The Bloody City

22 The word of the Lord came to me: ² You, mortal, will you judge, will you judge the bloody city? Then declare to it all its abominable deeds.^{(A) 3} You shall say: Thus says the Lord God: A city! Shedding blood within itself; its time has come; making its idols, defiling itself. ⁴ You have become guilty by the blood that you have shed and defiled by the idols that you have made; you have brought your days near; the appointed time of your years has come. Therefore I have made you a disgrace before the nations and a mockery to all the countries. ⁵ Those who are near and those who are far from you will mock you, you infamous one, full of tumult.

⁶ The princes of Israel in you, everyone according to his power, have been bent on shedding blood.^{(B) 7} Father and mother are treated with contempt in you; the alien residing within you suffers extortion; the orphan and the widow are wronged in you.^{(C) 8} You have despised my holy things and profaned my Sabbaths.^{(D) 9} In you are those who slander to shed blood, those in you who eat upon the mountains, who commit lewdness in your midst.^{(E) 10} In you they uncover their fathers’ nakedness; in you they violate women during their menstrual periods.^{(F) 11} One commits abomination with his neighbor’s wife; another lewdly defiles his daughter-in-law; another in you defiles his sister, his father’s daughter.^{(G) 12} In you, they take bribes to shed blood; you take both advance interest and accrued interest and make gain of your neighbors by extortion, and you have forgotten me, says the Lord God.^(H)

¹³ See, I strike my hands together at the dishonest gain you have made and at the blood that has been shed within you. ¹⁴ Can your courage endure, or can your hands remain strong in the days when I shall deal with you? I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it.^{(I) 15} I will scatter you among the nations and disperse you through the countries, and I will purge your filthiness out of you.^{(J) 16} And you shall be profaned within yourself in the sight of the nations, and you shall know that I am the Lord.