14. Will your strength and courage endure when I deal with you? I am the Lord: I speak, and I act!
15. I will scatter you among the nations and disperse you throughout the lands, and so I will remove your uncleanness from you.
16. When you are degraded like this in the sight of the nations, then you will know that I am the Lord.
17. The Lord’s word came to me:
18. Human one, the house of Israel has become a waste product for me. They are all copper, tin, iron, and lead. In the furnace, they’ve become the waste product of silver.
19. So this is what the Lord God says: Because you’ve all become a waste product, I’m now gathering you into the middle of Jerusalem.
20. Just as silver, copper, iron, lead, and tin are collected and placed in a furnace to fan the flames under them and melt them down, so in my anger and rage I will collect you, put you in, and melt you down.
21. I will gather you, fan the flames of my wrath under you, and melt you down in the middle of it.
22. As silver is melted in a furnace, so you will be melted in it. You will know that I, the Lord, have poured out my rage on you.
23. The Lord’s word came to me:
24. Human one, say to her, You are an unclean land without rain on the day of reckoning.
25. The conspiracy of princes in her is like a roaring lion ripping up prey. They’ve piled up wealth and precious goods and made many widows in her.
26. Her priests have done violence to my instructions and made my holy things impure. They have not clearly separated the holy from the ordinary, and they have not taught the difference between unclean and clean things. They’ve disregarded my sabbaths. So I’ve been degraded among them.
27. The officials in her are like wolves ripping up prey. They shed blood and destroy lives for unjust riches.