivity by day, and by evening I dug through the wall for myself, and I went out concealed. Upon shoulders I was lifted up before them.

8 And a word of the Lord came to me in the morning, saying: ⁹Son of man, did not the house of Israel, the embittering house, say to you, “What are you doing?” ¹⁰Say to them, “This is what the Lord says: The ruler and the leader are in Ierousalem and in all the house of Israel, who are in their midst.” ¹¹Say: “I am making signs in its midst. As I have done, so shall it be for them; they shall go in exile and in captivity,” ¹²and the ruler in their midst shall be lifted upon shoulders, and he shall go out concealed through the wall, and he shall dig through, to go out through it. He shall veil his face so that he shall not be seen by eye, and he himself shall not see the land. ¹³And I will spread out my net over him, and he shall be caught in my enclosure, and I will bring him to Babylon, to the land of the Chaldeans, and he shall not see it, and he shall come to an end there. ¹⁴And I will distribute to every wind all his helpers around him and all who assist him, and I will unsheathe a sword after them. ¹⁵And they shall know that I am the Lord after I scatter them among the nations, and I will distribute them among the countries. ¹⁶And I will retain from them men by number, from sword and from famine and from death, so that they shall tell of all their lawless acts among the nations where they enter, and they shall know that I am the Lord.

17 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ¹⁸ Son of man, you shall eat your bread in grief, and you shall drink your water in torture and suffering, ¹⁹and you shall say to the people of the land of Israel, This is what the Lord says to the inhabitants of Ierousalem in the land of Israel: They shall eat their bread in need, and they shall drink their water in annihilation so that the land is extinguished together with its fullness, for all who live in it are engaged in impiety, ²⁰and their inhabited cities shall be devastated, and the land shall become an annihilation, and you shall recognize that I am the Lord.

21 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²² Son of man, what is this comparison of yours about the land of Israel as they are saying, “Distant are the days; vision has perished?” ²³Therefore, say to them, “This is what the Lord says: And I will turn back the comparison, and the house of Israel shall no longer speak this comparison,” because you shall speak to them, “The days and word of every vision have come near.” ²⁴For there shall no longer be any false vision and one giving divination for favor in the midst of the sons of Israel. ²⁵ For I, the Lord, will speak my words; I will speak and act and no longer delay, because in your days, O house that embitters, I will speak a word and perform it, says the Lord.

26 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²⁷ Son of man, behold, the house of Israel that embitters—when they speak, they say, “The vision that he beholds is for many days, and he prophesies for far times.” ²⁸Therefore, say to them, This is what the Lord says: No longer shall any of my words delay, whatever I will speak; I will speak and perform, says the Lord.

13 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ² Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel, and you shall prophesy and say to them: “Hear a word of the Lord!” ³This is what the Lord says: Woe to those who prophesy from their heart and perhaps do not see at all. ⁴Your prophets are like foxes in the deserts, O Israel. ⁵They did not stand upon a solid body and gather flocks to the house of Israel. Those who say, “In the day of the Lord” did not stand up. ⁶Those who say, “The Lord says” are seers of falsehoods and diviners of vanities, and the Lord has not sent them, and they began to set up a word. ⁷Have you not beheld a false vision and spoken vain divinations?

8 Therefore, say, This is what the Lord says: Because your words are false and your divinations are vain, therefore, behold, I am against you, says the Lord, ⁹and I will stretch out my hand against the prophets who behold falsehoods and utter vanities; they shall not be engaged in the instruction of my people, nor shall they be enrolled in the register of the house of Israel, and they shall not enter the land of Israel, and they shall know that I am the Lord. ¹⁰Because they have misled my people, saying, “Peace, peace,” and there was no peace, also this one builds a wall, and they themselves plaster it; it shall fall. ¹¹Say to the ones who plastered it, “It shall fall,” and there will be a torrential rain, and I will give hurled stones against their bondings, and they shall fall, and there shall be a sweeping wind, and it shall be broken. ¹²And behold, the wall has fallen, and shall they not say to you, “Where is your plaster that you plastered?” ¹³ Therefore, this is what the Lord says: And I will let loose a sweeping blast with wrath, and there shall be a torrential rain in my rage, and I will bring the hurled stones in wrath unto completion, ¹⁴ and I will raze the wall that you plastered, and it shall fall, and I will set it on the ground, and its foundations shall be uncovered, and it shall fall, and you shall be finished off with reproach, and you shall recognize that I am the Lord. ¹⁵And I will spend my wrath upon the wall and upon those who plaster it; it shall fall. And I said to you, The wall is not, nor are those who plaster it, ¹⁶the prophets of Israel who prophesy concerning Ierou-salem and who behold peace for it, and there is no peace, says the Lord.

17 And you, son of man, set your face against the daughters of your people, who prophesy from their heart, and prophesy against them, ¹⁸and you shall say, This is what the Lord says: Woe to those who stitch together cushions for every bend of the arm and make veils for every head of every age-group so as to pervert souls; the souls of my people were perverted, and they maintain their own souls. ¹⁹And they were profaning me before my people for the sake of a handful of barley and on account of pieces of bread so as to slay souls that should not die and to preserve souls that should not live, when you were uttering vain utterances to a listening people.

20 Therefore, this is what the Lord says: Behold, I am against your cushions whereby you collect souls, and I will tear them from your arms, and into a dispersion I will send out their souls, which souls of theirs you distort. ²¹And I will tear through your veils, and I will rescue my people from your hand, and they shall no longer be in your hands for gathering, and you shall recognize that I am the Lord. ²²Because you were perverting the heart of a righteous person and I was not perverting him even to make strong the hands of a lawless person so that he might not turn back at all from his wicked way and he might live, ²³ therefore, you shall not behold falsehoods and no longer perform divinations, and I will rescue my people from your hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord.

14 And men from the elders of Israel came to me and sat down in front of me. ²And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ³Son of man, these men set their thoughts upon their hearts, and they set the punishment of their injustices in front of them; am I to answer them by answering? ⁴ Therefore speak to them, and you shall say to them, This is what the Lord says: Person by person from the house of Israel, whoever sets his thoughts upon his heart and arranges the punishment of his injustice in front of him and comes to the prophet, I, the Lord, will answer him by those things by which his mind is held fast ⁵in order that he may turn aside the house of Israel according to their hearts that are estranged from me through their notions.

6 Therefore say to the house of Israel, This is what the Lord says: Turn about, and turn back from your practices and from all your impieties, and turn your faces around. ⁷For person by person from the house of Israel and from the guests who are guests in the house of Israel, whoever is estranged from me and sets his notions upon his heart and arranges the punishment of his injustice in front of him and comes to the prophet to inquire of him by me—I, the Lord, will answer him by that whereby he is held fast. ⁸And I will set my face against that person, and I will make him into a wilderness and into annihilation, and I will take him away from the midst of my people, and you shall recognize that I am the Lord.

9 And the prophet, if he should ever deceive and speak, I, the Lord, have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and will annihilate him from the midst of my people, Israel. ¹⁰And they shall receive their injustice; like the wrongdoing of the inquirer and like the wrongdoing, so shall it be for the prophet 11so that the house of Israel may no longer ^ago astray^a from me and so that they may not defile themselves further in all their transgressions, and they shall be for me as a people, and I will be a god for them, says the Lord.

12 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ¹³ Son of man, if a land sins against me so that transgression occurs, I will also stretch out my hand against it and will shatter its support of bread, and I will send out famine upon it and will take away human and cattle from it. ¹⁴Even if these three men were in its midst, Noe and Daniel and Iob, they shall be saved by their righteousness, says the Lord. ¹⁵Even if I bring harmful animals against the land, I shall also take vengeance on it, and it shall be as an annihilation, and there shall not be one who passes through from before the animals, ¹⁶ even if these three men were in its midst, I live, says the Lord, if sons or daughters shall be saved! But they alone would be saved, while the land would be for annihilation. ¹⁷Or again, if I bring a sword upon that land and say, “Let a sword pass through the land” and I will take away human and cattle from it ¹⁸and these three men be in its midst, I live, says the Lord, they shall rescue neither sons nor daughters. They alone shall be saved. ¹⁹Or again, if I send out death upon that land and I pour out my wrath upon it with blood so as utterly to destroy human and cattle from it ²⁰and Noe and Daniel and Iob shall be in its midst, I live, says the Lord, if sons or daughters should be left behind! They shall rescue their souls by their righteousness.

21 This is what the Lord says: But even if I send out my four grievous punishments, sword and famine and harmful animals and death, upon Ierousalem so as utterly to destroy human and cattle from it ²²and behold, those rescued from it who bring out their sons and daughters are left behind in it, behold, they come out to you, and you shall see their ways and their thoughts, and you shall regret the evil that I brought upon Ierousalem, all the evil that I brought upon it, ²³and they shall console you; for you shall see their ways and their thoughts, and you shall recognize that I have not done all the things that I did in it without cause, says the Lord.

15 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ² And you, son of man, what might the

        wood of the vine become from all the

        trees,

the branches that are among the trees
of the forest?

³ Shall they take wood from it to make it into
         a product?

Shall they take a peg from it to hang any
object on it?

⁴ On the contrary, it has been given to the fire
         for consumption;

the fire consumes the yearly cleansing of
it, and it fails completely;

shall it actually be useful for production?

⁵ Not even when it is still whole shall it be for
         production.

How much less if ever fire consumes it
completely

shall it still be fit for production?

6 Therefore, say: This is what the Lord says: Like the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest, that which I have given to the fire for consumption, so have I given the inhabitants of Ierousalem. ⁷ And I will give my face against them; they shall go out from the fire, and fire shall devour them, and they shall recognize that I am the Lord when I set my face against them. ⁸And I will give the land into annihilation, because they fell away in transgression, says the Lord.

16 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ² Son of man, testify to Ierousalem about her lawless acts, ³and you shall say, This is what the Lord says to Ierousalem: Your origin and your birth is from the land of Chanaan; your father is an Amorrite, and your mother a Chettite. ⁴And as for your birth—in the day that you were born, they did not bind your breasts, and you were not bathed with water, nor were you salted with salt, and you were not wrapped in cloths, ⁵neither did my eye spare you so as to do for you one of all these things to show feeling to you. And you were thrown out on the surface of the plain by the perversion of your soul in the day that you were born.

6 And I passed by you and saw you fouled by your own blood and said to you, “From your blood is life; ⁷grow up, just like the sprouting of the field I have rendered you.” And you grew up and became tall and entered into cities of cities; your breasts were set right, and your hair grew, but you were naked and disgraced.

8 And I passed by you and saw you, and behold, your season was a season of lodgers^b, and I spread my wings over you and covered your disgrace, and I swore to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord, and you became mine. ⁹And I bathed you with water and washed your blood from you and anointed you with oil, ¹⁰ and I clothed you with embroidered clothes and shod you with blue and girded you with fine linen and clothed you in a fine hair-veil, ¹¹and I adorned you with an ornament and put bracelets around your arms and a chain around your neck, ¹²and I gave an earring on your nostril and small rings on your ears and a crown of boasting upon your head. ¹³ And you were adorned with gold and silver, and your wraps were of fine linen and of woven hair and embroidered. You ate choice flour and oil and honey, and you became very beautiful. ¹⁴And your fame went out among the nations on account of your beauty, because you had been completed in attractiveness by the elegance that I set upon you, says the Lord.

15 And you trusted in your beauty, and you whored because of your fame and poured out your whoring on every passer-by. ¹⁶And you took some of your garments and made for yourself stitched figures and played the whore on them, and you shall not enter, nor shall it happen. ¹⁷And you took your objects of boasting from my gold and from my silver, from that which I gave you, and you made for yourself male images and played the whore with them. ¹⁸And you took your embroidered apparel and put them on, and you set my oil and my incense in front of them, ¹⁹even my bread that I gave you. I fed you choice flour and oil and honey, and you set them in front of them as an odor of fragrance, and it happened, says the Lord. ²⁰ And you took your sons and your daughters whom you bore, and you sacrificed them to them as consumption, as if you played the whore just a little. ²¹And you slaughtered your children and delivered them up when you were appeasing them through them. ²²This was in addition to all your whoring, and you did not remember the days of your childhood, when you were naked and disgraced, and you lived fouled in your blood.

23 And it happened after all your evil acts, says the Lord, ²⁴you also built for yourself a whoring chamber, and you made a proclamation for yourself in every boulevard. ²⁵And at the head of every way you built your whorehouses, and you spoiled your beauty and drew your legs apart for every passer-by and multiplied your whoring. ²⁶And you played the whore with the sons of Egypt who accompanied you, who were great in flesh, and you played the whore frequently so as to provoke me. ²⁷ Now if I stretch out my hand against you and I will take away your precepts, I will also give you to the souls of those who hate you, to daughters of allophyles who divert you from your way in which you acted impiously. ²⁸And you played the whore with the daughters of Assour, and even so you were not satisfied, and you played the whore but were not satiated. ²⁹And you multiplied your covenants with the land of the Chaldeans, and you were not even satisfied with them.

30 How should I treat your daughter, says the Lord, when you did all these things, deeds of a woman of whoredom? And you played the whore three times with your daughters. ³¹You built your brothel at every head of a road, and you made your pedestal in every boulevard, and you became like a whore gathering payments. ³²The adulterous wife is like you, taking payments from her husband. ³³ She would dole out payments to all those who played the whore with her, and you have given payments to all your lovers, and you would load them down to come to you from all around for your whoring. ³⁴And there was something perverted in you compared to other women in your whoring, and ^anext after^a you they have not played the whore, while you would dole out payments, and payments were not given to you. And there were in you things perverted.

35 Therefore, O whore, hear a word of the Lord: ³⁶This is what the Lord says, Because you have poured out your money, your shame in your whoring shall also be uncovered to your lovers, both for all the thoughts of your lawless acts and because of the streams of blood of your children that you gave them. ³⁷Therefore, behold, I am gathering against you all your lovers, those with whom you consorted, and all those you loved, with all those you hated, and I will gather them against you from all around and will uncover your evil acts to them, and they shall see all your shame. ³⁸ And I will take vengeance on you with vengeance of an adulteress, and I will place you in the blood of wrath and jealousy. ³⁹And I will give you over into their hands, and they shall eradicate your brothel, and they shall demolish your pedestal, and they shall strip you of your apparel and take the objects of your boasting and leave you naked and disgraced. ⁴⁰And they shall bring on throngs against you, and they shall stone you with stones, and they shall slay you with their rapiers. ⁴¹And they shall burn your houses with fire, and they shall execute judgments against you before many women, and I will turn you back from whoring, and you shall not make payments any more. ⁴² And I will let loose my wrath on you, and my jealousy shall be taken away from you, and I will take my rest, and I will no longer be vexed. ⁴³Because you did not remember the day of your childhood and you would pain me with all these things, and behold, I have given your ways against your heads, says the Lord.

And thus you have committed impiety in addition to all your lawless acts. ⁴⁴These are all the things that they said about you in a comparison, saying, “Like mother ⁴⁵like daughter.” You are your mother’s daughter, she^b who thrust aside her husband and her children, and the sisters of your sisters are those who thrust aside their husbands and their children; your mother is a Chettite, and your father an Amorrite. ⁴⁶Your elder sister is Samaria, she and her daughters, she who was living on your left, and your younger sister who was living on your right is Sodoma and her daughters. ⁴⁷And you did not even walk in their ways, nor did you act according to their lawless acts; in fact, you almost surpassed them in all your ways. ⁴⁸I live, says the Lord, if your sister Sodoma has acted, she and her daughters, as you and your daughters acted! ⁴⁹ But this was the lawless act of Sodoma, your sister: arrogance. She and her daughters were indulging in excess of bread and in prosperous ease; this belonged to her and her daughters, and they were not holding the hand of the poor and the needy. ⁵⁰And they were boasting and committed lawless acts before me, and I took them away, just as I saw. ⁵¹And Samaria sinned not half of your sins, and you multiplied your lawless acts beyond them and made your sisters right by all your lawless acts that you committed. ⁵²And you shall bear your trial, for you ruined your sisters with your sins by which you acted lawlessly beyond them and rendered them right beyond yourselves, and be ashamed, you, and receive your dishonor for rendering your sisters right.

53 And I will turn back your turning back, the turning back of Sodoma and her daughters, and I will turn back the turning back of Samaria and her daughters, and I will turn back your turning back in their midst ⁵⁴in order that you may bear your trial and be dishonored as a result of all that you have done when you provoked me. ⁵⁵And your sister Sodoma and her daughters shall be restored, just as they were from the beginning, and Samaria and her daughters shall be restored, just as they were from the beginning, and you and your daughters shall be restored, just as you were from the beginning. ⁵⁶ And surely Sodoma your sister was not as a report in your mouth in the days of your arrogance, ⁵⁷before your evil acts were uncovered, as you are now an ignominy to daughters of Syria and all the daughters of allophyles around her that enclose you all around? ⁵⁸Your impieties and your lawless acts—you have carried them off, says the Lord.

59 This is what the Lord says: And I will deal with you just as you have done, as you have dishonored these things so as to transgress my covenant. ⁶⁰And I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your childhood, and I will establish with you an everlasting covenant. ⁶¹And you will remember your way, and you shall be completely dishonored when you receive back your elder sisters with your younger ones, and I will give them to you for a building and not on account of your covenant. ⁶²And I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall recognize that I am the Lord ⁶³in order that you shall remember and be ashamed and it be impossible for you any longer to open your mouth from before your dishonor, when I am appeased with you for everything that you have done, says the Lord.

17 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ² Son of man, tell a tale, and speak an illustration to the house of Israel, ³and you shall say: This is what the Lord says:

The great eagle with great wings, large in
         extent, full of talons,

who ^ahas the guidance^a to enter into
Lebanon.

And he took the select parts of the cedar;

⁴      he broke off the tender tops.

And he carried them to the land of
         Chanaan;

he set them into a walled city.

⁵ And he took from the seed of the earth
and gave it into the plain.

A plant by abundant water,
he set it out as something gazed upon.

⁶ And it sprouted and turned into a weak
         vine,

small in size for it to appear.

Its shoots were upon it,
and its roots were under it.

And it turned into a vine
and made layers
and extended its climbers.

⁷ And another great eagle came
with great wings and many talons.

And behold, this vine was wrapped around
         him,

and its roots were against him.

And it shot out its shoots toward him
to water it^b together with the bed of its
         planting.

⁸ Into a good plain by abundant water
it thrives so as to make shoots
and to bear fruit,
to be as a large vine.

⁹ Therefore, say: This is what the Lord says:

Will it go straight?

Will not its tender roots and fruit rot,
and all that first sprouts from it wither?

And not by a great arm nor by many people
so as to pull it from its roots.

¹⁰ And behold, it thrives; will it actually go
         straight?

Shall it not be withered in dryness
as soon as the scorching wind touches it?

It shall wither together with the clump of its
         sprouting.

¹¹ And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ¹² Son of man, say now to the embittering house: Did you not understand what these things were? Say: When the king of Babylon comes upon Ierou-salem, he shall also take its king and its rulers and bring them to himself to Babylon. ¹³And he shall take the ^coffspring of the reign^c and shall make a covenant with him and will bring him in under an imprecation, and he shall take the chief men of the land ¹⁴so that it might become an altogether weak reign so that he might not be raised up to keep his covenant and to raise it up. ¹⁵And he shall rebel against him so as to send out his own ambassadors to Egypt, that he might give him horses and many people. Shall he go straight? Shall he who produces opposition escape? And when he transgresses a covenant, shall be saved? ¹⁶ I live, says the Lord, if he shall not come to an end in the place where the king is who made him king—he who dishonored my imprecation and who transgressed my covenant—with him in the midst of Babylon! ¹⁷And not with a great force or with a great throng shall Pharao make war with^d him, in casting up a palisade and in constructing batteries of war-engines to take away souls. ¹⁸And he dishonored oath-making so as to transgress a covenant, and behold, he has given his hand, and he did all these things to him. Shall he then be saved? ¹⁹Therefore, say: This is what the Lord says: I live, if I will not also impart upon his head my oath-making that he dishonored and my covenant that he transgressed! ²⁰And I will spread out the net over him, and he shall be captured in its enclosure. ²¹In his every battle they shall fall by the sword, and I will disperse the survivors to every wind, and you shall recognize that I, the Lord, have spoken.

22 Therefore, this is what the Lord says:

And it is I who will take some
from the select parts of the cedar;

I will snip off something
from the top of their heart.

And it is I who will transplant
on a high mountain.

²³ And I will hang him
in a mountain of Israel high in the air.

And I will transplant him,
and he shall produce a shoot and bear
         fruit

and become a large cedar.

And every animal shall rest under him,
and every winged creature shall rest
         under his shade,

and his shoots shall be restored.

²⁴ And all the trees of the plain shall know
that I am the Lord,

he who brings low a high tree
and exalts a low tree
and withers a green tree
and makes a dry tree flourish.

I, the Lord, have spoken,
and I will do it.

18 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ² Son of man, why do you^a have this comparison among the sons of Israel, when they are saying, “The fathers ate unripe grapes, and the teeth of the children had pain?” ³I live, says the Lord, if this comparison ever comes to be spoken again in Israel! ⁴For all the souls are mine; as is the soul of the father mine, so also is the soul of the son. Mine they are. The soul that sins, this one shall die.

5 Now, the person who shall be righteous, the one who performs judgment and righteousness, ⁶ upon the mountains he shall not eat, and he shall not lift up his eyes to the notions of the house of Israel and shall not defile his neighbor’s wife and shall not draw near a woman during her separation, ⁷and he shall not oppress a person, shall restore a debtor’s pledge and shall not commit robbery, shall give his bread to the needy and clothe the naked ⁸and shall not give his money for interest and shall not take excess and shall turn his hand back from injustice; he shall perform righteous judgment between a man and between his neighbor ⁹and has walked by my ordinances and has kept my statutes so as to do them; this one is righteous, and he shall live by life, says the Lord.

10 And if he produces a pestiferous son who pours out blood and commits sinful acts, ¹¹he did not walk in the way of his righteous father, but he ate upon the mountains and defiled his neighbor’s wife ¹²and oppressed the poor and needy and committed robbery and did not restore a pledge and set his eyes upon idols, has committed lawlessness, ¹³has given with interest and taken excess, he shall not live by life; he has committed all these lawless acts; by death he shall be put to death; his blood shall be upon him.

14 Now if he produces a son and he sees all the sins of his father that he has done and he is afraid and does not act according to them, ¹⁵he has not eaten upon the mountains and did not set his eyes to the notions of the house of Israel and did not defile his neighbor’s wife ¹⁶and did not oppress a person and did not exact a pledge and did not commit robbery, gave his bread to the needy and clothed the naked ¹⁷and turned his hand back from iniquity, he did not take interest nor excess, performed justice and walked in my ordinances, he shall not come to an end for the iniquities of his father; he shall live by life. ¹⁸But his father, if he extorts with extortion and robs what was robbed, he did the opposite in the midst of my people, and he shall die for his injustice.

19 And you shall say, “Why is it that the son of the father did not receive the injustice?” Because the son did justice and mercy, he observed all my precepts and did them; he shall live by life. ²⁰But, the soul that sins shall die, but the son shall not receive the injustice of the father, nor shall the father receive the injustice of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the lawlessness of the lawless shall be upon him.

21 And if the lawless turns back from all his lawless acts that he committed and keeps all my commandments and does justice and mercy, he shall live by life; he shall not die. ²²None of his transgressions that he committed shall be remembered; by his righteousness that he did he shall live. ²³By my will do I actually will the death of the lawless one, says the Lord, rather than for him to turn back from his wicked way and live? ²⁴After the righteous one turns back from his righteousness and commits injustice like all the lawless acts that the lawless commits, none of his righteous acts that he performed shall be remembered, for his transgression by which he transgressed and in his sins that he committed in these he shall die.

25 And you said, “The way of the Lord does not go straight.” Hear now, O house of Israel; does my way not go straight? Is it not your way that does not go straight? ²⁶When the righteous turns back from his righteousness and should he commit transgression and die, by the transgression that he committed—by it he shall die. ²⁷And when a lawless one turns back from his lawlessness that he committed and should he perform judgment and righteousness, he has preserved his soul ²⁸and has turned back from all his impieties that he committed; he shall live by life; he shall not die. ²⁹And they say—the house of Israel—”The way of the Lord is not straight.” Is my way not straight, O house of Israel? Is it not your way that is not straight?

30 I will judge you, each one, according to his way, O house of Israel, says the Lord. Turn about, and turn back from all your impieties, and they shall not be for you as a punishment for injustice. ³¹ Throw away from yourselves all your impieties that you committed against me and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. And why are you dying, O house of Israel? ³²For I do not will the death of the dying, says the Lord.

19 And as for you, take up a lamentation over
the ruler of Israel, ²and you shall say:

What is your mother?
A whelp in the midst of lions!

She was born in the midst of lions
and multiplied her whelps.

³ And one of her whelps ran off
and became a lion,

and he learned to catch prey
and ate human beings.

⁴ And nations heard of him;
he was caught in their destruction,

and they brought him in a muzzle
to the land of Egypt.

⁵ And she saw that he had rejected her,
and her confidence perished.

And she took another of her whelps
and made him a lion.

⁶ And he would dwell among lions;
he became a lion,

and he learned to catch prey;
he ate human beings.

⁷ And he would feed in his rashness
and devastated their cities,

and he annihilated the land and its fullness,
with a voice of his roaring.

⁸ And they gave nations against him
from countries all around.

And they spread their nets upon him,
and he was caught in their destruction.

⁹ And they put him in a muzzle and in a cage.
He came to the king of Babylon,
and he brought him into custody

so that his voice might not be
heard on the mountains of Israel.

¹⁰ Your mother was like a vine,
like a flower in a pomegranate planted in
         water;

its fruit and its shoot came to be
from abundant water.

¹¹ And a rod of strength became for it
as a tribe of leaders,

and it was exalted in its size
in the midst of trunks,

and he^a saw its size
in the multitude of its shoots.

¹² And it was broken off in wrath,
thrown upon the ground,

and a scorching wind withered its choice
         parts,

and they were punished.

And its rod of strength was withered;
fire consumed it.

¹³ And now they have planted it in the
         wilderness,

in a waterless land.

¹⁴ And fire went out from a rod of its choice
         parts

and has devoured it.

And a rod of strength was not in it.

A tribe for an illustration of a lament it is, and it shall become a lament.

20 And it happened in the seventh year, in the fifth month, on the tenth of the month, men came from the elders of the house of Israel to inquire of the Lord, and they sat down in front of me. ² And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ³Son of man, speak to the elders of the house of Israel, and you shall say to them: This is what the Lord says: Are you coming to inquire of me? I live, if I will answer you! says the Lord. ⁴Will I judge them with punishment? Son of man, testify to them of the lawless acts of their fathers, ⁵and you shall say to them: This is what the Lord says: From the day that I chose the house of Israel and I was made known to the off-spring of the house of Iakob and became known to them in the land of Egypt and took hold of them with my hand, saying: I am the Lord, your God, ⁶in that day I took hold of them with my hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt into the land that I prepared for them, a land flowing with milk and honey; it is a honeycomb beyond every land. ⁷And I said to them: Let each throw away the abominations of his eyes, and do not defile yourselves with the practices of Egypt; I am the Lord, your God. ⁸And they rebelled against me and were unwilling to listen to me; they did not throw away the abominations of their eyes and did not forsake the practices of Egypt.

And I spoke in order to pour out my wrath upon them, to spend my rage against them in the midst of the land of Egypt. ⁹And I acted so my name shall not be altogether profaned before the nations, among whom they were, among whom I was known to them before them so as to bring them out from the land of Egypt. ¹⁰And I led them out from the land of Egypt and brought them into the wilderness, ¹¹and I gave them my ordinances, and I made known to them my statutes, those that a person shall perform, and by them he shall live. ¹² And I gave them my sabbaths to be a sign between me and between them, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them. ¹³ And I said to the house of Israel in the wilderness: Walk by my ordinances. And they did not walk, and they rejected my statutes, those that a person shall perform and shall live by them, and they greatly profaned my sabbaths.

And I spoke in order to pour out my wrath upon them in the wilderness so as to consume them. ¹⁴And I acted so my name shall not be altogether profaned before the nations out of which I brought them before their eyes. ¹⁵And I raised my hand against them in the wilderness so that I might not bring them at all into the land that I gave them, a land flowing with milk and honey—it is a honeycomb beyond every land—¹⁶because they rejected my statutes, and by my ordinances they did not walk by them, and they were profaning my sabbaths and were going after the notions of their hearts. ¹⁷And my eye spared them from wiping them out, and I did not make an end of them in the wilderness.

18 And I said to their children in the wilderness: Do not walk by the precepts of your fathers, and do not keep their statutes, and do not be mixed up together with their practices, and do not defile yourselves. ¹⁹I am the Lord, your God; walk by my ordinances, and keep my statutes, and perform them, ²⁰and hallow my sabbaths, and it shall be as a sign between me and you, that you might know that I, the Lord, am your God. ²¹And they and their children embittered me; they did not walk by my ordinances, and they did not keep my statutes so as to perform them, that a person shall perform and live by them, and they were profaning my sabbaths.

And I spoke in order to pour out my wrath upon them in the wilderness so as to spend my rage on them. ²²And I acted so my name shall not be altogether profaned before the nations, out of which I brought them before their eyes. ²³And I raised up my hand against them in the wilderness so as to scatter them among the nations, to disperse them in the countries, ²⁴because they did not perform my statutes and rejected my ordinances and were profaning my sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers’ notions. ²⁵And it was I who gave them ordinances that were not good and statutes whereby they shall not live. ²⁶And I will defile them with their gifts when I am passing through everything that opened up a womb so that I might annihilate them.

27 Therefore, speak to the house of Israel, son of man, and you shall say to them: This is what the Lord says: Thus far your fathers angered me by their transgressions by which they transgressed against me. ²⁸And I brought them into the land that I raised my hand to give it to them, and they saw every high hill and every shady tree and sacrificed there to their gods and set out there an odor of fragrance and poured there their libations. ²⁹And I said to them: What is Habama, that you enter there? And they called its name, Habama, to this very day. ³⁰Therefore, speak to the house of Israel: This is what the Lord says: Are you defiling yourselves in the lawless acts of your fathers, and are you playing the whore after their abominations? ³¹And by the first fruits of your gifts, with what has been set apart, you defile yourselves in all your notions to this day. And am I to answer you, O house of Israel? I live, says the Lord, if I will answer you and if it will come up into this spirit of yours.

32 And it shall not be as you say: We will be like the nations and like the tribes of the earth by serving wood and stones.

33 Therefore, I live, says the Lord, surely with a strong hand and a raised arm and with outpoured wrath I will reign over you, ³⁴and I will bring you out from the peoples and take you in from the countries, where you were scattered in them, with a strong hand and with a raised arm and with outpoured wrath. ³⁵And I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and I will execute judgment against you there, face-to-face. ³⁶As I executed judgment against your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I judge you, says the Lord. ³⁷And I will drive you under my rod and bring you in by number, ³⁸and I will select out of you the impious and rebellious; for from a land of their sojourn I will bring them out, but they shall not enter into the land of Israel, and you shall recognize that I am the Lord.

39 And you, O house of Israel: This is what the Lord says: Each one of you, take away your practices and after this, unless you listen to me, and you shall no longer profane my holy name with your gifts and with your practices.

40 For, on my holy mountain, on a lofty mountain, says the Lord, there they shall be slaves to me, the entire house of Israel completely, and there I will accept them, and there I will look upon your first fruits and the first fruits of what has been set apart by you in all your holy precincts. ⁴¹In an odor of fragrance I will accept you, when I bring you out from the peoples and take you in from the countries, those in which you were scattered, and I will be hallowed among you in the eyes of the peoples. ⁴²And you shall recognize that I am the Lord, when I bring you into the land of Israel, into the land to which I raised my hand to give it to your fathers. ⁴³And there you shall remember your ways and your practices in which you were defiling yourselves, and you shall strike your faces because of all your evil acts. ⁴⁴And you shall recognize that I am the Lord, when I deal thus with you so that my name shall not be profaned according to your evil ways and according to your corrupt practices, says the Lord.

45 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ⁴⁶Son of man, set your face toward Thaiman, and gaze upon Darom, and prophesy against the leading forest of the Nageb. ⁴⁷And you shall say to the forest of the Nageb: Hear a word of the Lord, This is what the Lord says: Behold, I am kindling a fire in you, and it shall devour every green tree in you and every dry tree; the kindled flame shall not be quenched, and by it every face shall be burned up from east wind to north. ⁴⁸And all flesh shall recognize that I, the Lord, have scorched it; it shall not be quenched. ⁴⁹And I said, Never Lord, O Lord; they are saying to me, “Has not this comparison been spoken?”

21 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²Therefore, prophesy, son of man; set your face toward Ierousalem, and gaze upon their holy things, and you shall prophesy against the land of Israel, ³and you shall say to the land of Israel: Behold, I am against you and will draw my hand-knife out of its sheath and will utterly destroy the unjust and the lawless from you. ⁴Because I will utterly destroy the unjust and the lawless from you, thus my hand-knife shall come out of its sheath against all flesh from the east wind to the north, ⁵ and all flesh shall recognize that I, the Lord, have drawn my hand-knife out of its sheath. No longer shall it turn back. ⁶And you, son of man, sigh in the rubbing together of your loin, and in grief you shall groan before their eyes. ⁷And it shall be, if they say to you, “Why do you groan?” and you shall say, “Because of the news, for it comes, and every heart shall be enfeebled, and all hands shall be paralyzed, and all flesh and every spirit shall pass out, and all thighs shall be sullied with moisture.” Behold, it comes, and it shall be, says the Lord.

8 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ⁹ Son of man, prophesy, and you shall say: This is what the Lord says, Say:

O sword, O sword, be sharp and enraged.

¹⁰ That you might slaughter victims, be sharp,
that you might become aflashing,
         prepared for undoing.

Slaughter; annihilate; expel every tree.

¹¹ And he gave it, ready for his hand to grasp;
a sword was sharpened; it is ready
to give it^a into a slayer’s hand.

¹² Shriek, and wail, son of man,
because it came to be among my people;

it is among all the leaders of Israel;
they shall sojourn upon a sword;
it came to be among my people;
therefore, clap upon your hand.

¹³ For it has been deemed just, and why, even if a tribe has been rejected? It shall not be, says the Lord.

¹⁴ And as for you, son of man, prophesy,
and clap hand upon hand.

And double a sword;
the third sword for casualties
is the great sword for casualties.

And it shall confound them,

¹⁵     that the heart might be broken

and the weak be multiplied upon every
gate.

They have been given over
as victims of the sword.

Good! It has come for slaying.
Good! It has come for flashing.

¹⁶ Go through, sharpen on right and on left,
wherever your face may be aroused.

¹⁷ But I too will clap my hand against my
         hand
and will let loose my wrath;
I, the Lord, have spoken.

18 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ¹⁹And you, son of man, lay out for yourself two ways ²⁰so that a sword of the king of Babylon might enter; the two will issue from one country, and a hand^b is at the beginning of the way of the city. ⁽²⁰⁾From the beginning of the way you shall lay it out so that a sword might come against Rabbath of the sons of Ammon and against Judea and against Ierousalem in its midst. ²¹For the king of Babylon shall stand upon the prime way, at the beginning of the two roads to practice^c divination, to throw up a rod and to consult by carved objects^d and to inspect livers upon his right. ²²And the oracular response came against Ierousalem, to throw up a palisade, to open wide a mouth in a shout, to raise up high a voice with a cry, to throw up a palisade against its gates and to put up a ramp and to build batteries of war-engines. ²³And he shall be to them as one divining vain things before them, and he shall be as one recalling injustice to be seized.

24 Therefore, this is what the Lord says: Because you recalled your injustices when your impieties were uncovered, that your sins be seen in all your impieties and in your practices—because you recalled, you shall be captured by means of them.

²⁵ And as for you, profane, lawless leader of
         Israel,
whose day has come,
an end in a time of injustice,

²⁶ this is what the Lord says:

Remove the turban, and put off the crown;
this^e shall not be such.

You abased that which is high
and exalted that which is low.

²⁷ Injustice, injustice,
I will make it!
(But this^e shall not be such.)

Until he comes to whom it is due,
I will also give it over to him.

28 And as for you, son of man, prophesy, and you shall say: This is what the Lord says to the sons of Ammon and to their reproach, and you shall say:

A sword, a sword drawn for victims
and drawn for completion.

Rouse yourself that you may flash

²⁹     in your vain vision
and in your divining of lies,

to give you over onto necks of lawless
         wounded,
whose day has come,
an end in a time of injustice.

³⁰ Turn back, do not lodge
in this place in which you were born;
in your own land I will judge you,

³¹     and I will pour out my indignation upon
         you.

In a fire of my wrath I will breathe upon
         you

and give you into hands of barbarian
men

as they devise destruction.

³² You shall be food in the fire;
your blood shall be in the midst of the
         earth.

There will not be any memory of you,
for I, the Lord, have spoken.

22 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²And you, son of man, will you judge the city of streams of blood? So declare to it all its lawless acts, ³and you shall say: This is what the Lord says: Oh city, shedding streams of blood in its midst so that its time might come and producing notions against it so as to defile it; ⁴by their streams of blood that you shed you have transgressed, and by your notions that you kept producing you were defiling yourself, and you brought your days near and brought a time of your years. Therefore, I have given you as a disgrace to the nations and for mockery to all the countries ⁵that come near to you and to those that are far from you, and they shall mock you: Your fame is unclean and great in lawless acts.

6 Behold, the leaders of the house of Israel, each with his kindred—they wallowed together in you so that they shed blood; ⁷they were reviling father and mother in you and dealing unjustly with the guest in you; they were oppressing orphan and widow in you, ⁸and they were despising my holy things and were profaning my sabbaths in you. ⁹Men were robbers in you so that they shed blood in you, and upon the mountains in you they ate; they were committing unholy acts in your midst. ¹⁰They uncovered a father’s shame in you and were abasing a woman sitting apart in uncleanness in you. ¹¹Each one with his neigh-bor’s wife—they would act lawlessly, and each would defile his bride in impiety, and each one his sister, a daughter of his father—they would abase in you. ¹²In you, they would take bribes in order to shed blood; they would take interest and excess in you, and you completed a completion of your evil by oppression, and they forgot me says the Lord.

13 If I will bring my hand upon my hand over what you have completed, that which you have done, and over your streams of blood that have come about in your midst, ¹⁴shall your heart endure? Shall your hands be strong in the days that I will act against you? I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will do it. ¹⁵And I will scatter you among the nations and disperse you in the countries, and your uncleanness shall depart from you. ¹⁶And I will receive my heritage in you before the eyes of the nations, and you shall know that I am the Lord.

17 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ¹⁸Son of man, behold, the house of Israel have all become to me mixed up with bronze and iron and tin and lead; in the midst of silver it is mixed up. ¹⁹Therefore, say: This is what the Lord says: Because you have become as one mixture, therefore, behold, I take you into the middle of Ierousalem. ²⁰Just as silver and bronze and iron and tin and lead are taken into the middle of a furnace to blow fire into it to be melted, so I will take you in with my rage and gather and melt you, ²¹and I will blow upon you with the fire of my wrath, and you shall be melted in the midst of it. ²²As silver is melted in the midst of a furnace, so you shall be melted in its midst, and you shall recognize that I, the Lord, poured out my wrath upon you.

23 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²⁴Son of man, say to it: You are a land that is not rained upon, nor did rain come upon you in a day of indignation, ²⁵whose leaders in its midst are like roaring lions catching prey, devouring souls with dominance, taking honors, and your widows have been multiplied in your midst. ²⁶And its priests nullified my law and were profaning my holy things; they were making no distinction between holy and profane, and they were making no distinction between unclean and clean, and they were hiding their eyes from my sabbaths, and I was being profaned in their midst. ²⁷Its rulers in its midst were like wolves catching prey to shed blood so that they gain through greed. ²⁸And its prophets, while smearing^a them, shall fall, while they behold idle things, giving lying divination, saying, “This is what the Lord says,” and the Lord has not spoken, ²⁹while they oppress the people of the land in injustice and committing robberies, oppressing poor and needy, and did not deal with judgment toward the guest. ³⁰And I was seeking from them a man who behaved rightly and stood in front of me entirely in the time of the land so as not to wipe it out completely, and I did not find him. ³¹And I poured out my ire upon it with the fire of my wrath to complete it; I have given their ways upon their heads, says the Lord.

23 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²Son of man, two women were daughters of one mother, ³and they played the whore in Egypt in their youth; there their breasts fell; there they lost their virginity. ⁴And their names were Oola the elder and Ooliba her sister. And they became mine and bore sons and daughters. As for their names: Oola was Samaria, and Ooliba was Ierousalem.

5 And Oola played the whore away from me and laid herself upon her lovers, upon the Assyrians who were coming near to her ⁶clothed in blue, governors and commanders. They were all elite young men, horsemen riding upon horses. ⁷And she granted her whoring to them; they were all the chosen sons of Assyrians, and she was defiling herself upon all, upon whom she laid herself, with all her notions. ⁸And she did not give up her whoring from Egypt, for they were lying with her in her youth, and they took her virginity and poured out their whoring upon her. ⁹Therefore, I gave her over into the hands of her lovers, into hands of the sons of Assyrians upon whom she was laying herself. ¹⁰They uncovered her shame; they took her sons and daughters and killed her by sword, and she became prattle for women, and they executed judgment against her upon her daughters.

11 And her sister, Ooliba, saw and was corrupting her aggression beyond her and her whoring beyond the whoring of her sister. ¹²She applied herself to the sons of Assyrians, governors and commanders near her, wearing fine purple, horsemen riding upon horses. They were all elite young men. ¹³And I saw that she had been defiled, one way for the two. ¹⁴And she added to her whoring, and she saw men painted upon the wall, images of the Chaldeans, painted by brush, ¹⁵girded with brocades upon their loins and dyed tiaras on their heads; all had a triple aspect, a likeness of sons of Chaldeans of their native land. ¹⁶And she applied herself to them in the vision of her eyes and sent out messengers to them into the land of the Chaldeans. ¹⁷And the sons of Babylon came to her for a bed of lodgers, and they were defiling her in her whoring, and she was defiled with them, and her soul recoiled from them. ¹⁸And she uncovered her whoring and uncovered her shame, and my soul recoiled from her, as my soul recoiled from her sister. ¹⁹And you multiplied your whoring to remind them of the days of your youth when you whored in Egypt, ²⁰and you applied yourself to the Chaldeans, whose flesh was like that of donkeys and their privates were privates of horses. ²¹And you reflected upon the lawlessness of your youth, what you used to do in Egypt in your lodging, where the breasts of your youth were.

22 Therefore, O Ooliba, this is what the Lord says: Behold, I am rousing your lovers against you, those from whom your soul recoiled, and I will bring them against you from all around, ²³sons of Babylon and all the Chaldeans, Phakoud and Soue and Koue and all the sons of Assyrians with them, elite young men, all leaders and commanders, triples^a and famed riders upon horses. ²⁴All shall come against you from the north, chariots and wheelworks with a throng of people, oblong and small shields^b, and they shall cast a guard upon you all around. ²⁵And I will give judgment in front of them, and they shall judge you with their judgment. And I will give my jealousy against you, and they shall deal with you in furious anger; they shall remove your nose and ears, and they shall throw down your remnants by the sword. They shall seize your sons and daughters, and fire shall devour your remnants. ²⁶And they shall strip you of your clothing and seize the objects of your pride. ²⁷And I will turn back your impieties from you and your whoring from the land of Egypt, and you shall not lift your eyes upon them, and you shall remember Egypt no longer. ²⁸For this is what the Lord says: Behold, I am giving you into the hands of those whom you hate, those from whom your soul recoiled, ²⁹and they shall deal with you in hatred and take away all your labors and hardships, and you shall be naked and debased, and the shame of your whoring shall be exposed, and your impiety. And your acts of whoring ³⁰accomplished these things for you when you played the whore after nations and you were defiling yourself with their notions. ³¹You walked in the way of your sister, and I will give her cup into your hands. ³²This is what the Lord says:

You shall drink the cup of your sister, the
         deep and extra wide one

to complete the intoxication,

³³     and you shall be filled with faintness.

And the cup of annihilation
is a cup of your sister, Samaria.

³⁴ And you shall drink it,
and her feasts and new moons
I will overturn,

for I have spoken, says the Lord. ³⁵Therefore, this is what the Lord says: Because you forgot me and threw me away behind your body, so, you, receive your impiety and your whoring.

36 And the Lord said to me: Son of man, will you not judge Oola and Ooliba? And you shall declare to them their lawless acts, ³⁷for they were committing adultery and blood was on their hands; they were committing adultery with their notions and they drove their children that they bore me through flames to them. ³⁸While they did these things to me, they were defiling my holy things and profaning my sabbaths. ³⁹And when they were slaughtering their children to their idols, they were also entering into my holy things to profane them. And it is that they would act thus in the midst of my house!

40 And it was that, for the men who would come from afar (those to whom they would send out messengers), even as soon as they would come, immediately you would bathe and would paint your eyes, and you would adorn yourself with adornment, ⁴¹and you would sit on a covered couch, and a table adorned in front of it^c! And my incense and my oil would make merry among them. ⁴²And they would strike up a sound of harmony for themselves. And to men from a multitude of humans, when they would come out of the wilderness—they would also give bracelets upon their^d arms and a crown of boasting upon their^d heads.

43 And I said: Do they not commit adultery with these? And with actions of a whore, she too played the whore. ⁴⁴And they were entering into her; as they enter into a whoring woman, so they were entering into Oola and Ooliba to commit lawlessness. ⁴⁵And righteous men themselves shall judge them with the retribution of an adulteress and with the retribution of blood, because they are adulteresses and blood is on their hands.

46 This is what the Lord says: Bring up a throng against them, and impart tumult and plundering among them, ⁴⁷and cast stones upon them with the stones from throngs, and pierce them with their rapiers; they shall kill their sons and daughters and set ablaze their houses with fire. ⁴⁸And I will turn back impiety from the land, and all the women shall be educated and shall not act according to their impieties. ⁴⁹And your impiety shall be given against you, and you shall receive the sins of your notions, and you shall know that I am the Lord.

24 And a word of the Lord came to me in the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, saying: ²Son of man, write for yourself for a day from this day, from which the king of Babylon leaned on Ierousalem, from this very day. ³And speak an illustration to the embittering house, and you shall say to them: This is what the Lord says:

Set on the cauldron, and pour water into it,

⁴ and throw in it pieces cut in two,
every good piece cut in two,
leg and shoulder,
flesh cleaned from the bones

⁵     taken from choice cattle,

and burn the bones underneath them.

It boiled; it boiled,
and her^a bones were kindled in her^a
         midst.

⁶ Therefore, this is what the Lord says:

Oh city of shed blood,
a cauldron wherein there is rust,
and the rust did not leave her^a.

She brought forth from her^a piece by piece;
no lot has fallen upon her^a,

⁷ for her^a blood is in her^a midst;
I have arranged it^b upon a bare rock;

I have not poured it^b out on the ground,
that the earth might cover it^b,

⁸ that wrath might ascend for vengeance to be
         avenged;
I have given her^a blood
upon a bare rock
in order not to cover it^b.

⁹ Therefore, this is what the Lord says:

And I shall magnify the firebrand.

¹⁰ And I will multiply the wood and stoke the
         fire

so that the meat may dissolve

and the broth be lessened

¹¹     and it^c stand upon the coals

so that it^c be set on fire and her^a copper
be made hot

and melt in the midst of her^a
uncleanness, and her^a rust be gone,

¹²     and much of her^a rust may not come out
         of her^a,

and her^a rust shall be completely shamed,

¹³ because you were defiling yourself.

And what if you are no longer cleansed
until I will sate my fury?

¹⁴ I, the Lord have spoken, and it shall come, and I will act; I will not distinguish, nor will I show mercy; according to your ways and according to your notions I will judge you, says the Lord. Therefore, I will judge you according to your spilled blood, and I will judge you according to your notions, you “the unclean one,” “the notorious one and abundant in embittering.”

15 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ¹⁶Son of man, behold, I am taking from you the desires of your eyes in battle; you shall not mourn nor weep. ¹⁷It is a groan of blood, of a loin, of mourning; your hair shall not be plaited upon you, or your sandals on your feet; you shall not be consoled by their lips, and you shall not eat the bread of men. ¹⁸And I spoke to the people in the morning as he commanded me in the evening, and I did in the morning as I was ordered.

19 And the people said to me, “Shall you not proclaim to us what these things are that you are doing?” ²⁰And I said to them: A word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²¹Say to the house of Israel, This is what the Lord says: Behold, I will profane my holy things, the wantonness of your power, the desires of your eyes, and over which your souls are concerned. And your sons and your daughters whom you left behind shall fall by the sword. ²²And you shall do as I have done; from their mouth you shall not be consoled, and you shall not eat the bread of men, ²³and your hair shall be on your head, and your sandals on your feet; you shall neither mourn nor weep and break down in your injustices, and you shall console, each his brother. ²⁴And Iezekiel shall be to you for a sign; according to everything, whatever he has done, you shall do, when these things come, and you shall recognize that I am the Lord.

25 And you, son of man, in the day when I take their strength from them, the swelling of their boast, the desires of their eyes and the swelling of their soul, their sons and their daughters—²⁶surely in that day he who has escaped shall not come to you to report to you, to your ears? ²⁷In that day your mouth shall be opened wide to the one who has escaped, and you shall speak and be mute no longer, and you shall be to them for a sign, and they shall recognize that I am the Lord.

25 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²Son of man, set your face against the sons of Ammon, and prophesy against them. ³And you shall say to the sons of Ammon, Hear a word of the Lord: This is what the Lord says: Because you exulted over my holy things that they were profaned and over the land of Israel that it was annihilated and over the house of Ioudas that it went into captivity, ⁴therefore, behold, I am giving you over to the sons of Kedem as a portion, and they shall encamp with their equipment among you, and they shall give their coverts in you; they shall eat your fruits, and they shall drink your drinks. ⁵And I will give the city of Ammon as pastures for camels and the sons of Ammon as a pasture for sheep, and you shall recognize that I am the Lord. ⁶For this is what the Lord says: Because you clapped your hand and stamped with your foot and rejoiced from your soul over the land of Israel, ⁷therefore, I will stretch out my hand against you and give you for plundering among the nations, and I will utterly destroy you from the peoples and destroy you from the countries with destruction, and you shall recognize that I am the Lord.

8 This is what the Lord says: Because Moab said, “Behold, the house of Israel and Ioudas is like all the nations,” ⁹therefore, behold, from the cities of his extremities I will loose the shoulder of Moab, an excellent land, a house of Asimouth above the fount of the city by the sea. ¹⁰I will give them^a along with the sons of Ammon to the sons of Kedem as a portion so that there be no memory of the sons of Ammon. ¹¹And I will take retribution against Moab, and they shall recognize that I am the Lord.

12 This is what the Lord says: Because of what Idumea did when they retaliated against the house of Ioudas with retaliation and they bore a grudge and retaliated with judgment, ¹³therefore, this is what the Lord says, So I will stretch out my hand against Idumea and utterly destroy from it human being and cattle and will make it a wilderness, and those pursued from Thaiman shall fall by the sword, ¹⁴and I will give my vengeance against Idumea by the hand of my people, Israel, and they shall act against Idumea according to my rage and according to my wrath, and they shall recognize my vengeance, says the Lord.

15 Therefore, this is what the Lord says: Because the allophyles acted in vengeance and raised up vengeance while rejoicing from their soul so as to wipe it out forever, ¹⁶therefore, this is what the Lord says, Behold, I myself will stretch out my hand against the allophyles and utterly destroy Cretans and destroy the survivors living on the seacoast, ¹⁷and I will execute great acts of judgment against them, and they shall recognize that I am the Lord, when I give my judgment against them.

26 And it happened in the eleventh year, on the first of the month, a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²Son of man, because Sor said concerning Ierousalem,

“Good! It was shattered; the nations have
         perished;

she has turned toward me;

she that was full has become desolate”;

³ therefore, this is what the Lord says:

Behold, I am against you, O Sor,
and I will bring up against you many
         nations,
as the sea comes up with its waves.

⁴ And they shall overthrow the walls of Sor
and cast down your towers,

and I will winnow its soil from it
and render it as a bare rock,

⁵ and it shall be a drying-place for dragnets
in the midst of the sea,

for I have spoken, says the Lord.

And it shall become plunder for the
         nations.

⁶ And its daughters in the plain
shall be killed by dagger.

And they shall know that I am the Lord.

7 For this is what the Lord says: O Sor, behold, I am bringing against you Nabouchodonosor, king of Babylon, from the north—he is king of kings—together with horses and chariots and riders and a gathering of very many nations.

⁸ By dagger he shall kill your daughters on the
         plain

and give an outpost against you.

And he shall build around you
and make a palisade and an encirclement
         of troops against you all around,

and his spears he shall give opposite you.

⁹ He shall drop your walls
and your towers with his daggers.

¹⁰ From the number of his horses—
their dust shall cover over you.

And your walls shall be shaken
from the sound of his riders
and the wheelworks of his chariots,

when he enters your gates
as one enters a city from a plain.

¹¹ They shall trample all your streets
with the hoofs of his horses.

He shall kill your people by dagger
and bring down the foundation of your
         power onto the ground.

¹² And he shall plunder your force
and seize your belongings

and cast down your walls
and demolish your desired houses.

And he shall cast your stones and wood and
         soil
into the midst of the sea.

¹³ And he shall disband the multitude of your
         musicians,

and the voice of your harps shall be
heard no longer.

¹⁴ And I will give you as a bare rock;
you shall be a drying-place for dragnets.

You shall never again be built,
for I have spoken, says the Lord.

¹⁵ For this is what the Lord says to Sor: Shall not the islands be shaken from the voice of your fall, when a wounded groans when a dagger is drawn in your midst? ¹⁶And all the rulers from the nations of the sea shall step down from their thrones and remove the headdresses from their heads and take off their embroidered apparel; they shall become amazed with amazement, they shall sit on the ground and be frightened for their destruction and become sullen over you. ¹⁷And they shall take up for themselves a lament over you and say:

How have you been dismissed from the sea,
you laudable city

that imposed terror of itself
on all its inhabitants?

¹⁸ And the islands shall be frightened
from the day of your fall.

¹⁹ For this is what the Lord says: When I render you as a desolate city, like the cities that are not inhabited, when I bring up the abyss against you, abundant water shall also cover you, ²⁰and I will force you down to those who descend into a hole, to a people of long ago, and I will make you live in the depths of the earth as an everlasting wilderness with those who descend into a hole so that you shall not be inhabited nor rise upon a land of life. ²¹And I will give you into destruction, and you shall no more exist forever, says the Lord.

27 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²Son of man, take up a lament over Sor, ³and you shall say to Sor, which lives at the entrance to the sea, to the trading-station of the peoples from many islands: This is what the Lord says to Sor:

You have said,
“I wrapped myself with my beauty.”

⁴ In the heart of the sea of Gobelin,
your sons wrapped you with beauty.

⁵ A cedar from Sanir was built for you,
fillets of timber of cypress were taken
         from Lebanon
to make fir-tree masts for you.

⁶ They made your oars from Basanitis;
they made your ^aholy things^a from ivory,
woodland houses from the islands of the
         Chettiin.

⁷ Fine linen with embroidery from Egypt
         became your bedding

so as to wrap you with glory

and to clothe you with blue and purple
from the islands of Elisai,

and they became your covering.

⁸ And your rulers, those who inhabited Sidon,
and Aradians became your rowers;

your skilled ones, O Sor, were among you;
these were your pilots.

⁹ The elders of the Byblians and their wise
         ones were within you,

and they were strengthening your
counsel,

and all the ships of the sea and their rowers
became yours unto the west of the west.

¹⁰ Persians and Lydians and Libyans
were in your force;
your warrior men

hung up small, light shields and helmets in
         you;

these furnished your glory.

¹¹ Sons of Aradians and your force
were guards on your walls,
in your towers.

They hung up their quivers on your places
         of anchorage all around;
they made perfect your beauty.

12 Carthaginians, your dealers from all the abundance of your strength, gave your market silver and gold and iron and tin and lead. ¹³Greece and its entirety and its neighboring regions—they were trafficking in human souls for you and gave bronze vessels as your merchandise. ¹⁴From a house of Thegrama, horses and riders supplied your market. ¹⁵Sons of the Rhodians, merchants from islands, multiplied your commerce in ivory tusks, and for the imports you would exchange your wages, ¹⁶human beings as your commerce from an abundance of your sundries: oil of myrrh and brocades from Tharsis and Ramoth and Chorchor supplied your market; ¹⁷Ioudas and the sons of Israel—these are your merchants in sale of grain and myrrh and cassia, and they gave first^b honey and oil and resin into your sundries. ¹⁸Damascus is your merchant, as a result the abundance of all your might. Wine was from Chelbon and wool from Miletus, and they supplied wine to your market; ¹⁹from Asel, wrought iron and casting are among your sundries^c; ²⁰Dedan are your merchants with choice beasts for chariots; ²¹Arabia and all the rulers of Kedar—these are your merchants through your hand: camels and rams and lambs in which they do business with you. ²²Merchants of Saba and Ragma—these are your merchants in first^b fragrances and fine stones, and they supplied your market gold; ²³Charran and Channa—these are your merchants; Assour and Char-man are your merchants ²⁴bearing commerce in blue and choice treasures bound with cords and cypress wood ²⁵ships. In them are Carthaginians as your merchants, in abundance, among your sundries, and you were filled up, and you were greatly weighed down in the heart of the sea.

²⁶ Your rowers would lead you in much water;
the wind of the south wrecked you in the
         heart of the sea.

²⁷ They were your powers and your wage even
         of your sundries.

And your rowers and your pilots

and your advisers and your sundries^c from
         your sundries

and all your men, your warriors that are
in you

and all your gathering in your midst—

they shall fall in the heart of the sea
in the day of your fall.

²⁸ At the voice of your cry,
your pilots shall fear with fear,

²⁹ and all the rowers and passengers and bow-
         officers of the sea

shall debark from the ships and stand on
the ground,

³⁰ and they shall howl loudly over you with
         their voice
and cry bitterly.

And they shall put earth upon their head
and shall make a bed of ashes.

³² And their sons shall take up a lament over
         you
and a lamentation for Sor:

³³ “How great a wage have you found from the
         sea?

You satisfied nations

from your abundance and from your
         sundries;
you enriched all kings of the earth.

³⁴ Now, you have been shattered in the sea,
in a depth of water;

your sundries and all your gathering,
all your rowers, fell in your midst.

35 All the inhabitants of the islands became sullen over you,

and their kings became astounded with
         astonishment,

and their face cried tears.

³⁶ Merchants from nations hissed at you;
you have become destruction,
and you shall no more exist forever.”

28 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²And you, son of man, say to the ruler of Tyre, This is what the Lord says:

Because your heart was exalted
and you said, “I am a god;

I have inhabited a habitation of a god
in the heart of the sea,”

yet you are human and not a god,
and you rendered your heart as a god’s
         heart.

³ Surely, you are not wiser than Daniel?
Or did wise ones not discipline you with
         their knowledge?

⁴ Surely, by your knowledge and by your
         prudence

you did not make for yourself power,
both gold and silver in your treasuries?

⁵ Or by your great knowledge and commerce
did you multiply your power?
Was your heart exalted by your power?

⁶ Therefore, this is what the Lord says:

Since you have rendered your heart
as a god’s heart,

⁷ therefore, behold, I am bringing against you
foreign pests from the nations,

and they shall unsheathe their daggers
         against you

and against the beauty of your knowledge

and wound your beauty unto destruction.

⁸ And they shall bring you down,
and you shall die by the death of the
         wounded

in the heart of the sea.

⁹ When you speak, will you actually say, “I am
         a god,”

before those that are killing you?

But you are a human and not a god.

¹⁰ By a multitude of the uncircumcised
you shall perish, by the hands of
         foreigners,
for I have spoken, says the Lord.

11 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ¹²Son of man, take up a lament over the ruler of Tyre, and say to him, This is what the Lord says:

You were a signet in likeness
and a crown of beauty.

¹³ In the delight of the orchard of God you
         were born;
you have bound on every fine stone,

carnelian and topaz and emerald
and carbuncle and lapis lazuli and jasper

and silver and gold and ligyrion

and agate and amethyst

and chrysolite^a and beryl and onyx.

And you filled with gold your treasuries

and your storerooms among you.

¹⁴ From the day you were created, I placed you
         with the cheroub
in a holy, divine mountain;

you were born in the midst of fiery stones.

¹⁵ You were born blameless in your days
from the day you were created
until acts of iniquity were found in you.

¹⁶ From the abundance of your commerce
you filled your storehouses with
         lawlessness,

and you sinned and were wounded from
         God’s mountain,

and the cheroub drove you from the
midst of the fiery stones.

¹⁷ Your heart was exalted because of your
         beauty,

and your knowledge was corrupted by
your beauty.

Because of the multitude of your sins, I
         threw you on the ground;

before kings I gave you

to be made an example.

¹⁸ Because of the multitude of your sins
and the injustice of your commerce,
I profaned your temples,

and I will bring out fire from your midst.
This shall devour you,

and I will render you into ashes upon your
         land

before all who see you.

¹⁹ And all who understand you among the
         nations

shall become sullen over you;

you became destruction,
and you shall exist no more forever.

20 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²¹Son of man, set your face against Sidon, and prophesy against it, ²²and say, This is what the Lord says:

Behold, I am against you, O Sidon,
and I will be glorified in you,

and you shall know that I am the Lord,
when I execute judgments against you,
and I will be hallowed in you.

²³ Blood and death
shall be in your streets,

and those who have been wounded by
         daggers

shall fall in you all around you.

And they shall know that I am the Lord.

24 And the house of Israel shall no longer have a thorn of bitterness or a prick of pain from those all around them, who dishonor them, and they shall know that I am the Lord.

25 This is what the Lord says: And I will gather Israel from the nations, there where they were scattered, and I will be hallowed among them before the peoples and the nations. ²⁶And they shall live upon their land, which I have given to my slave, Iakob, ⁽²⁶⁾and they shall live upon it in hope and shall build houses and plant vineyards and live in hope, when I execute judgment among all who dishonor them among those around them, and they shall know that I am the Lord, their God, and the God of their fathers.

29 In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the first of the month, a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²Son of man, set your face against Pharao, king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt, ³and say, This is what the Lord says:

Behold, I am against Pharao,

the great dragon who is ensconced
in the midst of his streams

and the one who says, “The streams are
         mine,

and I made them.”

⁴ And I will give snares into your jaws
and glue the fish of your stream to your
         fins.

And I will bring up you and all the fish of
         your stream

from the midst of your stream.

⁵ And I will fling you
and all the fish of your stream down with
         speed;

upon the surface of the plain you shall
         fall,

and you shall not be gathered and shall
not be interred.

I have given you to the animals of the earth
         and to the birds of the air for food.

⁶ And all who inhabit Egypt shall know
that I am the Lord,

because you became a rod of reed
for the house of Israel.

⁷ When they seized you with their hands, you
         were crushed,

and when every hand prevailed over them

and when they rested upon you, you were
         shattered,

and you broke every loin of theirs.

8 Therefore, this is what the Lord says: Behold, I am bringing against you a sword, and I will destroy human beings and cattle from you, ⁹and the land of Egypt shall be destruction and a wilderness, and they shall know that I am the Lord, instead of your saying, “The streams are mine, and I made them.” 10Therefore, behold, I am against you and against all your streams, and I will give the land of Egypt into a wilderness and a sword and destruction from Magdolos and Syene and as far as the borders of the Ethiopians. ¹¹And no human foot shall pass through it, and no cattle hoof shall pass through it, and it shall not be inhabited for forty years. ¹²And I will give its land as a destruction in the midst of a desolated land, and its cities shall be in the midst of desolated cities for forty years, and I will scatter Egypt among the nations and winnow them into the countries.

13 This is what the Lord says: After forty years, I will gather Egyptians from the nations, there where they were scattered, ¹⁴and I will turn back the captivity of the Egyptians and settle them in a land of Pathoures in the land, there from where they were taken, and it shall be a lowly principality ¹⁵compared to all principalities, and it will never again be exalted over the nations, and I will make them least so that they might not be rather numerous among the nations. ¹⁶And the house of Israel shall no longer have them for a hope that recalls lawlessness, when they follow after them, and they shall know that I am the Lord.

17 And it happened in the twenty-seventh year, on the first of the first month, a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ¹⁸Son of man, Nabouchodonosor, king of Babylon, treated his force as slaves with great slavery against Tyre. Every head was bald, and every shoulder hairless, and no wage accrued to him and to his force against Tyre even in return for the slavery with which they slaved against it. ¹⁹This is what the Lord says: Behold, I am giving to Nabouchodonosor, king of Babylon, the land of Egypt, and he shall foray for its booty and seize its spoils, and there shall be a wage for his force. ²⁰In return for his ministry, which he slaved against Tyre, I have given him the land of Egypt. This is what the Lord says: ²¹In that day a horn shall sprout up for all the house of Israel, and I will give to you an open mouth in their midst, and they shall know that I am the Lord.

30 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²Son of man, prophesy, and say, This is what the Lord says:

Ah, ah the day,

³     for the day of the Lord is near;

a day shall be an end of nations.

⁴ And a dagger shall come upon the
         Egyptians,

and there shall be tumult in Ethiopia,

and those who have been wounded shall
         fall in Egypt,

and its foundations shall collapse.

⁵Persians and Cretans and Lydians and Libyans and all those mixed in and some of the sons of my covenant shall fall in it^a by dagger.

⁶ And the supports of Egypt shall fall,
and the insolence of its power shall come
         down

from Magdolos to Syene;
they shall fall in it^a by dagger, says the
         Lord.

⁷ And it shall be made desolate in the midst
         of desolated countries,

and their cities shall be in the midst of
desolate cities.

⁸ And they shall know that I am the Lord,
when I give fire upon Egypt
and all those who help it are shattered.

9 In that day, messengers shall go out rushing to annihilate Ethiopia, and there shall be tumult among them in the day of Egypt, for behold, it has come.

10 This is what the Lord says:

And I will destroy a mass of Egyptians
by the hand of Nabouchodonosor, king
         of Babylon,

¹¹     of him^a and of his people;

pests they are, dispatched from nations to
         destroy the land,

and all shall unsheathe their daggers
against Egypt,

and the land shall be filled with
wounded.

¹² And I will render their streams desolate
and destroy the land and its fullness
by the hands of foreigners;

I, the Lord have spoken,

¹³     because this is what the Lord says:

And I will destroy nobles from Memphis
and rulers from the land of Egypt.

And they shall no longer be.

¹⁴ And I will destroy the land of Pathoures
and give fire against Tanis
and execute judgment against Diospolis.

¹⁵ And I will pour out my wrath upon Sais,
the strength of Egypt,
and destroy the mass of Memphis.

¹⁶ And I will give fire against Egypt,
and Syene shall fall in tumult.

And in Diospolis there shall be a breach,
and waters shall pour through.

¹⁷ Young men of Heliopolis and Bubastis shall
         fall by dagger,

and the women shall go in captivity.

¹⁸ And in Taphnas the day shall become
         completely dark,

when I shatter there the scepters of Egypt.

And the insolence of its strength shall perish
         there,

and a cloud shall cover it,

and its daughters shall be led away as
prisoners.

¹⁹ And I will execute judgment in Egypt,
and they shall know that I am the Lord.

20 And it happened in the eleventh year, in the first month, on the seventh of the month, a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²¹Son of man, I shattered the arms of Pharao, king of Egypt, and behold, he has not been bound up to be given healing, to be given padding upon it, to be given strength to wield daggers. ²²Therefore, this is what the Lord says: Behold, I am against Pharao, king of Egypt, and I will shatter his strong and outstretched arms, and I will throw down his dagger from his hand. ²³And I will scatter Egypt into the nations and winnow them into the countries, ²⁴and I will make strong the arms of the king of Babylon and give my sword into his hand and bring it out against Egypt, and he^b shall foray for its plunder and seize its spoils. ²⁵And I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon but the arms of Pharao shall fall, and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I give my sword into the hands of the king of Babylon and he shall stretch it out against the land of Egypt. ²⁶And I will scatter Egypt into the nations and winnow them into the countries, and all shall know that I am the Lord.

31 And it happened in the eleventh year, in the third month, on the first of the month, a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²Son of man, say to Pharao, king of Egypt, and to his mass:

To whom^c did you liken yourself in your
         height?

³     Behold, Assour is a cypress in Lebanon;

beautiful in limbs he is and high in size;
his top came to be into the midst of
         clouds.

⁴ Water nourished him;
the abyss raised him high;

it^d led its^d rivers around his plants^e,
and it^d sent out its^d systems to all the
         trees of the plain.

⁵ On this account, his size was exalted
above all the trees of the plain,

and his branches were multiplied
from abundant water.

⁶ All the birds of the air
nested in his limbs,

and underneath his branches all the animals
         of the plain gave birth;

in his shade all the multitude of nations
lived.

⁷ And he became beautiful in his height,
because of the multitude of his branches,

because his roots came into abundant water.

⁸ Such cypresses do not exist in the orchard of
         God,

and pine trees were not like his limbs,

and silver firs were not like his branches;

no tree in the orchard of God resembled
         him in his beauty

⁹     on account of the abundance of his
         branches.

The trees in the orchard of God’s delight
         were jealous of him.

10 Therefore, this is what the Lord says: On account of the fact that you became great in size and you gave your top into the midst of clouds, I also looked after he was exalted, ¹¹and I gave him over into the hands of a ruler of nations, and he accomplished his destruction. ¹²And foreign pests from nations destroyed him utterly and flung him down upon the mountains; in all the ravines his branches fell, and his trunks were shattered in every plain of the earth, and all the peoples of the nations came down from their shelter and beat him flat.

13 All the birds of the air rested upon his fall, and all the animals of the field came to be upon his trunks, ¹⁴that all the trees in the water might not be exalted in their size, and they did not give their top into the midst of the clouds, and all those who would drink water did not approach them in their height.

All were handed over to death
into the depth of the earth,

in the midst of sons of humans,
to people who descend into a hole.

15 This is what the Lord says: In the day he descended into Hades, the abyss lamented him, and I halted its rivers and blocked an abundance of water, and Lebanon grew dark over him; all the trees of the plain fainted because of him. ¹⁶From the sound of his fall, the nations were shaken, when I was bringing him down into Hades with those who descend into a hole. And all the trees of delight even the choice ones of Lebanon, all that drink water, were consoling him on earth^a. ¹⁷For they descended into Hades with him among those wounded by dagger, and his offspring, those who lived under his shelter, perished in the middle of their life.

18 To whom^b were you likened? Descend, and be brought down with the trees of delight into the depth of the earth; in the midst of the uncircumcised you shall lie among those wounded by dagger. This is Pharao and all the multitude of his strength, says the Lord.

32 And it happened in the eleventh year, in the twelfth month, on the first of the month, a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²Son of man, take up a lament over Pharao, king of Egypt, and you shall say to him:

You were likened to a lion of nations,
and you were like a dragon that is in the
         sea,

and you were raising a horn against your
         streams

and were troubling water with your feet

and trampling down your streams.

³ This is what the Lord says:
And I will wrap you with nets of many
         peoples

and haul you up by my hook.

⁴ And I will stretch you out upon the ground;
plains shall be filled with you.

And I will settle upon you all the birds of
         the air

and satisfy all the animals of the earth.

⁵ And I will give your flesh upon the
         mountains

and fill all the earth from your blood.

⁶ And the earth shall be given to drink from
         your excrement,

from your mass upon the mountains;

I will fill ravines with you.

⁷ And I will cover over heaven after you are
         extinguished

and make its stars dark;

I will cover the sun with a cloud,
and the moon shall not show its light.

⁸ All that shine light in the sky shall grow
         dark over you,

and I will give darkness against your land,
says the Lord.

⁹ And I will provoke the heart of many
         peoples,

when I take your captivity into the
nations,

into a land that you did not know.

¹⁰ And many nations shall become sullen over
         you,

and their kings shall be amazed with
amazement

when my sword flies in their face,
as they accept their fall after^c the day of
         your fall.

¹¹ For this is what the Lord says:

A sword of the king of Babylon shall come
         to you

¹²     with daggers of giants.

And I will throw down your strength;
all are pests from nations,

and they shall destroy the insolence of
         Egypt,

and all its strength shall be shattered.

¹³ And I will destroy all its cattle
from abundant water,

and no human foot shall trouble it^d any
         longer,

and no cattle print shall trample it^d.

¹⁴ So then their waters shall be quiet,
and their streams shall run like oil, says
         the Lord.

¹⁵ When I give Egypt into destruction
and the land is made desolate together
         with its plenty,

when I disperse all the inhabitants in it,
then they shall know that I am the Lord.

¹⁶ A lament it is, and you shall ^elament it^e,
and the daughters of the nations shall
         ^elament it^e.

Over Egypt and over all its strength, they
         shall ^elament it^e,

says the Lord.

¹⁷ And it happened in the twelfth year, in the first month, on the fifteenth of the month, a word of the Lord came to me, saying:

¹⁸ Son of man, bewail the strength of Egypt,

and the nations shall bring down its
         daughters dead

into the depth of the earth

to those who descend into a hole.

²⁰ In the midst of those wounded by daggers, they shall fall down with him^f, and all his^f strength shall lie down. ²¹And the giants in the depth of the hole shall say to you, “You are greater than whom? Descend, and lie with the uncircumcised in the midst of those wounded by dagger.”

22 Assour is there, and all his gathering; all the wounded were given there, and their burial is in a depth of a hole, and his gathering came to be all around his tomb, all the wounded who have fallen by dagger, ²³who gave their fear upon^a the land of life.

24 Ailam is there, and all his force all around his tomb, all the wounded who have fallen by dagger and those who descend uncircumcised into the depth of the earth, who gave their fear upon^a the land of life and received their trial with those who descend into a hole ²⁵in the midst of the wounded.

26 Mosoch and Thobel were given there, and all their strength all around his tomb, all his wounded, all the uncircumcised wounded by dagger, who have given their fear upon^a the land of life, ²⁷and they lay down with the giants fallen long ago, who descended into Hades by military arms and placed their daggers under their heads, and their lawless acts came to be upon their bones, because they terrified giants in the land of life. ²⁸And you shall lie in the midst of the uncircumcised, with those who have been wounded by dagger.

29 The rulers of Assour were given there, who gave their strength for a wound by dagger; they lay down with the wounded, with those who go down into a hole.

30 The rulers of the north are there, all commanders of Assour, those who were descending as wounded, together with their fear and with their strength; they lay down uncircumcised with the wounded by dagger, and they bore their trial with those who descend into a hole.

31 King Pharao shall see them and be consoled over all their strength, says the Lord. ³²Because I have given his fear upon the land of life, he shall also lie down in the midst of the uncircumcised with the wounded by dagger, Pharao and all his multitude, says the Lord.

33 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²Son of man, speak to the sons of your people, and you shall say to them, A land—if I bring a sword upon it and if the people of the land take one person from them and give him to themselves as a sentinel ³and if he sees the sword coming against the land and if he trumpets with the trumpet and if he signals to the people ⁴and if the one who hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take heed and if the sword arrives and overtakes him, his blood shall be on his head! ⁵For after hearing the sound of the trumpet, he did not take heed, his blood shall be on him, and he, because he took heed, delivered his soul. ⁶And the sentinel, if he sees the sword coming and does not signal with the trumpet and the people do not take heed and the sword comes and takes from them a soul, this one was taken on account of its own lawlessness, and I will seek the blood from the hand of the sentinel.

7 And you, son of man, I have given you as a sentinel to the house of Israel, and you shall hear a word from my mouth. ⁸When I say to the sinner, “By death you shall be put to death,” and should you not speak so that the impious might take heed from his way, the lawless one himself shall die by his lawlessness, but his blood I will seek from your hand. ⁹But you, if you announce to the impious his way, to turn back from it, and he does not turn back from his way, he shall die by his lawlessness, and you have delivered your own soul.

¹⁰ Now you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, Thus you spoke, saying, “Our errors and lawless acts are with us, and in them we waste away. And how will we live?” ¹¹Say to them, I live, says the Lord; I do not wish the death of the impious, rather that the impious turn back from his way and he live. Turn back from your way by turning back, and why are you dying, O house of Israel? ¹²Say to the sons of your people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in whatever day he err, and the lawlessness of the impious shall not harm him on whatever day he turn back from his lawlessness, and the righteous shall not be able to be saved. ¹³When I say to the righteous, “He trusts in his righteousness,” and should he commit lawlessness, none of his righteous acts shall be recalled in his injustice that he has committed; in it he shall die. ¹⁴And when I say to the impious, “By death you shall be put to death, and you shall turn back from your sin,” and should he perform judgment and righteousness ¹⁵and restore a pledge and give back robbery, walk in the ordinances of life so as not to do what is wrong, by life he shall live, and he shall not die; ¹⁶none of his sins that he has committed shall be recalled, for he has performed judgment and righteousness; in them he shall live.

17 And the sons of your people shall say, “The way of the Lord is not right,” and this way of theirs is not right. ¹⁸When a righteous one has turned back from his righteousness and should he commit acts of lawlessness, he shall also die in them. ¹⁹ And when the sinner turns back from his lawlessness and performs judgment and righteousness, in them he shall live. ²⁰And this is what you said, “The way of the Lord is not right”; I will judge each of you by his ways, O house of Israel.

21 And it happened in the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, on the fifth of the month of our captivity, he that had escaped came to me from Ierousalem, saying, “The city has been taken.” ²²And the hand of the Lord came upon me in the evening before he came, and my mouth was open until he came to me in the morning, and when opened, my mouth was constrained no longer.

23 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²⁴Son of man, the inhabitants of ^bdesolated places^b upon the land of Israel say, “Abraam was one man, and he possessed the land, and we are more; the land has been given to us as a possession.” ²⁵Therefore, say to them, ²⁷This is what the Lord says: I live; surely those in ^bdesolated ones^b shall fall by dagger, and those upon the surface of the plain shall be given to the animals of the field for food, and I will slay by death those in walled places^a and those in caves. ²⁸And I will render the land a wilderness, and the insolence of its strength shall perish, and the mountains of Israel shall be made desolate so as not to be passed through. ²⁹And they shall know that I am the Lord, and I will make their land a wilderness, and it shall be made desolate because of all their abominations that they committed.

30 And as for you, son of man, the sons of your people who speak about you by the walls and in the gateways of their dwellings, and they speak, a person to his brother, saying, “Let us go together and hear what comes from the Lord,” ³¹they also come to you, as a people comes together, and they sit before you and hear your words, and they shall not do them, because a lie is in their mouth, and their heart is after defilements. ³²And you shall be to them as a tone of a sweet, harmonious harp, and they shall hear your words, and they shall not do them. ³³And whenever it comes, they shall say, “Behold, it has come,” and they shall know that a prophet was in their midst.

34 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say to the shepherds, This is what the Lord says: Oh, you shepherds of Israel, do shepherds feed themselves? Do not shepherds feed the flocks? ³Behold, you devour the milk and wrap yourselves with the wool and slaughter the fatling, but you do not feed my sheep. ⁴You did not strengthen the weakened and did not build up the unwell and did not bind up the crushed and did not turn about the one that strayed and did not seek the lost, and you subdued the strong with hardship. ⁵And my sheep were scattered because there were no shepherds, and they were as food for all the animals of the field. ⁶And my sheep were scattered on every mountain and upon every lofty hill, and they were scattered upon the surface of every land, and there was not one who searched for them nor one who turned them back.

7 Therefore, shepherds, hear a word of the Lord: ⁸I live, says the Lord, surely because my sheep were for plunder and my sheep were as food for all the animals of the plain, because there were no shepherds and the shepherds did not search for my sheep and the shepherds fed themselves but did not feed my sheep—⁹because of this, you shepherds, ¹⁰this is what the Lord says: Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will search for my sheep from their hands and turn them back so as not to shepherd my sheep, and the shepherds shall no longer feed them, and I will deliver my sheep from their mouth and they shall no longer be for them as food.

11 For this is what the Lord says: Behold, I will search for my sheep and watch over them. ¹²Just as the shepherd seeks his flock by day, when there is thick darkness and cloud in the midst of the separated sheep, so will I seek out my sheep and drive them away from every place, there where they were scattered in a day of cloud and thick darkness. ¹³And I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries and will bring them into their land, and I will feed them upon the mountains of Israel and in the ravines and in every habitation of the land. ¹⁴I will feed them in a good pasture; their folds shall be on the lofty mountain of Israel; there also they shall lie down, and there they shall rest in fine luxury, and they shall be fed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. ¹⁵It is I who will feed my sheep, and it is I who will give them rest, and they shall know that I am the Lord. This is what the Lord says: ¹⁶I will seek the lost, and I will turn about the one that strayed, and I will bind up the crushed, and I will strengthen the abandoned, and I will watch the strong, and I will feed them with judgment.

17 And you, O sheep, this is what the Lord says: Behold, I am deciding between sheep and sheep, rams and goats. ¹⁸And was it not enough for you that you were feeding in a beautiful pasture, and you were treading with your feet the rest of the pasture? And you were drinking the calm water, and you were troubling the rest with your feet? ¹⁹And my sheep were feeding upon the troddings of your feet and were drinking the water troubled by your feet.

20 Therefore, this is what the Lord says: Behold, it is I who am deciding between a strong sheep and between a feeble sheep. ²¹Since you pushed through with your sides and shoulders and were butting with your horns and were afflicting every abandoned^b one, ²²I will also save my sheep, and they shall no longer be as plunder, and I will judge between ram against ram.

23 And I will raise up over them another shepherd, and he shall shepherd them, my slave Dauid, and he shall be their shepherd, ²⁴and I, the Lord, will be a god for them, and Dauid shall be ruler in their midst; I, the Lord, have spoken.

25 And I will make with Dauid a covenant of peace, and I will annihilate harmful animals from the land, and they shall live in the wilderness and sleep in the forests. ²⁶And I will give them all around my mountain, and I will give rain to you, a rain of blessing. ²⁷And the trees in the plain shall yield their fruit, and the land shall yield its strength, and they shall live upon their land in hope of peace, and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shatter their yoke, and I will deliver them from the hand of those who enslaved them. ²⁸And they shall no longer be for plunder for the nations, and the animals of the land shall no longer eat them, and they shall live in hope, and there shall be no one who terrifies them. ²⁹And I will raise up for them a plant of peace, and no longer shall they perish by famine upon the land, and they shall no longer suffer the reproach of nations. ³⁰And they shall know that I am the Lord, their God, and they are my people, the house of Israel, says the Lord. ³¹You are my sheep and the sheep of my flock, and I, the Lord, am your God, says the Lord.

35 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²Son of man, turn your face against Mount Seir, and prophesy against it, ³and say to it, This is what the Lord says:

Behold, I am against you, Mount Seir,
and will stretch out my hand against you
and render you a wilderness,
and you shall be made desolate.

⁴ And I will make a solitude in your cities,
and you shall be a wilderness,
and you shall know that I am the Lord.

⁵ Because you had everlasting enmity, you also took your seat against the house of Israel in treachery^a by the hand of enemies, by dagger in a time of injustice to the uttermost; ⁶therefore, I live, says the Lord, surely unto blood you sinned, and blood shall pursue you. ⁷And I will render Mount Seir into a wilderness and as desolate, and I will destroy human beings and cattle from it, ⁸and I will fill your hills and your ravines with wounded, and in all your plains wounded by dagger shall fall in you. ⁹I will make you as an everlasting solitude, and your cities shall no longer be inhabited, and you shall know that I am the Lord.

10 Because you said, “The two nations and the two countries shall be mine, and I will take possession of them”—and the Lord is there, ¹¹therefore, I live, says the Lord, I will also deal with you according to your enmity, and I will be known to you, when I judge you, ¹²and you shall know that I am the Lord. I have heard the voice of your blasphemies; for you said, “The mountains of Israel are deserted; they have been given to us for food,” ¹³and you talked big against me with your mouth. I heard! ¹⁴This is what the Lord says: In the joy of all the earth, I will make you a wilderness. ¹⁵A wilderness you shall be, Mount Seir, and all Idumea shall be consumed, and you shall know that I, the Lord, am their God.

36 And you, son of man, prophesy against the mountains of Israel, and say to the mountains of Israel, Hear a word of the Lord. ²This is what the Lord says: Because the enemy said of you, “Good! Everlasting desert places have become for us a possession,” ³therefore, prophesy, and say: This is what the Lord says: Because of your being dishonored and your being hated by those around you so that you are as a possession for the remaining nations and you ascended as prattle to the tongue even as an insult for nations, ⁴therefore, O mountains of Israel, hear a word of the Lord: This is what the Lord says to the mountains and to the hills and to the ravines and to the wadis and to the devastated and annihilated places and to the abandoned cities, which became as plunder and as a downtrodden place for the nations that were left^b, all around; ⁵therefore, this is what the Lord says: Surely I spoke in the fire of my ardor against the rest of the nations and against all Idumea, for they have given themselves my land as a possession with joy, dishonoring souls so as to annihilate in plunder. ⁶Therefore, prophesy against the land of Israel, and say to the mountains and to the hills and to the ravines and to the dells, This is what the Lord says: Behold, I spoke in my jealousy and in my wrath, because you bore the insults of nations. ⁷Therefore, I will raise my hand against the nations that are all around you; they shall receive their dishonor.

8 But as for your mountains, O Israel, my people shall devour your grapes and fruit, for they are getting close to coming. ⁹For behold, I am for you, and I will look upon you, and you shall be worked and sown. ¹⁰And I will multiply human beings upon you, every house of Israel totally, and the cities shall be inhabited, and the desolate one^c shall be built. ¹¹And I will multiply human beings and cattle upon you and settle you as in your beginning, and I will treat you well just as was your former condition, and you shall know that I am the Lord. ¹²And I will produce human beings upon you, my people Israel, and they shall take possession of you, and you shall be for them as a possession, and no longer shall you continue to be childless by them.

13 This is what the Lord says: Because they said to you, “You are one who has devoured human beings, and you have become childless by your own nation,” ¹⁴therefore, you shall no longer eat human beings, and you shall no longer deprive your nation of children, says the Lord. ¹⁵And no longer shall the dishonor of nations be heard against you. You shall no longer bear the insults of the peoples, says the Lord.

¹⁶ And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ¹⁷Son of man, the house of Israel lived on their land, and they defiled it with their way and with their idols and with their unclean acts; their way became before me like the uncleanness of a woman ^dsitting apart^d. ¹⁸And I poured out my wrath upon them ¹⁹and scattered them into the nations and winnowed them into the countries; in accordance with their way and their sin I judged them. ²⁰And they came into the nations, there where they entered, and they profaned my holy name when it was said of them, “These are a people of the Lord, and they have gone out of his land.” ²¹And I considered them because of my holy name, which the house of Israel profaned among the nations, there where they entered.

22 Therefore, say to the house of Israel, This is what the Lord says: I do not act for you, O house of Israel, but rather on account of my holy name, which you profaned among the nations, there where you entered. ²³And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the nations, which you profaned in their midst, and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, when I am hallowed among you before their eyes. ²⁴And I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land. ²⁵And I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be cleansed from all your unclean acts and from all your idols, and I will cleanse you. ²⁶And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will give in you, and I will remove the stone heart from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷And I will give my spirit in you and will act so that you walk in my statutes and keep my judgments and perform them. ²⁸And you shall live upon the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be for me as a people, and I will be a god for you. ²⁹And I will save you from all your unclean acts and will summon the grain, ³⁰and I will multiply it and will not give famine upon you, and I will multiply the fruit of the tree and the produce of the field so that you may not take the reproach of famine among the nations. ³¹And you shall remember your wicked ways and your practices that were not good, and you shall be sorely angered in front of them by your lawless acts and by your abominations. ³²Not for you do I act, says the Lord; it shall be known to you; be put to shame, and turn back from your ways, O house of Israel.

33 This is what the Lord says: In the day I will cleanse you from all your lawless acts; I will also settle the cities, and the deserts^a shall be built, ³⁴ and the annihilated one shall be tilled instead of becoming annihilated before the eyes of every passer-by. ³⁵And they shall say, “That annihilated land became like a garden of delight, and the cities devastated and annihilated and razed sat firm.” ³⁶ And whatever nations are left around you shall know that I, the Lord, built the desolated ones^a and planted the annihilated ones^b; I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will do it.

37 This is what the Lord says: I will yet be in great demand to the house of Israel to do this for them: I will multiply them, human beings like sheep. ³⁸Like holy sheep, like the sheep of Ierou-salem at her feasts, so the deserted cities shall be full of sheep, of human beings, and they shall know that I am the Lord.

37 And the hand of the Lord came upon me, and the Lord brought me out in a spirit^c and set me in the midst of the plain, and this was full of human bones, ²and he brought me all around them in a circle, and behold, very many, very dry, upon the surface of the plain. ³And he said to me, “Son of man, shall these bones live?” And I said, “O Lord, you know these things.” ⁴And he said to me, Prophesy over these bones, and you shall say to them: O dry bones, hear a word of the Lord. ⁵This is what the Lord says to these bones: Behold, I am bringing into you a spirit^c of life, ⁶ and I will give sinews on you and bring flesh upon you and draw out skin over you and give my breath^d into you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.

7 And I prophesied as he commanded me. And it happened, when I prophesied, and behold, a shaking^e, and he brought forth the bones, each to its joint. ⁸And I looked, and behold, sinews and flesh were growing upon them, and skin was coming up upon them, on top, but no breath^d was in them. ⁹And he said to me, Prophesy to the breathd; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath^d, This is what the Lord says: Come from the four winds, and blow into these corpses, and they shall live. ¹⁰And I prophesied just as he commanded me. And the breath^d came into them, and they lived and stood upon their feet, a very great gathering.

11 And the Lord spoke to me, saying: Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel, and they say, “Our bones have become dry; our hope has perished; we are lost.” ¹²Therefore, prophesy, and say, This is what the Lord says: Behold, I am opening your tombs and will bring you up out of your tombs and bring you into the land of Israel, ¹³and you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves so that I might bring my people up out of their graves. ¹⁴And I will give my spirit^c into you, and you shall live, and I will place you upon your own land, and you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will act, says the Lord.

¹⁵ And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ¹⁶Son of man, take for yourself a rod, and write on it, “Ioudas and the sons of Israel who are joined to him,” and you shall take for yourself a second rod, and you shall inscribe it “For Ioseph,” a rod of Ephraim and all the sons of Israel who have been added to him. ¹⁷And you shall join them to each other into one rod for yourself so as to bind them, and they shall be in your hand. ¹⁸And it shall be when the sons of your people shall say to you, “Will you not proclaim to us what is this thing of yours?” ¹⁹then you shall say to them, This is what the Lord says: Behold, I will take the tribe of Ioseph (which is through the hand of Ephraim) and the tribes of Israel joined to him, and I will give them onto the tribe of Ioudas, and they shall be as one rod in the hand of Ioudas. ²⁰And the rods, those upon which you wrote, shall be in your hand before them, ²¹and you shall say to them, This is what the Lord says: Behold, I am taking the whole house of Israel from the midst of the nations, there where they went, and I will gather them from all those around them and bring them into the land of Israel, ²²and I will give them into one nation in my land and on the mountains of Israel, and they shall have one ruler, and they shall no longer be as two nations, nor shall they be divided into two kingdoms ²³so that they never again defile themselves with their idols. And I will rescue them from all their lawless acts, whereby they have sinned, and I will cleanse them, and they shall be for me as a people, and I, the Lord, will be a god for them.

24 And my slave, Dauid, shall be ruler in their midst, and they shall all have one shepherd, for they shall walk by my ordinances and keep my judgments and perform them. ²⁵And they shall live upon their land that I have given to my slave, Iakob, there where their fathers lived, and they shall live upon it, and Dauid, my slave, shall be their ruler forever. ²⁶And I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; I will set my holy things in their midst forever. ²⁷And my encamping shall be among them, and I will be a god for them, and they shall be my people. ²⁸And the nations shall know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them when my holy things are in their midst forever.

38 And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²Son of man, set your face against Gog and the land of Magog, ruler^a of Ros, Mosoch and Thobel, and prophesy against him, ³and say to him, This is what the Lord says: Behold, I am against you, Gog, ruler of Ros, Mosoch and Thobel, ⁴and I will round up you and all your force, horses and riders, clothed in all their armor, a great gathering, shields and helmets and daggers, ⁵Persians and Ethiopians and Libyans, all with helmets and shields, ⁶Gomer and all around him, the house of Thegrama from the extreme north and all those around him, and many nations shall be with you.

7 Be ready, ready yourself, you and all your gathering, the ones amassed with you, and you shall be an outpost to me. ⁸After rather many days he shall be prepared, and at the end of years he shall arrive and come into the land turned back by dagger, assembled^b from many nations, against the land of Israel that became deserted throughout, and he has come out from the nations, and all shall live in peace. ⁹And you shall go up like rain and come like a cloud to deluge the land, and there^c shall you be, and all those around you and many nations with you.

10 This is what the Lord says: And it shall be in that day, words shall come up into your heart, and you will scheme a wicked scheme, ¹¹and you shall say, “I will come up into a rejected land, and I will come upon people resting in quiet, living in peace, all inhabiting the land, in which there does not exist a city wall nor barriers, and they have no doors, ¹²to foray for booty and seize their spoils, to turn my hand to the desolate one^d, which was settled, and against a nation gathered from many nations, people that have acquired possessions, living at the navel of the earth.” ¹³Saba and Dedan and Carthaginian dealers and all their villages shall say to you, “Are you coming to forage for booty and to seize spoils? Have you gathered your gathering to take silver and gold, to carry away for yourselves property, to seize spoils?”

14 Therefore, prophesy, son of man, and say to Gog: This is what the Lord says: In that day, when my people Israel are settled in peace, shall you not be roused? ¹⁵And you shall come from your place out of the extreme north and many nations with you, all riders on horses, a great gathering and a large force, ¹⁶and you shall come up against my people Israel like a cloud to cover the land. At the end of days it shall be, and I will lead you up against my land so that all the nations know me, when I have been hallowed in you before them.

17 This is what the Lord says to Gog: You are the one of whom I spoke before the former days by a hand of my slaves, the prophets of Israel, in those days and years to bring you up against them. ¹⁸And it shall be in that day, in a day on which day Gog comes upon the land of Israel, says the Lord, my wrath shall go up, ¹⁹and my jealousy. In the fire of my anger I spoke: Surely, in that day there shall be a great shaking^e upon the land of Israel, ²⁰ and the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and the animals of the plain and all the creepers that creep on the ground and all the human beings on the surface of the earth shall be shaken from before the Lord, and the mountains shall be rent asunder, and the ravines shall fall, and every city wall shall fall to the ground. ²¹And I will summon every fear against him says the Lord; a person’s dagger shall be against his brother. ²²And I will judge him with death and blood and torrential rain and hailstones, and I will rain fire and sulfur upon him and upon all who are with him and upon many nations with him. ²³And I will be made great and be hallowed and glorified and known before many nations, and they shall know that I am the Lord.

39 And you, son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, This is what the Lord says: Behold, I am against you, Gog, ruler of Ros, Mosoch and Thobel, ²and I will gather you and guide you down and bring you up from the extreme north and lead you up against the mountains of Israel. ³And I will destroy your bow from your left hand and your arrows from your right hand and throw you down ⁴upon the mountains of Israel, and you shall fall, you and all those around you, and the nations that are with you shall be given to a multitude of birds, and I have given you to every winged creature and all the animals of the plain for food. ⁵You shall fall upon the surface of the plain, for I have spoken, says the Lord. ⁶And I will send fire upon Gog, and the islands shall be inhabited in peace, and they shall know that I am the Lord.

7 And my holy name shall be known in the midst of my people, Israel, and my holy name shall no longer be profaned, and all the nations shall know that I am the Lord, the holy one of Israel. ⁸Behold, it has come, and you shall know that it shall be, says the Lord; this is the day of which I spoke.

9 And the inhabitants of the cities of Israel shall go out and burn among the weapons, shields and poles and bows and arrows and hand-rods and spears, and they shall burn among them for seven years. ¹⁰And they shall not take trees from the plain or chop from forests, but they shall burn weapons with fire, and they shall plunder those who plundered them and will despoil those who despoiled them, says the Lord.

11 And it shall be in that day, I will give to Gog a noteworthy place as a tomb in Israel, the common burial-place of those who reach to the sea, and they shall build around the aperture of the ravine, ¹²and they shall bury there Gog and all his multitude, and it shall be named The Gai, the common burial-place of Gog. ¹³And the house of Israel shall bury them so that the land may be cleansed in a seven-month period, (¹³)and all the people of the land shall bury them, and it shall be for them as something noteworthy on the day that I was glorified, says the Lord. ¹⁴And continually they shall set apart men traversing the land to bury the ones remaining upon the surface of the earth to cleanse it after the seven-month period, and they shall make their search. ¹⁵And everyone who passes through the land and sees a human bone shall build a marker by it until the buriers bury it in The Gai, the common burial-place of Gog, ¹⁶for even the name of the city shall be, Common Burial-place, and the land shall be cleansed.

17 And you, son of man, say, This is what the Lord says: Say to every winged bird and to all the animals of the plain, Be gathered, and come; be gathered from all around the surrounding areas for my sacrifice that I have slaughtered for you, a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, and you shall eat meat and drink blood. ¹⁸You shall eat the flesh of giants and drink the blood of rulers of the earth, rams and calves and goats. And all the bull calves have been fattened. ¹⁹And you shall eat fat unto satiety and drink blood unto drunkenness from my sacrifice that I slaughtered for you. ²⁰And you shall be satisfied at my table: horse and rider and giant and every warrior, says the Lord.

21 And I will give my glory among you, and all the nations shall see my verdict that I have executed and my hand that I brought upon them. ²²And the house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord, their God, from this day and beyond. ²³And all the nations shall know that, because of their sins, the house of Israel was taken captive, because they dealt treacherously with me, and I averted my face from them and gave them over into the hands of their adversaries, and they all fell by dagger. ²⁴I dealt with them according to their unclean acts and according to their lawless acts and averted my face away from them.

25 Therefore, this is what the Lord says: Now I will turn back the captivity of Iakob and show pity on the house of Israel and be jealous because of my holy name. ²⁶And they shall receive their dishonor and injustice, which they practiced, when they are settled upon their land in peace, and there shall be none who terrifies. ²⁷After I turn them back from the nations and gather them from the countries of the enemies, I will also be hallowed among them before the nations, ²⁸and they shall know that I am the Lord, their God, when I appear to them among the nations. ²⁹And I will never again turn my face away from them, because I poured out my wrath upon the house of Israel, says the Lord.

40 And it happened in the twenty-fifth year of our captivity, in the first month, on the tenth of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city fell, on that day the hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me ²in a divine vision into the land of Israel and set me upon a very high mountain, and upon it was something like a construction of a city, opposite. ³And he brought me there, and, behold, a man, and his appearance was like an appearance of flashing bronze, and in his hand was a builders’ cord and a measuring reed, and he stood by the gate. ⁴And the man said to me, “Have you seen, son of man? Look with your eyes, and listen with your ears, and set out into your heart all that I show you, for you have entered here in order to show you, and you shall show all that you see to the house of Israel.”

5 And behold, an enclosing wall outside the house all around, and in the hand of the man was a reed, the measure of six cubits, ^ain a cubit and a handbreadth^a, and he measured the outer wall; its breadth was equal to the reed, and its elevation was equal to the reed. ⁶And he went into the gate that looks to the east by seven steps and measured the thee^b, six on one side and six on the other, and the ailam^c of the gate was equal to the reed. ⁷And the thee^b was equal to the reed in length and equal to the reed in breadth, and the ailam^c to the middle of the thaielatha^d was six cubits, and the second thee^b was equal to the reed in breadth and equal to the reed in length, and the ailam^c was five cubits, ⁸and the third thee^b was equal to the reed in breadth and equal to the reed in length. ⁹And the ailam^c of the gateway near the ailam^c of the gate was eight cubits, and the^f aileu^e were two cubits, and the ailam^c of the gate was within. ¹⁰And the^f thee^b of the gate were opposite a thee^b, three on one side and three on the other, and the three had one measure, and the^f ailam^c had one measure on one side and on the other. ¹¹And he measured the breadth of the door of the gateway ten cubits and the width of the gateway thirteen cubits. ¹²And there was ^ga cubit being gathered^g in front of the^f theim^b on one side and on the other, and the thee^b was six cubits on one side and six cubits on the other. ¹³And he measured the gate from the wall of the thee^b to the wall of the thee^b in breadth, twenty-five cubits; this gate was upon a gate. ¹⁴And the atrium of the ailam^c of the gate was sixty cubits; the gate had twenty theim^b all around, ¹⁵and the atrium of the outside gate to the atrium of ailam^c of the inside gate was fifty cubits. ¹⁶And covered windows were on the^f theim^b and upon the^f ailam^c inside the gate of the court all around, and likewise the^f ailam^c had windows all around inside, and on the ailam^c were palms on one side and on the other.

17 And he brought me into the outer court, and behold, shrine-carriers’ chambers and colonnades around the court; thirty shrine-carriers’ chambers were in the colonnades. ¹⁸And the colonnades were along the side of the gates, along the length of the gates was the lower colonnade. ¹⁹And he measured the breadth of the court from the atrium of the outer gate from the inside up to the atrium of the gate that looks out, one hundred cubits belonging to the one that looks to the east. And he brought me up to the north.

20 And behold, the outer court had a gate that looks to the north, and he measured it, its length and breadth, ²¹and the^a thee^b, three on one side and three on the other, and the^a aileu^c and the^a ail-ammo^d and its palms, and they were like the measurements of the gate that looks east, fifty cubits, its length and twenty-five cubits, its width. ²²And its windows and the^a ailammo^d and its palms were just as the gate that looks to the east, and on seven rungs they would ascend upon it, and the^a ailammo^d were inside. ²³And the inner court had a gate that looks upon the gate of the north like the gate that looks to the east, and he measured the court from gate to gate, one hundred cubits.

24 And he led me toward the south, and behold, a gate that looks to the south, and he measured it and the^a thee^b and the^a aileu^c and the^a ail-ammo^d by these measurements. ²⁵And it^e and the ailammo^d had windows all around just like the windows of the ailam^f, fifty cubits, its length and twenty-five cubits, its width. ²⁶And it^e had seven steps and ailammo^d inside and palms, one on one side and one on the other, on the^a aileu^c. ²⁷And there was a gate opposite the gate of the inner court to the south, and he measured the court from the gate up to the gate, one hundred cubits, its width to the south.

28 And he brought me into the inner court of the gate to the south and measured the gate by these measurements ²⁹and the^a thee^b and the^a aileu^c, and the^a ailammo^d by these measurements, and it^e and the ailammo^d had windows all around, fifty cubits, its length and its width, twenty-five cubits. ³¹And there was an ailammo^d into the outer court, and the aileu^c had palms and eight rungs.

32 And he brought me into the gate that looks to the east and measured it by these measurements, ³³and the^a thee^b and the^a aileu^c and the^a ailammo^d by these measurements, and it^e and the ailammo^d had windows all around, fifty cubits, its length and its width, twenty-five cubits. ³⁴And there was an ailammo^d into the outer court and palms on the aileu^c on one side and on the other, and it^e had eight rungs.

35 And he brought me into the gate to the north and measured it by these measurements, ³⁶ and the^a thee^b and the^a aileu^c and the^a ailammo^d, and ite and the ailammo^d had windows all around, fifty cubits, its length and its width, twenty-five cubits. ³⁷And there were ailammo^d into the outer court and palms on the aileu^c on one side and on the other, and it had eight rungs.

38 Its shrine-bearers’ chambers and its doorways and its^e ailammo^d at the second gate were an outlet ³⁹so that they might slaughter in it the victims for sin and the victims for ignorance, ⁴⁰and behind the flow^g of the whole burnt offerings of the one^e that looks to the north were two tables to the east and behind the second one and of the ailam^f of the gate were two tables on the east, ⁴¹four on one side and four on the other behind the gate; upon them they slaughtered the sacrificial victims opposite the eight tables of the sacrificial victims. ⁴²And four tables for the whole burnt offerings were of hewn stone, a cubit and a half in breadth and two and a half cubits in length, and a cubit in height. Upon them they shall put the instruments with which they slaughter the whole burnt offerings and the sacrificial victims. ⁴³And they shall have a hewn cornice, a handbreadth all around within and on the tables, roofs above so as to be covered from the rain and from the dryness.

44 And he brought me into the inner court, and behold, two halls in the inner court, one behind the gate that looks to the north, bearing to the south, and one behind the gate to the south but looking to the north. ⁴⁵And he said to me, “This hall that looks to the south is for the priests keeping guard over the house, ⁴⁶and the hall that looks to the north is for the priests keeping guard over the altar; they are the sons of Saddouk, who come near from Leui to the Lord to minister to him.” ⁴⁷And he measured the court, its length, one hundred cubits, and width, one hundred cubits on its four parts and the altar opposite the house.

48 And he brought me into the ailam^f of the house. And he measured the ail^h of the ailam^f, five cubits its breadth on one side and five cubits on the other, and the width of the doorway, fourteen cubits, and the shoulders of the door of the ailam^f, three cubits on one side and three cubits on the other, ⁴⁹and the length of the ailam^f, twenty cubits and the width, twelve cubits, and by ten steps they would ascend upon it, and pillars were upon the ailam^c, one on one side and one on the other.

41 And he brought me into the shrine whose ailam^f he measured, six cubits the breadth on one side ²and six cubits the width of the ailam^f on the other. (²)And the width of the gateway was ten cubits, and the shoulders of the gateway, five cubits on one side and five cubits on the other, and he measured its length, forty cubits, and its width, twenty cubits. ³And he entered into the inner court and he measured the ailh of the doorway, two cubits and the doorway, six cubits, and the shoulders of the doorway, seven cubits on one side and seven cubits on the other. ⁴And he measured the length of the doors, forty cubits and their width, twenty cubits facing the shrine. And he said, “This is the holy of holies.”

5 And he measured the wall of the house, six cubits, and the width of the side, four cubits all around. ⁶And the sides, side upon side, were thirty three, twice, and a space was in the wall of the house on the sides all around to be for those undertaking to see so that they might not at all touch the walls of the house. ⁷And the width of the upper one of the sides was like the addition from the wall to the upper one all around the house so that it be widened above and they might go up from the lower part to the upper part and from the middle part to the third story. ⁸And the thrael^a of the house was a summit all around; the space of the sides was equal to the reed, a space of six cubits. ⁹And the width of the wall of the side from the outside was five cubits, and the areas left free between the sides of the house ¹⁰and between the halls were a width of twenty cubits: the periphery of the house all around. ¹¹And the doors of the halls were on the area left free of the door, of the one to the north, and the one door was to the south, and the width of the light-opening of the area left free was five cubits, its breadth all around.

12 And the divider facing the area left open like the one to the sea was seventy cubits; the breadth of the dividing wall was five cubits, its width all around, and its length was ninety cubits.

13 And he measured opposite the house a length of one hundred cubits, and the areas left open and the dividers and their walls were a length of one hundred cubits, ¹⁴and the width facing of the house and the areas left open opposite were one hundred cubits.

15 And he measured the length of the divider facing of the area left open of the rear parts of that house, and the areas left open on one side and on the other, its length, one hundred cubits.

And the shrine and the corners and the outer ailam^b were paneled, ¹⁶and the windows were netted, narrow openings around the three for looking out, and the house and the nearby areas were made of wood all around, also the pavement and from the pavement up to the windows, and the windows would open threefold for looking out. ¹⁷And right next to the inside and as far as the outside and on the whole wall all around on the inside and in the outside ¹⁸were carved cheroubin and palms between cheroub and cheroub; the cheroub had two faces, ¹⁹a human face toward the palm on one side and on the other and a face of a lion to the palm on one side and on the other; the whole house was engraved all around; ²⁰from the pavement up to the coffering the cheroubin and palms were engraved.

21 And the holy place and the shrine would open on four sides. Facing the holies, there was a sight like a view ²²of a wooden altar, its height, three cubits, and its length, two cubits and its width, two cubits, and it had horns, and its base and its walls were wooden, and he said to me, “This is the table in front of the Lord.” And the shrine had two doorways^c, ²³and the holy place had two doorways^c. ²⁴As for the two pivoting doorways^c, one had two panels^c and the second door had two panels^c. ²⁵And carving was on them, and on the doorways^c of the shrine were cheroubin and palms like the carving of the holies, and there was excellent wood facing the ailam^b outside, ²⁶ and hidden windows. And he measured on one side and on the other to the ceilings of the ailam^b and to the joined sides of the house.

42 And he brought me out into the outer court by the east, opposite the gate toward the north, and he brought me in, and behold, five halls next to the area left open and next to the divider to the north, ²one hundred cubits was its length to the north and its breadth, fifty cubits, ³ engraved^das were the gates of the inner court, as were the colonnades of the outer court. Triple stoas were set in rows, facing each other. ⁴And opposite the halls was a passage, its breadth was ten cubits by one hundred cubits, its length and its doorways were to the north. ⁵And in like manner were the upper passages, because the colonnade projected from it, from the colonnade underneath, and its dimension. Thus colonnade and space, and thus stoas. ⁶Therefore, they were triple^e, and they had no pillars, as there were the pillars of the outer parts; for that reason they projected beyond the parts underneath and beyond the middle parts—^ffrom the ground^f. ⁷And there was a light-opening outside, like the outer court’s halls that look opposite the halls to the north, its length, fifty cubits; ⁸because the length of the halls that look into the outer court was fifty cubits, they also were facing those; the whole was one hundred cubits. ⁹And these halls of the entrance to the east had doors for entering through them from the outer court, ¹⁰as is the light-opening at the head of the passage.

And the parts toward the south, facing the south, facing the area left open and facing the divider, were halls, ¹¹and the passage facing them was like the measurements of the halls to the north, both like their length and like their width and like all their exits and like all their curves and like their light-openings and like their doorways ¹²of the halls toward the south, and like the doorways from the head of the passage—since it is approximately a reed’s space for light—and on the east, are for entering through them.

13 And he said to me, “The halls northward and the halls southward that are opposite the spaces—these are the halls of ‘the holy’ in which the priests, the sons of Saddouk, who come near to the Lord, shall eat the holy of holy things, and there they shall place the holy of holy things and the sacrifice, both the sacrificial victims for sin and the sacrificial victims for ignorance, for the place is holy. ¹⁴They shall not enter there except the priests; they shall not go out from ‘the holy’ into the outer court so that those who approach may always be holy and lest they touch their vestments, those in which they minister, because they are holy, and they shall wear other garments when they touch the people.”

15 And the measuring of the house from the inside was completed. And he brought me out by way of the gate that looks to the east, and he measured the plan of the house all around in its arrangement. ¹⁶And he stood behind the gate that looks to the east and measured five hundred by the measuring reed, ¹⁷and he turned toward the north and measured the part facing the north, five hundred cubits with the measuring reed. ¹⁸And he turned toward the sea and measured the part facing the sea, five hundred by the measuring reed, ¹⁹ and he turned toward the south and measured opposite the south, five hundred by the measuring reed. ²⁰The four were parts of the same reed. And he laid it out in order, even an enclosing wall for it all around of five hundred to the east and a width of five hundred cubits to separate between the holies and between the outer wall, which is in the design of the house.

43 And he led me to the gate that looks to the east and brought me out, ²and behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming by way of the gate that looks to the east, and there was a sound of the camp^a like a sound of many ^bdoubling up^b, and the earth was shining forth like splendor from the glory all around. ³And the appearance that I saw was like the appearance that I saw when I was entering to anoint the city, and the appearance of the chariot that I saw was like the appearance that I saw by the river Chobar, and I fell upon my face. ⁴ And the glory of the Lord went into the house by way of the gate that looks to the east. ⁵And a spirit took me up and brought me into the inner court, and behold, the house was full of the glory of the Lord.

6 And I stood, and behold, a voice of one speaking to me from the house, and the man stood next to me. ⁷And he said to me, “You have seen, son of man, the place of my throne and the place of the print of my feet, in which my name shall encamp in the midst of the house of Israel forever, and the house of Israel shall no more desecrate my holy name, they and their leaders, by their whoring and by the murders of the leaders in their midst, ⁸when they place my entry by their entries and my doorposts next to their doorposts, and they rendered my wall as if mine and theirs were joined and desecrated my holy name by their lawless acts that they were committing, and I wiped them out in my fury and by murder. ⁹And now let them drive away from me their whoring and the murders of their leaders, and I will encamp in their midst forever.

10 And you, son of man, show the house to the house of Israel, and they shall grow weary of their sins—and its appearance and plan. ¹¹And they shall receive their punishment for all they have done. And you shall describe the house and its exits and its substructure, and you shall make known to them all its ordinances and all its precepts, and you shall describe it before them, and they shall keep all my statutes and all my ordinances and shall perform them. ¹²And the description of the house: On the top of the mountain; all its borders all around; holies of holies.

13 And these are the measurements of the altar by cubit ^c(of the cubit and a handbreadth)^c: bulge, depth, up to a cubit and a cubit its width and a rim upon its lip: a span all around. And this is the height of the altar: ¹⁴In depth, from the start of its cavity to the great, lower propitiatory, two cubits and its width a cubit, and from the small propitiatory to the great propitiatory is four cubits, and its width a cubit, ¹⁵and the ariel^d is four cubits, and from the ariel^d and above the horns was a cubit. ¹⁶And the arield was twelve cubits in length by twelve cubits in breadth, square in its four parts, ¹⁷ and the propitiatory was fourteen cubits, its length, by fourteen cubits, its width in its four parts, and its rim all around is circled by it, half a cubit, and its ring a cubit all around and its rungs looking to the east.

18 And he said to me: Son of man, this is what the Lord says, the God of Israel: These are the ordinances of the altar in the day of its making, to offer upon it whole burnt offerings and to pour blood against it. ¹⁹And you shall give to the priests, to the Leuites from the offspring of Saddouk, who come near to me, says the Lord, to minister to me, a calf from the cattle for a sin, ²⁰and they shall take some of its blood and put it on the four horns of the altar, and on the four corners of the propitiatory and on the base all around, and they shall make atonement for it, ²¹and they shall take the calf that is for a sin, and it shall be burnt up in the separated part of the house, outside the holies.

22 And on the second day they shall take two kids of goats, unblemished, for sin and make atonement for the altar just as they made atonement with the calf, ²³and after you complete the atonement, they shall offer an unblemished calf from cattle and an unblemished ram from sheep, ²⁴ and you shall offer them before the Lord, and the priests shall throw salt on them and offer them up as whole burnt offerings to the Lord. ²⁵For seven days you shall do a kid for sin every day and a calf from cattle and a ram from sheep; unblemished they shall do them ²⁶for seven days, and they shall make atonement for the altar and cleanse it and fill their hands. ²⁷And it shall be from the eighth day and beyond, the priests shall do upon the altar your whole burnt offerings and your victims for deliverance. And I will accept you, says the Lord.

44 And he turned me by the way of the outer gate of the holies that looks to the east, and it was shut. ²And the Lord said to me: This gate shall be shut; it shall not be opened, and no one shall go through it, because the Lord, the God of Israel, shall enter through it, and it shall be shut. ³Therefore, the leader—he shall sit in it to eat bread before the Lord; he shall enter by the way of the ailam^a of the gate, and he shall go out by his way.

4 And he brought me in by way of the gate to the north, opposite the house, and I looked, and behold, the house of the Lord was full of glory, and I fell upon my face. ⁵And the Lord said to me: Son of man, assign to your heart, and look with your eyes, and with your ears hear everything that I am speaking with you in relation to all the ordinances of the house of the Lord and in relation to all its precepts, and you shall assign your heart to the entrance of the house by all its exits in all the holies. ⁶And you shall say to the embittering house, to the house of Israel, This is what the Lord says: Let there be enough for you of all your lawless acts, O house of Israel, ⁷to bring in alien sons, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my holies, and they were profaning them when you were offering bread, fat and blood, and you were transgressing my covenant in all your lawless acts, ⁸and you arranged^b to keep guard in my holies.

9 Therefore, this is what the Lord says: No alien son, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into my holies among all the sons of aliens that are in the midst of the house of Israel, ¹⁰but the Leuites, who jumped away from me when Israel went astray from me after their notions, they too shall receive their injustice, ¹¹and they shall be ministering as doorkeepers in my holies at the gates of the house and be ministering to the house; they shall slaughter the whole burnt offerings and the sacrifices for the people, and they shall stand before the people to minister to them. ¹² Because they were ministering to them in front of their idols and it became to the house of Israel as a punishment of injustice, therefore I raised my hand against them, says the Lord, ¹³and they shall not come near to me to act as my priests nor to approach the holies of the sons of Israel nor to my holies of holies, and they shall receive their dishonor for the misleading by which they^c were led astray. ¹⁴And they shall designate them to keep guard over the house in all its chores and in everything whatever they do.

15 The priests, the Leuites, the sons of Saddouk, who kept guard over my holies when the house of Israel went astray from me, they shall advance towards me to minister to me, and they shall stand in front of me to offer me sacrifice, fat and blood, says the Lord. ¹⁶They shall enter into my holies, and they shall come forward to my table to minister to me and to keep my guard. ¹⁷And it shall be, when they are entering the gates of the inner court, they shall wear linen vestments, and they shall not wear wool when they minister from the gate of the inner court, ¹⁸and they shall have linen turbans on their heads, and they shall have hard linens on their loins, and they shall not gird themselves biza^d. ¹⁹And when they go out into the outer court to the people, they shall take off their vestments, those in which they minister, and they shall place them in the halls of the holies, and they shall wear other vestments, and they shall not hallow the people in their vestments. ²⁰And they shall not shave their heads, and they shall not strip off their hair; covering they shall cover their heads. ²¹ And no priest shall drink wine when they enter into the inner court. ²²And they shall not take for themselves a widow or a divorced woman as wife, but an unmarried girl from the offspring of Israel, but a widow, if she be of a priest, they shall marry. ²³And they shall teach my people between holy and profane, and between unclean and clean they shall make known to them. ²⁴And they shall preside in a case of blood to decide it; they shall deem right my statutes and judge my judgment, and they shall keep my precepts and my ordinances at all my feasts, and they shall hallow my sabbaths. ²⁵And over a departed spirit of a human they shall not enter to be defiled, but for a father and for a mother and for a son and for a daughter and for a brother and for a sister who did not belong to a man, he shall be defiled. ²⁶And after he is cleansed, he shall count seven days for him, ²⁷and on whatever day they enter the inner court to minister in the holy place, they shall offer an atonement, says the Lord.

28 And it shall be for them as an inheritance: I am their inheritance, and no possession shall be given to them among the sons of Israel, because I am their possession. ²⁹And they shall eat the offerings and the victims for sin and the victims for ignorance, and everything set apart in Israel shall be theirs. ³⁰First fruits of everything and the first-born of everything and all the advance deductions from all your first fruits shall belong to the priests, and your firstlings you shall grant the priest to set your blessings upon your houses. ³¹And the priests shall not eat any carcass and prey of animals, from the birds or from the cattle.

45 And when you are measuring out the land by inheritance, you shall set aside first fruit for the Lord, a holy thing from the land, twenty-five thousand its length, and its width, twenty thousand; it shall be holy in all its borders all around. ²And there shall be from this a holy precinct five hundred by five hundred square all around, and fifty cubits will be its space all around. ³And from this measure, you shall measure a length of twenty-five thousand and a width of twenty thousand, and in it shall be a holy precinct, holy of holies. ⁴From the land, it shall belong to the priests who minister in the holy place, and it shall belong to those who come near to minister to the Lord, and it shall be to them a place for houses set aside for their sanctification. ⁵Twenty-five thousand, its length, and its width, twenty thousand, shall belong to the Leuites who minister to the house, for them as a possession, cities to live in.

6 And you shall give the possession of the city, five thousand, its width and its length twenty-five thousand; like the first fruit of the holies they shall belong to the house of Israel.

7 And to the leader it shall belong, out of this and from this, for the first fruits of the holies as a possession of the city facing the first fruits of the holies and facing the possession of the city the parts toward the sea and from the parts toward the sea to the east and the length as one of the portions from the borders toward the sea and the length on the borders toward the east of the land. ⁸And it shall belong to him as a possession in Israel, and the leaders of Israel shall no longer oppress my people, and the house of Israel shall allocate the land according to their tribes.

9 This is what the Lord says: Let it suffice for you, leaders of Israel; remove from yourselves injustice and abuse, and perform judgment and righteousness; take away oppression from my people, says the Lord.

10 You should have a just balance and a just measure and a just choenix^a. ¹¹The measure and the choenix^a shall likewise be one to receive; the choenix^a shall be a tenth of the gomor^b, and the measure shall be the tenth of the gomorb; to the gomor^b it shall be equal. ¹²And the stathmion^c shall be twenty obols^d; five shekels^e shall be five and ten shekels^e shall be ten and fifty shekels^e shall be one mina^f for you.

13 And this is the first fruit that you shall set aside: a sixth of the measure from the gomor^b of wheat and the sixth of the oiphi^g from the kor^h of barley. ¹⁴And the ordinance for oil: a kotyleⁱ of oil from ten kotylesⁱ, because ten kotylesⁱ are a gomor^b. ¹⁵And a sheep from ten sheep is an advance deduction from all the paternal families of Israel for offerings and for whole burnt offerings and for deliverance to atone for you, says the Lord. ¹⁶And all the people shall give this first fruit to the leader of Israel. ¹⁷And through the leader shall be the whole burnt offerings and the offerings and the libations at the feasts and on the new moons and on the sabbaths and at all the feasts of the house of Israel; he shall do the victims for sin and the offering and the whole burnt offerings and the victims for deliverance to make atonement for the house of Israel.

18 This is what the Lord says: In the first month, on the first of the month, you shall take an unblemished calf from cattle to make atonement for the holy place. ¹⁹And the priest shall take some the blood of the atonement and impart it to the doorposts of the house and to the four corners of the propitiatory and to the altar and to the doorposts of the gate of the inner court. ²⁰And thus you shall do in the seventh month, on the first of the month: you shall take a portion from each and make atonement for the house.

21 And in the first month, on the fourteenth of the month, the pascha shall be a feast for you; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. ²²And in that day the leader shall do a calf for a sin for himself and for the house and for all the people of the land. ²³And for the seven days of the feast, he shall make whole burnt offerings to the Lord, seven unblemished calves and rams every day for seven days and a kid from the goats for sin, every day. And you shall make an offering ²⁴and pastry with the bull calf and pastry with the ram and the hin^j of oil for the pastry. ²⁵And in the seventh month, on the fifteenth of the month, at the feast, for seven days you shall do in like manner, just like the victims for sin and just like the whole burnt offerings and just like the manaa^k and just like the oil.

46 This is what the Lord says: The gate in the inner court, which looks to the east, shall be shut for the six work days, but in the day of the sabbaths, it shall be opened, and in the day of the new moon, it shall be opened. ²And the leader shall enter by the way of the ailam^l of the outer gate and stand at the entry of the gate, and the priests shall make his whole burnt offerings and the victims for his deliverance. ³And he shall do obeisance at the entry of the gate and shall go out, and the gate shall not be shut until evening. And the people of the land shall do obeisance by the portico of that gate on the sabbaths and on the new moons before the Lord. ⁴And the leader shall offer the whole burnt offerings to the Lord, in the day of the sabbaths, six unblemished lambs and an unblemished ram ⁵and manaak as pastry with the ram and with the lambs as an offering, a gift of his hand, and the hinj of oil for the pastry, ⁶and in the day of the new moon an unblemished calf and six lambs, and there shall be an unblemished ram, ⁷and manaa^k shall be a pastry with the ram and a pastry with the bull calf and with the lambs just as his hand shall furnish and the hinj of oil for the pastry. ⁸And when the leader enters, he shall come in by the way of the ailam^l of the gate, and he shall go out by way of the gate.

9 And when the people of the land enter before the Lord on the feasts, he that enters by way of the gate to the north to do obeisance shall go out by way of the gate to the south, and he that enters by way of the gate to the south shall go out by way of the gate to the north; he shall not return by the gate that he entered, but he shall go out straight ahead. ¹⁰And when they come in, the leader in their midst shall enter in with them, and when they go out, he shall go out.

¹¹ And at the feasts and at the festal assemblies there shall be the manaa^a as pastry with the bull calf and pastry with the ram and with the lambs just as his hand shall furnish and the hin^b of oil for the pastry. ¹²But if the leader makes as an acknowledgement a whole burnt offering of deliverance to the Lord, and he shall open for himself the gate that looks to the east and shall make his whole burnt offering and the victims for his deliverance as he does in the day of the sabbaths, then he shall go out and shut the doors after he goes out.

13 And a yearling lamb, unblemished, he shall make as a whole burnt offering every day to the Lord; in the morning he shall make it. ¹⁴And he shall make manaa^a with it in the morning, a sixth of the measure and the third of an hin^b of oil by mixing the choice flour, manaa^a for the Lord, an ordinance continually. ¹⁵You shall make the lamb and the manaa^a and the oil, and you shall make a whole burnt offering in the morning continually.

16 This is what the Lord says: If the leader gives a gift to one of his sons from his inheritance, this shall be his sons’ possession by inheritance. ¹⁷But if he gives a gift to one of his servants, then it shall belong to him until the year of release, and he shall pay back to the leader; except for the inheritance of his sons, it shall belong to them. ¹⁸And the leader shall not take from the inheritance of the people so as to oppress them; from his possession he shall apportion an inheritance for his sons in order that my people not be scattered, each from his possession.

19 And he brought me into the entrance behind the gate into the hall of the holies of the priests, the hall that looks north, and behold, a separated place there. ²⁰And he said to me, “This is the place where the priests shall boil the victims for ignorance and the victims for sin, and there they shall bake the entire manaa^a so as not to bring it out into the outer court to hallow the people.

21 And he brought me out into the outer court and brought me around to the four parts of the court, and behold, a court by the slope^c of the court. ²²It was a court by the slope^c of the court. (²²)On the four slopesc of the court was a small court. Its length was forty cubits, and its width thirty cubits; the four had one measure. ²³And halls were all around in them, around the four, and kitchens situated underneath the halls all around. ²⁴And he said to me, “These are the houses of the cooks where those that minister to the house boil the sacrificial victims of the people.”

47 And he brought me in by the entry of the house, and, behold, water was flowing underneath the atrium by the east, because the front of the house was looking to the east, and the water was descending from the right slope, from the south by the altar. ²And he brought me out by way of the gate to the north and led me around the outside way to the gate of the court that looks to the east, and behold, the water was flowing down from the right slope.

3 Just as there was a going out of a man from the opposite direction, there was also a measure in his hand, and he measured a thousand with the measure, and he passed through in the water; it was water of release. ⁴And he measured a thousand, and he passed through in the water; the water was up to his thighs. And he measured a thousand, and he passed through; the water was up to his loin. ⁵And he measured a thousand, and he could not pass through, because the water was violently rushing as the rush of a wadi, which they shall not cross. ⁶And he said to me, “Have you seen, son of man?”

And he led me by the bank of the stream. ⁷On my return and, behold, on the bank of the stream a great many trees on one side and on the other. ⁸And he said to me, This is the water that flows into Galilee, which is to the east, also used to descend to Arabia and would come all the way to the sea to the water of the outlet, and the waters will cure. ⁹And it shall be, every soul of the living beings that bubble up in all places, in those where the stream reaches, shall live, and very many fish shall be there, because this water has come there, and it will cure, and they shall live. Everything that the stream reaches shall live. ¹⁰And fishermen shall stand there from Aingaddi to Ainagalim. A drying-place for dragnets it^d shall be; by itself^d it shall be, and its^d fish, like the fish of the great sea, shall be a very great multitude. ¹¹And at its^e outlet and at its^e winding and at its^e overflowing, they will not cure; they have been given as salt. ¹²And at the stream, on its bank every edible tree shall come up on one side and on the other; it shall not become old upon it, nor shall the fruit fail; it shall bear the first of its newness, because these their waters issue from the holies, and their fruit shall be for eating and their ascent for health.

13 This is what the Lord says: You shall apportion for inheritance these borders of the land. The twelve tribes of the sons of Israel will have an addition of allotment. ¹⁴And you shall apportion it for an inheritance—each one just like his brother—for which I raised my hand to give it to their fathers, and this land shall fall to you by inheritance.

15 And these are the borders of the land northward: from the great sea that descends and surrounds the entrance of Hemath Seddada, ¹⁶Berotha, Sebraim, Heliam, between the borders of Damascus and between the borders of Hemath, a court of Saunan, which^f are above the borders of Hauranitis. ¹⁷These are the borders from the sea: from the court of Ainan, borders of Damascus and those northward.

18 And those eastward: between Hauranitis and between Damascus and between Galaaditis and between the land of Israel, the Jordan divides to the sea which is eastward of Palmgrove; these are those eastward.

19 And those southward and southwestward: from Thaiman and Palmgrove as far as the water of Marimoth Kades, extending to the great sea.

20 This part is the south and southwest. This is the part of the great sea; it divides as far as opposite the entrance of Hemath, as far as its entrance; these are those seaward of Hemath.

21 And you shall divide this land for them, for the tribes of Israel. ²²You shall cast it by lot for you and for the guests who sojourn in your midst, whoever produce sons in your midst, and they shall be to you as natives among the sons of Israel, with you they shall eat by inheritance in the midst of the tribes of Israel. ²³And they shall be in a tribe of guests among the guests with them; there you shall give an inheritance to them, says the Lord.

48 And these are the names of the tribes: from the beginning, which is northward along the part of the descent of that which cuts all round, to the entrance of Hemath, court of Ainan, borders of Damascus northward along the part of Hemath Court: also eastward as far as the sea shall belong to them: of Dan, one^a. ²And from the borders of Dan, those eastward as far as those seaward: of Aser, one^a. ³And from the borders of Aser, from those eastward as far as those seaward: of Nephthali, one^a. ⁴And from the borders of Nephthali, from those eastward as far as those seaward: of Manasses, one^a. ⁵And from the borders of Manasses, from those eastward as far as those seaward: of Ephraim, one^a. ⁶And from the borders of Ephraim, from those eastward as far as those seaward: of Rouben, one^a. ⁷And from the borders of Rouben, from those eastward as far as those seaward: of Ioudas, one^a.

8 And from the borders of Ioudas, from those eastward as far as those seaward, shall be the first fruit of what is set apart, twenty-five thousand in width and in length, just like one of the portions from those eastward and as far as those seaward, and that which is holy shall be in their midst, ⁹a first fruit, which they shall set apart for the Lord, in length twenty-five thousand and in width twenty-five thousand. ¹⁰Of these shall be the first fruit of the holies: the priests shall have twenty-five thousand northward and seaward; in breadth it shall be ten thousand, and southward twenty-five thousand in length, and the mountain of the holies shall be in his^b midst. ¹¹To the consecrated priests, sons of Saddouk, who keep the guard over the house, who did not go astray in the straying of the sons of Israel as the Leuites went astray, ¹²to them shall also be the first fruit as given from the first fruits of the land, a holy of holies away from the borders of the Leuites.

13 Now to the Leuites shall belong the parts next to the borders of the priests, in length twenty-five thousand and in width ten thousand, its whole length twenty-five thousand, and in width twenty thousand. ¹⁴Of it nothing shall be sold, neither shall anything be measured out, nor shall the firstlings of the land be removed, for it is something holy to the Lord.

15 Now the five thousand in breadth, which are left over, in addition to ^cthe twenty-five thousand^c—it shall be an outer wall for the city, for habitation and as space for him^b, and the city shall be in his midst. ¹⁶And these are its^d measurements: from those northward, four thousand five hundred, and from those southward, four thousand five hundred, and from those eastward, four thousand five hundred, and from those seaward, four thousand five hundred. ¹⁷And a space shall belong to the city: northward, two hundred fifty, and southward, two hundred fifty, and eastward, two hundred fifty, and seaward, two hundred fifty. ¹⁸And what is in excess of the length, which is next to the first fruits of the holies, ten thousand eastward and ten thousand seaward, they also shall be the first fruits of what is holy, and its products shall be for bread for the workers of the city. ¹⁹But the workers of the city, out of all the tribes of Israel, shall cultivate it. ²⁰The entire first fruit shall be twenty-five thousand by twenty-five thousand. You shall set apart of it^e, being square, the first fruit of what is holy, away from the possession of the city.

21 Now, what is in excess belongs to the leader ^ffrom this and from this^f from the first fruits of what is holy and to the possession of the city, in length, to twenty-five thousand, as far as the borders eastward and seaward, to twenty-five thousand as far as the borders that are seaward, being next to the portions of the leader. And it shall be the first fruit of the holies and the holy precinct of the house in its midst. ²²And some of the possession of the Leuites and some of the possession of the city shall be in the midst of the leaders. Between the borders of Ioudas and the borders of Beniamin shall belong to the leaders.

23 As for what is in excess of the tribes: from the borders eastward as far as those seaward: of Beniamin, one^a. ²⁴And from the borders of Beniamin, from those eastward as far as those seaward: of Symeon, one^a. ²⁵And from the borders of Symeon, from those eastward as far as those seaward: for Issachar, one^a. ²⁶And away from the borders of Issachar, from those eastward as far as those seaward: Zaboulon, one^a. ²⁷And from the borders of Zaboulon, from those eastward as far as those seaward: Gad, one^a. ²⁸And from the borders of Gad as far as those southwestward—and his borders shall be from Thaiman and an inheritance of the water of Marimoth Kades as far as the great sea. ²⁹This is the land that you shall assign by lot to the tribes of Israel, and these are their divisions, says the Lord.

30 And these are the exits of the city: those northward, four thousand five hundred by measure. ³¹And the gates of the city shall be after the names of the tribes of Israel: three gates northward: gate of Rouben, one, and gate of Ioudas, one, and gate of Leui, one. ³²And the ones to eastward: four thousand five hundred, and three gates: gate of Ioseph, one, and gate of Beniamin, one, and gate of Dan, one. ³³And the ones southward: four thousand five hundred by measure, and three gates: gate of Symeon, one, and gate of Issachar, one, and gate of Zaboulon, one. ³⁴And the ones to the sea shall be four thousand five hundred by measure, and three gates: gate of Gad, one, and gate of Aser, one, and gate of Nephthali, one. ³⁵Encirclement: eighteen thousand. And the name of the city: after whatever day it comes to be, it shall be its name.