King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 16
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1Again unto me, saying, , cause to know her , And say, Thus saith unto ; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of ; thy was an , and thy mother an . And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have upon thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the lothing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born. And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own , I said unto thee when thou wast in thy , Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy , Live. I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments: thy breasts are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast and . Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my over thee, and covered thy : yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a with thee, saith , and thou becamest mine. Then washed I thee with water; yea, I throughly washed away thy from thee, and I thee with oil. I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers’ skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk. I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck. And I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful upon thine head. Thus wast thou decked with gold and silver; and thy raiment was of fine linen, and silk, and broidered work; thou didst eat , and honey, and oil: and thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom. And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith . But thou didst in thine own beauty, and playedst the because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was. And of thy garments thou didst take, and deckedst thy with divers colours, and playedst the thereupon: the like things shall not come, neither shall it be so. Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself of men, and didst commit whoredom with them, 18And tookest thy broidered garments, and coveredst them: and thou hast set mine oil and mine before them. My meat also which I gave thee, , and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them for a sweet savour: and thus it was, saith . Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto me, and these hast thou unto them to be devoured. Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter, That thou hast slain my children, and them to cause them to pass through the for them? And in all thine and thy whoredoms thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast and , and wast polluted in thy . And it came to pass after all thy wickedness, (woe, woe unto thee! saith ;) That thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place, and hast made thee an in every street. Thou hast built thy at every head of , and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred, and hast opened thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms. Thou hast also committed fornication with the thy neighbours, great of ; and hast increased thy whoredoms, to provoke me to . Behold, therefore I have stretched out my hand over thee, and have diminished thine ordinary food, and thee unto the will of them that hate thee, the daughters of the , which are of thy lewd way. Thou hast played the whore also with the , because thou wast unsatiable; yea, thou hast played the with them, and yet couldest not be satisfied. Thou hast moreover multiplied thy fornication in the land of unto ; and yet thou wast not satisfied herewith. How weak is thine , saith , seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman; In that thou buildest thine eminent place in the head of every way, and makest thine in every street; and hast not been as an , in that thou scornest hire; But as a wife that committeth , which taketh strangers instead of her husband! They give gifts to all whores: but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them, that they may come unto thee on every side for thy whoredom. 34And the contrary is in thee from other women in thy whoredoms, whereas none followeth thee to commit whoredoms: and in that thou givest a reward, and no reward is given unto thee, therefore thou art contrary. Wherefore, O , hear the word of : Thus saith ; Because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy discovered through thy whoredoms with thy lovers, and with all the idols of thy , and by of thy children, which thou didst give unto them; Behold, therefore I will gather all thy lovers, with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all them that thou hast loved, with all them that thou hast hated; I will even gather them round about against thee, and will discover thy unto them, that they may see all thy . And I will judge thee, as women that break wedlock and shed are judged; and I will give thee in fury and . And I will also give thee into their hand, and they shall throw down thine eminent place, and shall break down thy : they shall strip thee also of thy clothes, and shall take thy fair jewels, and leave thee and . They shall also bring up a company against thee, and they shall stone thee with stones, and thrust thee through with their . And they shall burn thine houses with , and execute judgments upon thee in the sight of many women: and I will cause thee to cease from playing the , and thou also shalt give no hire any more. So will I make my fury toward thee to rest, and my shall depart from thee, and I will be quiet, and will be no more angry. Because thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, but hast fretted me in all these things; behold, therefore I also will thy way upon thine head, saith : and thou shalt not commit this lewdness above all thine . Behold, every one that useth shall use this against thee, saying, As is the mother, so is her daughter. Thou art thy mother’s daughter, that lotheth her husband and her children; and thou art the sister of thy sisters, which lothed their husbands and their children: your mother was an , and your an . And thine elder sister is , she and her daughters that at thy left hand: and thy younger sister, that dwelleth at thy , is and her daughters. Yet hast thou not walked after their ways, nor done after their : but, as if that were a very little thing, thou wast corrupted more than they in all thy ways. As I live, saith , thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters. Behold, this was the of thy sister , pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of and needy. And they were haughty, and committed before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good. Neither hath committed half of thy ; but thou hast multiplied thine more than they, and hast thy sisters in all thine which thou hast done. Thou also, which hast judged thy sisters, bear thine own for thy that thou hast committed more than they: they are more than thou: yea, be thou confounded also, and bear thy , in that thou hast thy sisters. When I shall bring again their , of and her daughters, and of and her daughters, then will I bring again of thy in the midst of them: That thou mayest bear thine own , and mayest be confounded in all that thou hast done, in that thou art a comfort unto them. When thy sisters, and her daughters, shall return to their former estate, and and her daughters shall return to their former estate, then thou and thy daughters shall return to your former estate. For thy sister was not mentioned by thy in the day of thy pride, Before thy wickedness was discovered, as at the time of thy of the daughters of , and all that are round about her, the daughters of the , which despise thee round about. Thou hast borne thy lewdness and thine , saith . For thus saith ; I will even deal with thee as thou hast done, which hast despised the in breaking . Nevertheless I will remember my with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an . Then thou shalt remember thy ways, and be , when thou shalt receive thy sisters, thine elder and thy younger: and I will give them unto thee for daughters, but not by thy . And I will establish my with thee; and thou shalt know that I am : That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy any more because of thy , when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith .
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Babylon and the exile, 612 BC to 539 BC ›
Babylon replaces Assyria, Jerusalem and its temple are destroyed in 586 BC, and the leadership of Judah lives in Mesopotamia without a king, a temple, or a country.
- Babylon
- Nebuchadnezzar II rebuilds the city on a scale meant to be seen from a distance: the Ishtar Gate in glazed blue brick, the processional way, the ziggurat, and gardens later counted among the wonders of the world. Babylonian tablets record rations issued to the captive king Jehoiachin of Judah by name, which is one of the tidier points of contact between the Bible and the archives.
- Egypt
- Briefly resurgent. Pharaoh Neco marches north, kills King Josiah at Megiddo, and installs and deposes kings in Jerusalem, until Babylon beats him decisively at Carchemish in 605 BC. Jeremiah spends his career saying that betting on Egypt is suicide, and is proved right.
- Judah
- Deported in stages, then destroyed. The temple is burned, the walls broken, and the leadership marched to Mesopotamia. What happens next is one of the strangest survivals in history: a people keeps its identity without land, king, or sanctuary, and comes out of it with its scriptures more central than before.
- Further afield
- An extraordinary century for ideas everywhere at once. Thales and the first Greek philosophers, Solon's reforms at Athens, the Buddha in India, Confucius and Lao Tzu in China, and Zoroaster in Persia all fall within a few generations of the exile.
All of Ezekiel