22 Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,

² “Now, thou son of man, wilt thou judge, wilt thou judge the bloody city? Yea, thou shalt show her all her abominations.

³ Then say thou, ‘Thus saith the Lord God: The city sheddeth blood in the midst of it, that her time may come, and maketh idols against herself to defile herself.

⁴ Thou art become guilty in thy blood that thou hast shed, and hast defiled thyself in thine idols which thou hast made; and thou hast caused thy days to draw near, and art come even unto thy years. Therefore have I made thee a reproach unto the heathen and a mocking to all countries.

⁵ Those that are near and those that are far from thee shall mock thee, who art infamous and much vexed.

⁶ “‘Behold, the princes of Israel, every one was in thee to their power to shed blood.

⁷ In thee have they made light of father and mother. In the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger. In thee have they vexed the fatherless and the widow.

⁸ Thou hast despised Mine holy things and hast profaned My Sabbaths.

⁹ In thee are men that carry tales to shed blood, and in thee they eat upon the mountains. In the midst of thee they commit lewdness.

¹⁰ In thee have they uncovered their fathers’ nakedness. In thee have they humbled her that was set apart for pollution.

¹¹ And one hath committed abomination with his neighbor’s wife, and another hath lewdly defiled his daughter-in-law, and another in thee hath humbled his sister, his father’s daughter.

¹² In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood. Thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained from thy neighbors by extortion, and hast forgotten Me, saith the Lord God.

¹³ “‘Behold, therefore I have smitten Mine hand at thy dishonest gain which thou hast made and at thy blood which hath been in the midst of thee.

¹⁴ Can thine heart endure or can thine hands be strong in the days that I shall deal with thee? I, the Lord, have spoken it, and will do it.

¹⁵ And I will scatter thee among the heathen and disperse thee in the countries, and will consume thy filthiness out of thee.

¹⁶ And thou shalt take thine inheritance in thyself in the sight of the heathen, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord.’”

¹⁷ And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,

¹⁸ “Son of man, the house of Israel has to Me become dross. All they are brass and tin and iron and lead in the midst of the furnace; they are even the dross of silver.

¹⁹ Therefore thus saith the Lord God: ‘Because ye have all become dross, behold, therefore I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem.

²⁰ As they gather silver and brass and iron and lead and tin into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it to melt it, so will I gather you in Mine anger and in My fury, and I will leave you there and melt you.

²¹ Yea, I will gather you and blow upon you in the fire of My wrath, and ye shall be melted in the midst thereof.

²² As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof; and ye shall know that I, the Lord, have poured out My fury upon you.’”

²³ And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,

²⁴ “Son of man, say unto her: ‘Thou art the land that is not cleansed nor rained upon in the day of indignation.’

²⁵ There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey. They have devoured souls; they have taken the treasure and precious things; they have made her many widows in the midst thereof.

²⁶ Her priests have violated My law and have profaned Mine holy things. They have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shown difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from My Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.

²⁷ Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain.

²⁸ And her prophets have daubed them with untempered mortar, seeing vanity and divining lies unto them, saying, ‘Thus saith the Lord God,’ when the Lord hath not spoken.

²⁹ The people of the land have used oppression and exercised robbery, and have vexed the poor and needy; yea, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully.

³⁰ And I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found none.

³¹ Therefore have I poured out Mine indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath. Their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord God.”

23 The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying,

² “Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother,

³ and they committed whoredoms in Egypt; they committed whoredoms in their youth. There were their breasts pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity.

⁴ And the names of them were Oholah the elder and Oholibah her sister; and they were Mine, and they bore sons and daughters. Thus were their names: Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem, Oholibah.

⁵ “And Oholah played the harlot when she was Mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbors,

⁶ who were clothed with blue, captains and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding upon horses.

⁷ Thus she committed her whoredoms with them, with all them that were the chosen men of Assyria and with all on whom she doted. With all their idols she defiled herself.

⁸ Neither left she her whoredoms brought from Egypt; for in her youth they lay with her, and they bruised the breasts of her virginity and poured their whoredom upon her.

⁹ Therefore I have delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, upon whom she doted.

¹⁰ These uncovered her nakedness. They took her sons and her daughters and slew her with the sword; and she became notorious among women, for they had executed judgment upon her.

¹¹ “And when her sister Oholibah saw this, she was more corrupt in her inordinate love than she, and in her whoredoms more than her sister in her whoredoms.

¹² She doted upon the Assyrians her neighbors, captains and rulers clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them desirable young men.

¹³ Then I saw that she was defiled, that they both took one way,

¹⁴ and that she increased her whoredoms. For when she saw men portrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion,

¹⁵ girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to, in the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldea, the land of their nativity—

¹⁶ and as soon as she saw them with her eyes, she doted upon them and sent messengers unto them into Chaldea.

¹⁷ And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoredom, and she was polluted with them, and her mind was alienated from them.

¹⁸ So she uncovered her whoredoms and uncovered her nakedness. Then My mind was alienated from her, as My mind was alienated from her sister.

¹⁹ Yet she multiplied her whoredoms in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt.

²⁰ For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses and whose issue is like the issue of horses.

²¹ Thus thou called to remembrance the lewdness of thy youth, in bruising thy teats by the Egyptians for the paps of thy youth.”

²² “Therefore, O Oholibah, thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will raise up thy lovers against thee from whom thy mind is alienated, and I will bring them against thee on every side:

²³ the Babylonians, and all the Chaldeans, Pekod, and Shoa, and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them, all of them desirable young men, captains and rulers, great lords and renowned, all of them riding upon horses.

²⁴ And they shall come against thee with chariots, wagons, and wheels, and with an assembly of people, who shall set against thee buckler and shield and helmet round about; and I will set judgment before them, and they shall judge thee according to their judgments.

²⁵ And I will set My jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee. They shall take away thy nose and thine ears, and thy remnant shall fall by the sword. They shall take thy sons and thy daughters, and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire.

²⁶ They shall also strip thee out of thy clothes and take away thy fair jewels.

²⁷ Thus will I make thy lewdness to cease from thee and thy whoredom brought from the land of Egypt, so that thou shalt not lift up thine eyes unto them, nor remember Egypt any more.

²⁸ For thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will deliver thee into the hand of those whom thou hatest, into the hand of those from whom thy mind is alienated.

²⁹ And they shall deal with thee hatefully, and shall take away all thy labor and shall leave thee naked and bare; and the nakedness of thy whoredoms shall be uncovered, both thy lewdness and thy whoredoms.

³⁰ I will do these things unto thee, because thou hast gone a whoring after the heathen, and because thou art polluted with their idols.

³¹ Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister; therefore will I give her cup into thine hand.

³² “Thus saith the Lord God: “Thou shalt drink of thy sister’s cup deep and large; thou shalt be laughed to scorn and held in derision; it containeth much.

³³ Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of dismay and desolation, with the cup of thy sister Samaria.

³⁴ Thou shalt even drink it and suck it out, and thou shalt break the shards thereof, and pluck off thine own breasts. For I have spoken it, saith the Lord God.

³⁵ “Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because thou hast forgotten Me and cast Me behind thy back, therefore bear thou also thy lewdness and thy whoredoms.”

³⁶ The Lord said moreover unto me: “Son of man, wilt thou judge Oholah and Oholibah? Yea, declare unto them their abominations,

³⁷ that they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands; and with their idols have they committed adultery and have also caused their sons, whom they bore unto Me, to pass for them through the fire, to devour them.

³⁸ Moreover this they have done unto Me: They have defiled My sanctuary on the same day and have profaned My Sabbaths.

³⁹ For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into My sanctuary to profane it; and lo, thus have they done in the midst of Mine house.

⁴⁰ And furthermore, ye have sent for men to come from far, unto whom a messenger was sent; and lo, they came, for whom thou didst wash thyself, painted thy eyes, and decked thyself with ornaments,

⁴¹ and sattest upon a stately bed, and a table prepared before it, whereupon thou hast set Mine incense and Mine oil.

⁴² And a voice of a multitude being at ease was with her; and with the men of the common sort were brought Sabeans from the wilderness, who put bracelets upon their hands and beautiful crowns upon their heads.

⁴³ “Then said I unto her that was old in adulteries: ‘Will they now commit whoredoms with her, and she with them?’

⁴⁴ Yet they went in unto her, as they go in unto a woman that playeth the harlot; so went they in unto Oholah and unto Oholibah, the lewd women.

⁴⁵ And the righteous men, they shall judge them after the manner of adulteresses and after the manner of women that shed blood, because they are adulteresses and blood is in their hands.

⁴⁶ “For thus saith the Lord God: I will bring up a company upon them, and will give them to be removed and despoiled.

⁴⁷ And the company shall stone them with stones and dispatch them with their swords. They shall slay their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses with fire.

⁴⁸ Thus will I cause lewdness to cease out of the land, that all women may be taught not to do according to your lewdness.

⁴⁹ And they shall recompense your lewdness upon you, and ye shall bear the sins of your idols; and ye shall know that I am the Lord God.”

1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,

² elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you and peace be multiplied.

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

⁴ to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away, reserved in Heaven for you,

⁵ who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

⁶ In this ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations,

⁷ that the trial of your faith (being much more precious than gold that perisheth, though it be tested with fire) might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ,

⁸ whom having not seen, ye love. In Him, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory,

⁹ receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.

¹⁰ Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, and have prophesied of the grace that should come unto you,

¹¹ searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them had signified when He testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow.

¹² Unto them it was revealed that they ministered, not unto themselves, but unto us the things which are now reported unto you by those who have preached the Gospel unto you, with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven — things which the angels desire to look into.

¹³ Therefore gird up the loins of your mind; be sober and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

¹⁴ As obedient children, do not fashion yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance,

¹⁵ but as He who hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of living,

¹⁶ because it is written: “Be ye holy, for I am holy.”

¹⁷ And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear.

¹⁸ For ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, such as silver and gold, from your vain way of living which ye received by tradition from your fathers,

¹⁹ but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot,

²⁰ who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.

²¹ By Him ye believe in God, who raised Him up from the dead and gave Him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God.

²² Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently,

²³ being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God which liveth and abideth for ever;

²⁴ for “all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away;

²⁵ but the Word of the Lord endureth for ever.” And this is the Word which by the Gospel is preached unto you.