¹ And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife; a barber's razor shalt thou take; and cause it to pass upon thy head and upon thy beard: and thou shalt take balances to weigh, and divide the [hair].

² A third part shalt thou burn in the fire in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled; and thou shalt take a third part, [and] smite about it with a knife; and a third part thou shalt scatter to the wind, and I will draw out a sword after them.

³ And thou shalt take thereof a few in number, and bind them in thy skirts;

⁴ and thou shalt take of these again, and cast them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire: from it shall a fire come forth against all the house of Israel.

⁵ Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: This is Jerusalem: I have set her in the midst of the nations, and the countries are round about her.

⁶ And she hath rebelled against my judgments in wickedness more than the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries that are round about her: for mine ordinances have they refused; and my statutes, they have not walked in them.

⁷ Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Because ye have been turbulent more than the nations that are round about you, [and] have not walked in my statutes, neither have kept mine ordinances, nor [even] have done according to the ordinances of the nations that are round about you;

⁸ therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I, even I, am against thee, and will execute judgments in the midst of thee in the sight of the nations;

⁹ and I will do in thee that which I have not done, and whereunto I will not do any more the like, because of all thine abominations.

¹⁰ Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments in thee, and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter to all the winds.

¹¹ Wherefore, [as] I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, verily because thou hast defiled my sanctuary with all thy detestable things, and with all thine abominations, therefore will I also withdraw mine eye, and it shall not spare, nor will I have any pity.

¹² A third part of thee shall die by the pestilence, and shall be consumed by the famine in the midst of thee; and a third part shall fall by the sword round about thee; and I will scatter a third part to all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them.

¹³ And mine anger shall be accomplished, and I will satisfy my fury upon them, and I will comfort myself; and they shall know that I Jehovah have spoken in my jealousy, when I have accomplished my fury upon them.

¹⁴ And I will make thee a waste and a reproach among the nations that are round about thee, in the sight of all that pass by.

¹⁵ And it shall be a reproach, and a taunt, an instruction, and an astonishment unto the nations that are round about thee, when I shall execute judgments upon thee in anger, and in fury, and in furious rebukes: I, Jehovah, have spoken.

¹⁶ When I send upon them the evil arrows of famine, that are for [their] destruction, which I send to destroy you, then will I increase the famine upon you, and will break your staff of bread.

¹⁷ And I will send upon you famine and evil beasts, which shall bereave thee of children; and pestilence and blood shall pass through thee; and I will bring the sword upon thee: I, Jehovah, have spoken.

¹ And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,

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

³ And they committed whoredom in Egypt; they committed whoredom in their youth: there were their breasts pressed, and there were handled the teats of their virginity.

⁴ And their names were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister; and they were mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names: Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah.

⁵ And Oholah played the harlot when she was mine; and she lusted after her lovers, after the Assyrians [her] neighbours,

⁶ clothed with blue, governors and rulers, all of them attractive young men, horsemen riding upon horses.

⁷ And she bestowed her whoredoms upon them, all of them the choice of the children of Asshur; and with all after whom she lusted, with all their idols she defiled herself.

⁸ Neither left she her whoredoms [brought] from Egypt; for in her youth they had lain with her, and had handled the breasts of her virginity, and poured their fornication upon her.

⁹ Therefore I gave her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the children of Asshur, after whom she lusted.

¹⁰ These discovered her nakedness, they took her sons and her daughters, and slew her with the sword; and she became a name among women; and they executed judgment upon her.

¹¹ And her sister Oholibah saw [this], and was more corrupt in her passion than she, and in her fornications more than the whoredoms of her sister.

¹² She lusted after the children of Asshur [her] neighbours, governors and rulers, clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them attractive young men.

¹³ And I saw that she was defiled: both took one way.

¹⁴ And she increased her fornications; for she saw men portrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion,

¹⁵ girded with girdles upon their loins, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them captains in appearance, [after] the likeness of the children of Babylon, of Chaldea, the land of their nativity.

¹⁶ And as soon as she saw them with her eyes, she lusted after them, and sent messengers unto them into Chaldea.

¹⁷ And the children of Babylon came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their fornication; she too defiled herself with them, and her soul was alienated from them.

¹⁸ And she discovered her whoredoms, and discovered her nakedness; and my soul was alienated from her, like as my soul was alienated from her sister.

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

²⁰ and she lusted after their paramours, whose flesh is [as] the flesh of asses, and whose issue is [as] the issue of horses.

²¹ And thou didst look back to the lewdness of thy youth, in the handling of thy teats by the Egyptians, for the breasts of thy youth.

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

²³ The children of Babylon, and all the Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, all the children of Asshur with them; all of them attractive young men, governors and rulers, great lords and renowned, all of them riding upon horses.

²⁴ And they shall come against thee [with] armour, chariots and wheels, and with an assemblage of peoples; they shall set themselves against thee [with] target, and shield, and helmet round about; and I will put 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 cut off 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 the of thy garments, and take away thy fair jewels.

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

²⁸ For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will give thee over into the hand of them whom thou hatest, into the hand of them from whom thy soul is alienated.

²⁹ And they shall deal with thee in hatred, and shall take away all thy labour, and shall leave thee naked and bare; so that the nakedness of thy whoredoms shall be discovered, both thy lewdness and thy fornications.

³⁰ These things shall be done unto thee, because thou hast gone a whoring after the nations, because thou hast defiled thyself with their idols.

³¹ Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister; and I have given her cup into thy hand.

³² Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Thou shalt drink of thy sister's cup deep and large; thou shalt be for a laughing-stock and a derision, [for] it containeth much.

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

³⁴ thou shalt even drink it and suck it out, and thou shalt gnaw the sherds thereof, and pluck off thine own breasts: for I have spoken [it], saith the Lord Jehovah.

³⁵ Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Because thou hast forgotten me, and cast me behind thy back, therefore bear thou also thy lewdness and thy fornications.

³⁶ And Jehovah said unto me, Son of man, wilt thou judge Oholah and Oholibah? yea, declare unto them their abominations.

³⁷ For they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands; and with their idols have they committed adultery, and have also passed over unto them their children, whom they bore unto me, to be devoured.

³⁸ Moreover this have they done unto me: in the same day have they defiled my sanctuary and profaned my sabbaths.

³⁹ For when they had slaughtered their children unto their idols, they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; and behold, thus have they done in the midst of my house.

⁴⁰ And furthermore, they sent for men to come from far, unto whom a messenger was sent; and behold, they came: for whom thou didst wash thyself, paintedst thine eyes, and deckedst thyself with ornaments;

⁴¹ and satest upon a stately bed, with a table prepared before it, whereupon thou hadst set mine incense and mine oil.

⁴² And the voice of a multitude living carelessly was with her; and with people of the common sort were brought Sabeans from the wilderness, and they put bracelets upon their hands, and a beautiful crown upon their heads.

⁴³ And I said of her that was old in adulteries, Will she now commit her fornications, even she.

⁴⁴ And they went in unto her, as they go in unto a whorish woman: so went they in unto Oholah and unto Oholibah the lewd women.

⁴⁵ And righteous men, they shall judge them with the judgment of adulteresses, and with the judgment of women that shed blood; for they are adulteresses, and blood is in their hands.

⁴⁶ For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: I will bring up an assemblage against them, and will give them to be driven hither and thither and spoiled.

⁴⁷ And the assemblage shall stone them with stones, and despatch them with their swords; they shall kill their sons and their daughters, and burn their houses with fire.

⁴⁸ And I will cause lewdness to cease out of the land, and all women shall receive instruction and shall not 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 Jehovah.