Jerusalem's Bloodshed Exposed
22 1 The word of our Father came to me: 2 And you, son of man, will you judge? Will you judge the city of bloodshed? Then confront her with all her detestable practices.
3 Say: This is what the Sovereign Father declares: You city that sheds blood within yourself, so that your time has come, and that makes idols for yourself, defiling yourself— 4 by the blood you have shed you have become guilty, and by the idols you have made you are defiled. You have brought your end near and have come to the end of your years. Therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations and a mockery to all the lands. 5 Those near and those far from you will mock you, you city of defiled name, full of turmoil.
6 See how every prince of Israel within you uses his power to shed blood. 7 In you they have treated father and mother with contempt; in you they have oppressed the foreigner; in you they have wronged the orphan and the widow. 8 You have despised my holy things and profaned my Sabbaths. 9 In you are slanderers bent on shedding blood; in you are those who eat at the mountain shrines and commit lewd acts in your midst. 10 In you they sleep with their fathers' wives; in you they violate women during their menstrual impurity. 11 One commits a detestable act with his neighbor's wife; another shamefully defiles his daughter-in-law; another violates his sister, his own father's daughter. 12 In you they take bribes to shed blood; you take interest and make excessive profit, and you extort unjust gain from your neighbors. And me you have forgotten, declares the Sovereign Father.
13 Now look, I strike my hands together at the dishonest gain you have made and at the blood you have shed in your midst. 14 Will your courage endure, or your hands stay strong, in the days when I deal with you? I, your Father, have spoken, and I will act. 15 I will scatter you among the nations and disperse you through the lands, and I will purge your uncleanness out of you. 16 When you have been defiled in the sight of the nations, you will know that I am your Father.
The Father's Refining Furnace
17 Then the word of our Father came to me: 18 Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to me; all of them are copper, tin, iron, and lead within the furnace—they are the dross of silver.
19 Therefore this is what the Sovereign Father declares: Because all of you have become dross, I am about to gather you into the midst of Jerusalem. 20 As silver, copper, iron, lead, and tin are gathered into a furnace and the fire is blown upon them to melt them, so I will gather you in my anger and wrath, and I will deposit you there and melt you. 21 I will gather you and blow upon you with the fire of my fury, and you will be melted within it. 22 As silver is melted within a furnace, so you will be melted within it. Then you will know that I, your Father, have poured out my wrath upon you.
Leaders Who Devour Their Own
23 Again the word of our Father came to me:
24 Son of man, say to her: You are a land not cleansed, not rained upon in the day of indignation. 25 Her prophets within her form a conspiracy, like a roaring lion tearing its prey; they have devoured lives, seized treasure and precious things, and made many widows within her. 26 Her priests have done violence to my law and profaned my holy things; they have made no distinction between the holy and the common, nor taught the difference between the unclean and the clean; they have shut their eyes to my Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them. 27 Her officials within her are like wolves tearing their prey, shedding blood and destroying lives to make dishonest gain. 28 Her prophets have whitewashed these deeds for them with false visions and lying divinations, saying, "This is what the Sovereign Father declares," when our Father has not spoken. 29 The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery; they have oppressed the poor and needy and denied justice to the foreigner.
30 I searched among them for someone who would build up the wall and stand before me in the breach on behalf of the land, so that I would not destroy it—but I found no one. 31 So I have poured out my indignation upon them and consumed them with the fire of my fury; I have brought the way they have lived down on their own heads, declares the Sovereign Father.