Old/New Testament

Jerusalem as an Adulterous Bride

16 Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying: ² Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations, ³ and say, Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem: Your birth and your nativity are from the land of Canaan. Your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite. ⁴ As for your birth, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed in water to cleanse you. You were not rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. ⁵ No eye pitied you to do any of these to you, to have compassion on you. But you were cast out in the open field, to the loathing of your person, in the day that you were born.

⁶ When I passed by you and saw you polluted in your own blood, I said to you when you were in your blood, “Live!” Indeed, I said to you when you were in your blood, “Live!” ⁷ I have caused you to multiply as the bud of the field, and you have increased and become tall, and you have reached the age of fine ornaments. Your breasts were fashioned and your hair had grown, yet you were naked and bare.

⁸ Now when I passed by you and looked upon you, you were old enough for love. So I spread My garment over you and covered your nakedness. Indeed, I swore to you, and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord God, and you became Mine.

⁹ Then I washed you with water. Indeed, I thoroughly washed away your blood from you, and I anointed you with oil. ¹⁰ I clothed you also with embroidered work, and put sandals of porpoise skin on your feet, and girded you about with fine linen, and covered you with silk. ¹¹ I decked you also with ornaments, and put bracelets on your hands, and a chain on your neck. ¹² I put a jewel on your forehead, and earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown on your head. ¹³ Thus you were decked with gold and silver. And your raiment was of fine linen, and silk, and embroidered work. You ate fine flour, and honey, and oil. And you were exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. ¹⁴ Then your renown went out among the nations for your beauty. For it was perfect through My comeliness which I had put upon you, says the Lord God.

¹⁵ But you trusted in your own beauty, and played the harlot because of your renown, and poured out your fornications on every willing passerby. ¹⁶ Of your garments you took and decked your high places with various colors and played the harlot on them, which should never come about or happen. ¹⁷ You have also taken your fair jewels made of My gold and My silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men that you might commit harlotry with them. ¹⁸ Then you took your embroidered garments and covered them. And you have set My oil and My incense before them. ¹⁹ My bread also which I gave you, fine flour, and oil, and honey, with which I fed you, you have even set before them for a sweet savor. And thus it was, says the Lord God.

²⁰ Moreover you have taken your sons and your daughters, whom you have borne to Me, and these you have sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your harlotries so small a matter? ²¹ You have slain My children and delivered them up to idols by causing them to pass through the fire. ²² Besides all your abominations and your harlotries you have not remembered the days of your youth when you were naked and bare and were polluted in your blood.

²³ After all your wickedness (Woe, woe to you! says the Lord God) ²⁴ you also built for yourself a shrine and have made yourself a high place in every street. ²⁵ You have built yourself a high place at the head of every street, and have made your beauty to be abhorred, and have spread your legs to every passerby to multiply your harlotries. ²⁶ You have also committed fornication with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, and increased your harlotries to provoke Me to anger. ²⁷ Therefore I have stretched out My hand against you and have diminished your ordinary food and delivered you to the will of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines who are ashamed of your lewd conduct. ²⁸ You have played the harlot also with the Assyrians because you were insatiable. Indeed, you have played the harlot with them, and yet could not be satisfied. ²⁹ You have moreover multiplied your fornication with the land of merchants, Chaldea. And yet you were not satisfied even with this.

³⁰ How weak is your heart, says the Lord God, seeing you do all these things, the works of an imperious harlot. ³¹ When you built your shrine at the head of every street and made your high place in every square, you have not been as a harlot in that you scorned payment.

³² You have been as a wife who commits adultery, who takes strangers instead of her husband! ³³ Men give gifts to all harlots. But you give your gifts to all your lovers, and hire them that they may come to you on every side for your harlotry. ³⁴ Thus you are different from other women in your harlotries in that no one follows you to commit harlotries, because you give money, and no money is given to you. Thus you are different.

³⁵ Therefore, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord. ³⁶ Thus says the Lord God, Because your filthiness was poured out and your nakedness discovered through your harlotries with your lovers, and with all the idols of your abominations, and by the blood of your children, which you gave to idols, ³⁷ therefore I will gather all your lovers with whom you have taken pleasure and all those whom you have loved with all those whom you have hated. I will even gather them from all around against you and will reveal your nakedness to them so that they may see all your nakedness. ³⁸ I will judge you as women who commit adultery or shed blood are judged. And I will bring on you the blood of fury and jealousy. ³⁹ I will also give you into their hand, and they shall throw down your shrines, and shall break down your high places. They shall strip you also of your clothes, and shall take your fair jewels, and leave you naked and bare. ⁴⁰ They shall also bring up a company against you, and they shall stone you with stones, and thrust you through with their swords. ⁴¹ They shall burn your houses with fire and execute judgments on you in the sight of many women. And I will cause you to cease from playing the harlot, and you also shall give no hire anymore. ⁴² So I will make My fury toward you to rest, and My jealousy shall depart from you, and I will be quiet, and will be angry no more.

⁴³ Because you have not remembered the days of your youth, but have enraged Me in all these things, I also will recompense your way upon your head, says the Lord God, so that you shall not commit this lewdness above all your other abominations.

⁴⁴ Everyone who uses proverbs shall use this proverb against you, saying, “Like mother, like daughter.” ⁴⁵ You are your mother’s daughter who loathed her husband and her children. And you are the sister of your sisters who loathed their husbands and their children. Your mother was a Hittite, and your father an Amorite. ⁴⁶ Now your elder sister is Samaria, she and her daughters who dwell north of you. And your younger sister who dwells south of you is Sodom and her daughters. ⁴⁷ Yet you have not walked after their ways, or done according to their abominations. But, as if that were a very little thing, you were corrupted more than they in all your ways. ⁴⁸ As I live, says the Lord God, Sodom your sister has not done, she nor her daughters, as you and your daughters have done.

⁴⁹ This was the iniquity of your sister Sodom. Pride, abundance of bread, and careless ease was in her and in her daughters, but she did strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. ⁵⁰ They were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I took them away when I saw it. ⁵¹ Moreover, Samaria did not commit half of your sins. But you have multiplied your abominations more than they and have made your sisters appear righteous in all your abominations which you have done. ⁵² Also bear your own shame in that you have made judgment favorable to your sisters. Because of your sins that you have committed more abominable than they, they are more righteous than you. Indeed, be humiliated also and bear your shame in that you have made your sisters appear righteous.

⁵³ Yet I shall restore their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, and along with them your own captivity, ⁵⁴ in order that you may bear your own shame and may be humiliated in all that you have done in that you are a comfort to them. ⁵⁵ Your sisters, Sodom and her daughters and Samaria and her daughters, shall return to their former state, and you and your daughters shall return to your former state. ⁵⁶ As the name of your sister Sodom was not mentioned by your mouth in the day of your pride, ⁵⁷ before your wickedness was uncovered, so now you have become the reproach of the daughters of Edom and all who are around her, the daughters of the Philistines, those all around who despise you. ⁵⁸ You have borne the punishment of your lewdness and your abominations, says the Lord.

An Everlasting Covenant

⁵⁹ For thus, says the Lord God, I will even deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath by breaking the covenant. ⁶⁰ Nevertheless I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. ⁶¹ Then you shall remember your ways and be ashamed when you receive your sisters, your elder and your younger. And I will give them to you as daughters, but not because of your covenant. ⁶² Thus I will establish My covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, ⁶³ in order that you may remember, and be humiliated, and never open your mouth anymore because of your shame, when I am pacified toward you for all that you have done, says the Lord God.

Two Eagles and a Vine

17 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: ² Son of man, put forth a riddle, and speak a parable to the house of Israel, ³ and say, Thus says the Lord God: A great eagle with great wings, long-winged, full of feathers which had various colors, came to Lebanon and took away the highest branch of the cedar. ⁴ He cropped off the top of its young twigs and carried it into a land of merchants. He set it in a city of dealers.

⁵ He took also some of the seed of the land and planted it in a fruitful field. He placed it by great waters and set it as a willow tree. ⁶ It grew and became a spreading vine of low stature, whose branches turned toward him, and its roots were under it. So it became a vine, and brought forth branches, and shot forth sprigs.

⁷ There was also another great eagle with great wings and many feathers. And this vine bent its roots toward him and shot forth its branches toward him, that he might water it by the bed where it was planted. ⁸ It was planted in a good soil by many waters, that it might bring forth branches, and that it might bear fruit, that it might be a splendid vine.

⁹ Say: Thus says the Lord God: Will it thrive? Will he not pull up its roots and cut off its fruit, so that it withers, so that all its spring leaves wither? It will not take a great power or many people to pull it from its roots. ¹⁰ Though it has been planted, will it prosper? Shall it not utterly wither when the east wind hits it? It shall wither in the furrows where it grew.

¹¹ Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying: ¹² Say now to the rebellious house: Do you not know what these things mean? Tell them: The king of Babylon came to Jerusalem, and took its king and its officials, and led them to him in Babylon. ¹³ He took one of the king’s seed, and made a covenant with him, and put him under oath. He has also taken away the mighty of the land, ¹⁴ that the kingdom might be debased, that it might not lift itself up, but by the keeping of his covenant it might stand. ¹⁵ But he rebelled against him in sending his ambassadors into Egypt, that they might give him horses and much people. Shall he prosper? Shall he escape who does such things? Can he indeed break the covenant and be delivered?

¹⁶ As I live, says the Lord God, surely in the country of the king who made him king, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he broke, in the midst of Babylon he shall die. ¹⁷ Nor shall Pharaoh with his mighty army and great company help him in the war by casting up mounts and building forts to cut off many persons. ¹⁸ Seeing he despised the oath by breaking the covenant, when he had given his allegiance and has done all these things, he shall not escape.

¹⁹ Therefore thus says the Lord God: As I live, surely My oath that he has despised and My covenant that he has broken, I will inflict upon his own head. ²⁰ I will spread My net upon him, and he shall be taken in My snare, and I will bring him to Babylon and will enter into judgment with him there for his trespass that he has trespassed against Me. ²¹ All the choice men in all his troops shall fall by the sword, and those who remain shall be scattered toward all winds. And you shall know that I the Lord have spoken it.

²² Thus says the Lord God: I will also take of the highest branch of the high cedar and set it aside. I will crop off from the top of its young twigs a tender one and will plant it on a high and lofty mountain. ²³ On the mountain of the height of Israel I will plant it. And it shall bring forth boughs, and bear fruit, and be a splendid cedar. And under it all fowl of every wing shall nest. In the shadow of its branches they shall nest. ²⁴ All the trees of the field shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree to flourish.

I, the Lord, have spoken and will do it.

The Tongue

3 My brothers, not many of you should become teachers, knowing that we shall receive the greater judgment. ² We all err in many ways. But if any man does not err in word, he is a perfect man and able also to control the whole body.

³ See how we put bits in the mouths of horses that they may obey us, and we control their whole bodies. ⁴ And observe ships. Though they are so great and are driven by fierce winds, yet they are directed with a very small rudder wherever the captain pleases. ⁵ Even so, the tongue is a little part of the body and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles. ⁶ The tongue is a fire, a world of evil. The tongue is among the parts of the body, defiling the whole body, and setting the course of nature on fire, and it is set on fire by hell.

⁷ All kinds of beasts, and birds, and serpents, and things in the sea are tamed or have been tamed by mankind. ⁸ But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.

⁹ With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who are made in the image of God. ¹⁰ Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. ¹¹ Does a spring yield at the same opening sweet and bitter water? ¹² Can the fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a vine, figs? So no spring can yield both salt water and fresh water.

The Wisdom From Above

¹³ Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show his works by his good life in the meekness of wisdom. ¹⁴ But if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, do not boast and do not lie against the truth. ¹⁵ This wisdom descends not from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, and devilish. ¹⁶ For where there is envying and strife, there is confusion and every evil work.

¹⁷ But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. ¹⁸ And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.