King James Version · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 23
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1 again unto me, saying, , there were two women, the daughters of one mother: And they committed whoredoms in ; they committed whoredoms in their youth: there were their breasts pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity. And the names of them were Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her sister: and they were mine, and they sons and daughters. Thus were their names; is Aholah, and Aholibah. And Aholah played the when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the her neighbours, Which were clothed with blue, captains and , all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding upon horses. Thus she committed her whoredoms with them, with all them that were the chosen men of , and with all on whom she doted: with all their idols she defiled herself. Neither left she her whoredoms brought from : for in her youth they lay with her, and they bruised the breasts of her virginity, and poured their whoredom upon her. Wherefore I have her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the , upon whom she doted. These discovered her : they took her sons and her daughters, and slew her with : and she became famous among women; for they had executed upon her. And when her sister Aholibah saw this, she was more corrupt in her inordinate love than she, and in her whoredoms more than her sister in her whoredoms. She doted upon the her neighbours, captains and clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them desirable young men. Then I saw that she was defiled, that they took both one way, And that she increased her whoredoms: for when she saw men pourtrayed upon the wall, the of the pourtrayed with vermilion, Girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to, after the manner of the of , the land of their nativity: And as soon as she saw them with her eyes, she doted upon them, and sent unto them into . And the came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoredom, and she was polluted with them, and her was alienated from them. So she discovered her whoredoms, and discovered her : then my was alienated from her, like as my was alienated from her sister. Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the in the land of . For she doted upon their paramours, whose is as of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. 21Thus thou calledst to remembrance the lewdness of thy youth, in bruising thy teats by the for the paps of thy youth. Therefore, O Aholibah, thus saith ; Behold, I will raise up thy lovers against thee, from whom thy is alienated, and I will bring them against thee on every side; The , and all the , Pekod, and Shoa, and Koa, and all the with them: all of them desirable young men, captains and , great lords and renowned, all of them riding upon horses. And they shall come against thee with chariots, wagons, and wheels, and with an of people, which shall set against thee buckler and shield and helmet round about: and I will set before them, and they shall judge thee according to their judgments. And I will set my against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee: they shall take away thy nose and thine ears; and thy shall fall : they shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy residue shall be devoured by the . They shall also strip thee out of thy clothes, and take away thy fair jewels. Thus will I make thy lewdness to cease from thee, and thy whoredom brought from the land of : so that thou shalt not lift up thine eyes unto them, nor remember any more. For thus saith ; Behold, I will thee into the hand of them whom thou hatest, into the hand of them from whom thy is alienated: And they shall deal with thee hatefully, and shall take away all thy labour, and shall leave thee and : and the thy whoredoms shall be discovered, both thy lewdness and thy whoredoms. I will do these things unto thee, because thou hast gone a after the heathen, and because thou art polluted with their idols. Thou hast walked in of thy sister; therefore will I give her into thine hand. Thus saith ; Thou shalt drink of thy sister’s deep and large: thou shalt be laughed to scorn and had in derision; it containeth much. Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with of astonishment and desolation, with of thy sister . Thou shalt even drink it and suck it out, and thou shalt break the sherds thereof, and pluck off thine own breasts: for I have spoken it, saith . Therefore thus saith ; Because thou hast forgotten me, and cast me behind thy back, therefore bear thou also thy lewdness and thy whoredoms. said moreover unto me; , wilt thou judge Aholah and Aholibah? yea, declare unto them their ; That they have committed , and is in their hands, and with their idols have they committed , and have also caused their sons, whom they unto me, to pass for them through the , to devour them. Moreover this they have done unto me: they have defiled my sanctuary in the same day, and have profaned my . For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; and, lo, thus have they done in the midst of mine house. And furthermore, that ye have sent for men to come from far, unto whom a was sent; and, lo, they came: for whom thou didst wash thyself, paintedst thy eyes, and deckedst thyself with ornaments, And satest upon a stately bed, and a table prepared before it, whereupon thou hast set mine and mine oil. And a voice of a multitude being at ease was with her: and with the men of the common sort were brought from , which put bracelets upon their hands, and beautiful upon their heads. Then said I unto her that was old in adulteries, Will they now commit whoredoms with her, and she with them? Yet they went in unto her, as they go in unto a woman that playeth the : so went they in unto Aholah and unto Aholibah, the lewd women. And men, they shall judge them after the manner of adulteresses, and after the manner of women that shed ; because they are adulteresses, and is in their hands. For thus saith ; I will bring up a company upon them, and will give them to be removed and spoiled. And the company shall stone them with stones, and dispatch them with their ; they shall their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses with . Thus will I cause lewdness to cease out of the land, that all women may be taught not to do after your lewdness. And they shall your lewdness upon you, and ye shall bear the of your idols: and ye shall know that I am .
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