20. Just as one gathers silver, copper, iron, lead, and tin into the furnace to blow fire on them and melt them, so I will gather you in My anger and wrath, put you inside, and melt you.
21. Yes, I will gather you together and blow on you with the fire of My fury, and you will be melted within the city.
22. As silver is melted inside a furnace, so you will be melted inside the city. Then you will know that I, Yahweh, have poured out My wrath on you.”
23. The word of the Lord came to me:
24. “Son of man, say to her: You are a land that has not been cleansed, that has not received rain in the day of indignation.
25. The conspiracy of her prophets within her is like a roaring lion tearing its prey: they devour people, seize wealth and valuables, and multiply the widows within her.
26. Her priests do violence to My instruction and profane My holy things. They make no distinction between the holy and the common, and they do not explain the difference between the clean and the unclean. They disregard My Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.
27. “Her officials within her are like wolves tearing their prey, shedding blood, and destroying lives in order to make profit dishonestly.
28. Her prophets plaster with whitewash for them by seeing false visions and lying divinations, and they say, ‘This is what the Lord God says,’ when the Lord has not spoken.
29. The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery. They have oppressed the poor and needy and unlawfully exploited the foreign resident.
30. I searched for a man among them who would repair the wall and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land so that I might not destroy it, but I found no one.