Dual Panel1This word of the LORD came to me:
2“O man, there were once two women, daughters of the same mother,
3who while they were still girls played the whore in Egypt. There they let their breasts be fondled and their virgin bosoms be pressed.
4The elder was named Oholah, her sister Oholibah. They became mine and gave birth to sons and daughters. Oholah is Samaria, Oholibah Jerusalem.
5“Though Oholah owed me obedience she played the whore and was infatuated with her Assyrian lovers, officers
6in blue, viceroys and governors, all of them handsome young men riding on horseback.
7She played the whore with all of them, the flower of Assyrian manhood; and because of her lust for all their idols she was defiled.
8She never gave up the ways she had learnt in Egypt, where men had lain with her while she was still young, had pressed her virgin bosom and overwhelmed her with their fornication.
9So I abandoned her to her lovers, the Assyrians, with whom she was infatuated.
10They ravished her, they took away her sons and daughters, and they put her to the sword. She became notorious among women, and judgement was executed on her.
11“Oholibah, her sister, saw it, but she surpassed her sister in lust and outdid her in playing the whore.
12She too was infatuated with Assyrians, viceroys and governors, all handsome officers in full dress and riding on horseback.
13I saw that she too had let herself be defiled. Both had gone the same way,
14but she carried her fornication to greater lengths: she saw male figures carved on the wall, sculptured forms of Chaldaeans picked out in vermilion,
15with belts round their waists and flowing turbans on their heads. All had the appearance of high Babylonian officers, natives of Chaldaea.
16When she set eyes on them she was infatuated, and sent messengers to Chaldaea for them.
17The Babylonians came to her to share her bed, and defiled her with fornication; she was defiled by them until her love turned to revulsion.
18When she made no secret that she was a whore and let herself be ravished, I recoiled with revulsion from her as I recoiled from her sister.
19Remembering how in her youth she had played the whore in Egypt, she played the whore over and over again.
20She was infatuated with their male prostitutes, whose members were like those of donkeys and whose seed came in floods like that of stallions.
21So, Oholibah, you relived the lewdness of your girlhood in Egypt when you let your bosom be pressed and your breasts fondled.
22“The Lord GOD has said: I shall rouse against you, Oholibah, those lovers of yours who have filled you with revulsion, and bring them against you from every side:
23the Babylonians, all the Chaldaeans from Pekod, Shoa, and Koa, and with them all the Assyrians, handsome young men, viceroys and governors, commanders and officers, all on horseback.
24They will advance against you with war-horses, with chariots and wagons, with a host drawn from the nations, armed with shield, buckler, and helmet; they will beset you on every side. I shall give them authority to judge, and they will use that authority to execute judgement on you.
25I shall turn my jealous wrath against you, and they will bring their fury to bear on you. They will cut off your nose and ears, and those of you left will fall by the sword. They will take your sons and daughters, and those of you left will end in flames.
26They will strip you of your clothes and take away your finery.
27So I shall put a stop to your lewdness and the harlotry which you first learnt in Egypt. You will never cast longing eyes on such things again, never remember Egypt any more.
28“The Lord GOD says: I am handing you over to those whom you hate, those who have filled you with revulsion;
29and they will bring their fury to bear on you. They will take all you have earned and leave you stark naked; the body with which you have played the whore will be ravished. It is your lewdness and your fornication
30that have brought this on you; it is because you adopted heathen ways, played the whore, and became defiled with idols.
31As you have followed in your sister's footsteps, I shall put her cup into your hand.
32“The Lord GOD says: You will drink from your sister's cup, a cup deep and wide, charged to the very brim with mockery and scorn.
33It will be full of drunkenness and grief, a cup of uttermost ruin, the cup of your sister Samaria;
34you will drink it to the dregs, and then gnaw it into shreds while you tear your breasts. “This is my sentence, says the Lord GOD.
35“The Lord GOD says: Because you have forsaken me and cast me behind your back, you will have to bear the guilt of your lewdness and fornication.”
36The LORD said to me, “O man, will you bring a charge against Oholah and Oholibah? Then tax them with their vile offences.
37They have committed adultery, and there is blood on their hands. They have committed adultery with their idols and offered to them as food the children they had borne me.
38Here is another thing they have done to me: they have polluted my sanctuary and desecrated my sabbaths.
39They came into my sanctuary and desecrated it by slaughtering their sons as an offering to their idols; this they did in my house.
40“Then also they would send for men from a far-off country, who would come at the messenger's bidding. For them you bathed your body, painted your eyes, decked yourself in your finery,
41sat yourself on a splendid couch, and had a table placed before it on which you laid my incense and oil.
42There was loud shouting from a carefree crowd. Besides ordinary folk, Sabaeans were there, brought in from the desert; they put bracelets on the harlots” arms and beautiful garlands on their heads.
43I thought: Ah, that woman, grown old in adultery! Now they will commit fornication with her -- her of all women!
44They resorted to her as to a prostitute; they resorted to Oholah and Oholibah, those lewd women.
45Upright men will condemn them for their adultery and bloodshed; they are adulterous, and have blood on their hands.
46“The Lord GOD says: Bring up a mob to punish them; give them over to terror and pillage.
47Let the mob stone them and hack them to pieces with their swords, kill their sons and daughters, and burn down their houses.
48In this way I shall put an end to lewdness in the land, and all the women will take warning not to follow their lewd example.
49When they punish you for your lewd conduct and you pay the penalty for your idolatries, you will know that I am the Lord GOD.”