Ezekiel 22

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: And you, son of man, will you not judge the city of bloods? And you shall show her all her abominations, and you shall say: Thus says the Lord God: A city shedding blood in her midst, so that her time may come; and which made idols against herself, so as to be polluted. By your blood, which has been shed by you, you have sinned; and in your idols which you made you are polluted; and you have made your days draw near, and you have brought on the time of your years. Therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations and a mockery to all lands. Those that are near and those that are far from you will triumph over you (or will mock you), filthy one, noble one, great in ruin. Behold, the princes of Israel, each in his own arm, have been in you to shed blood. Father and mother they have treated with insults in you (or they have cursed father and mother), the stranger they have falsely accused in your midst, the orphan and the widow they have grieved (or have oppressed) in you. My sanctuaries you have despised and my sabbaths you have polluted. Men who are detractors (or robbers) have been in you to shed blood, and upon the mountains they have eaten in you; wickedness (or, as the Hebrew has it more expressively, 'zemma', that is, incest) they have wrought in your midst. The more shameful parts of the father they have uncovered in you, and the uncleanness of the menstruous woman they have humbled in you; and each one has wrought abomination with his neighbor's wife, and the father-in-law has wickedly defiled his daughter-in-law; the brother has oppressed (or humbled) his sister, his father's daughter, in you. They have taken gifts in you to shed blood; usury and excess you have taken, and greedily you have falsely accused your neighbors (or and I will fill up the consummation of your malice in your oppression), and you have forgotten me, says the Lord God. Behold, I have clapped my hands over your avarice which you have practiced, and over the blood which has been shed in your midst. Will your heart endure, or will your hands prevail, in the days which I shall make for you? I the Lord have spoken and I will do it; and I will scatter you among the nations, and I will winnow you into the lands, and I will make your uncleanness fail from you; and I will possess you in the sight of the nations (or, according to the first edition of Aquila and Theodotion, and I will defile you; or, according to Symmachus, and I will wound you in the sight of the nations), and you shall know that I am the Lord. 'And you', he says, 'son of man — for I will use the word I am accustomed to use with you —, judge the city of bloods and show her all her abominations, so that she may know that she deservedly endures the imminent captivity and that by many bloods she has brought on the time of her ruin.

First of all crimes, in place of God you have worshiped idols, and you have adored the works of your hands, and you have made the time of your years draw near, which for a long time was being announced and postponed, so that you might do penance. But according to your impenitent heart you treasure up wrath for yourself against the day of wrath. Therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations and a mockery to all lands that are round about you, both near and far, which will triumph over you, or mock you, filthy, noble, great in ruin: filthy, because you have ceased to be clean; noble in evil, you who once surpassed all cities in nobility in good; great in ruin, so that the more lofty you were, the more heavily you should fall.

And meanwhile, to pass over the rest, I will enumerate a few things that took place in you: your princes, judging not by righteousness but by the strength of their might and of their arm, shed innocent blood in you; others treated father and mother with insults, or cursed their parents, though Scripture says: Whoever curses father and mother shall die the death; the stranger and the sojourner they oppressed in your midst, as though sojourning and exile from their homeland were not enough for them in place of every distress; the orphan and the widow they grieved, or oppressed, in you, so that those whose whole protection lies in the justice of the laws were not only grieved but oppressed by you; my sanctuaries, or holy things, you despised, and my sabbaths you polluted, so that you did not distinguish between holy and polluted, between the day decreed for religion and the rest of the sabbath for the worship of God, and the other days on which it is permitted by the law to work and to serve the needs of the flesh; men who were 'detractors' — or, according to Symmachus and Theodotion, 'deceitful', which in the Hebrew is called 'rachil' — and murderers were in you, so as to blaspheme God or to do everything by deceit or violence; and they ate on the mountains, minding high things and lifted up against God in pride; wickedness, or incest, they wrought in your midst, so that what is rarely done even in corners and in secret, when the awareness of men is shunned by the wicked, this you did in the open — and what the incest is, the following passage indicates: They have laid bare the more shameful parts of the father in you, coupling with a stepmother against what is right and lawful, and they have humbled the uncleanness of the menstruous woman in you, not sparing nature nor granting a truce to their foulness, and neighing after their neighbor's wife; and, what is more wicked than this, the father-in-law burned for his daughter-in-law, and the brother knew nothing of a sister's rights, so as to violate a sister born not of the same womb but of the same father —; they took gifts so as to shed innocent blood; they turned the need of the poor into gain, so as to take usury and excess; and out of avarice they falsely accused their friends. This you have done', he says, 'O Jerusalem, because you have forgotten me; for the remembrance of God shuts out all shameful deeds.

Hence I have taken on the bearing of the Lord in anger and have clapped my hands against your avarice and against the blood that has been shed in your midst, so that you may understand and recognize in your mind whether you can endure my wrath either in spirit or with your hands; for I the Lord have spoken and I will do it, so that, after you have been captured, Jerusalem, I will scatter you among the nations and winnow you into the air like useless chaff to be swept this way and that.

And I am of such great clemency that my severity is turned into mercy; for I will do everything so that your uncleanness may fail from you and you may recover your former purity; and when you have recovered it, I will possess you in the sight of all the nations, so that, when you have been possessed by me, you may then understand that I myself am the Lord'. If, however, we follow the interpretation of Symmachus and Theodotion, of whom the one says: And I will wound you (or I will pierce you through), the other: I will defile you in the sight of the nations, everything must be referred to the bad sense, although what is said above is contrary to this sense: And I will make your uncleanness fail from you; for the failing of uncleanness is the restoration of purity. I have discussed both editions together, so as to avoid enlarging the books.

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, the house of Israel has been turned into dross for me; all these are bronze and tin and iron and lead in the midst of the furnace; they have become the dross of silver. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have all been turned into dross, therefore behold, I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem, with a gathering of silver and bronze and iron and tin and lead into the midst of the furnace, so that I may kindle a fire in it for smelting: so will I gather in my fury and in my anger, and I will rest, and I will smelt you, and I will kindle you in the fire of my fury, and you shall be smelted in the midst of it. As silver is smelted in the midst of the furnace, so shall you be in the midst of it; and you shall know that I am the Lord; that I have poured out my indignation upon you. The Hebrew word 'sig' Symmachus translated 'dross', the first edition of Aquila and Theodotion στέμφυλον and γίγαρτον, both of which signify the 'pip' of the pressed grape; but the second translation of the same Aquila and the Seventy rendered it 'mixture'. Now dross denotes the filth and refuse of metals; and accordingly, with captivity near, nay, with the destruction of the city already impending, fire is applied so that, under the metaphor of smelting, pure silver may remain, which had been mixed with and corrupted by bronze, tin, iron and lead; of these, three — bronze, tin and lead — are of a fusible substance and are melted by fire, while iron is softened and thinned between anvil and hammer and takes various forms, according as the will of the craftsman may be.

What we have understood of Jerusalem, let us understand of the state of souls, which were created pure by God and received gold in understanding and wisdom, and silver in speech and eloquence, so that what they have conceived in the mind they may unfold in words. Of silver we read: The utterances of the Lord are chaste utterances, silver tried by fire, proved for the earth, purged sevenfold. Of gold and silver alike Psalm 67 (68) speaks, in which it is written: If you sleep in the midst of the lots, the wings of a dove covered with silver, and the hinder parts (or the inner parts) of her back in the greenness (or paleness) of gold. All indeed the glory of the king's daughter is within, she who speaks in the Song of Songs: The king has brought me into his chamber. Whoever has slept and rested between the two testaments at once takes up the silvered wings of the dove, and will shine with the brightness of gold in the treasury of the heart. To this sense, I think, those passages too are to be referred: that for sinners and for those who have deserved God's displeasure the heaven is bronze and the earth iron, and above all the land of Egypt, out of which the Lord leads Israel as out of an iron furnace; in Zechariah, too, iniquity sits upon a talent of lead, and in the song of Exodus it is said: They sank like lead in the most violent water; for they were pressed down by the heavy weight of their sins and could say: Like a heavy burden they have weighed heavily upon me. And just as the counterfeit likeness of bronze feigns the appearance of gold, so tin imitates the whiteness of silver, which the simple and rustic man does not easily tell apart. And it often happens that gold and silver, mixed with heretical depravity, are separated by the fire of the Holy Spirit in the judgment of the Lord, and the gold remains pure, and the silver of which the prophet says: I gave them gold and silver, but they made Baal out of them, to which this is similar: I brought them out with silver and gold, and there was not a feeble one among their tribes. And let the end of all punishments be to know that he himself is the Lord. A tin stone, or a mass of tin, we read in Zechariah too; what it signifies we have explained in its place.

Just as, then, silver, which the metals mentioned above have corrupted, is put into the furnace so that, once the filth and the counterfeit substances have been removed, it may remain pure: 'so', he says, 'I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem and surround you with the Babylonian siege, so that I may kindle a fire in you for smelting; and what the immense heat of the flames does there, famine and pestilence do here, so that, after I have gathered you and kindled you in the fire of my fury, I may then rest and quell the pain of being despised by the vengeance of your punishments; and all this I will do so that, after I have poured out my indignation upon you, the end of your torment may be the knowledge of me, and you shall know that I am the Lord, the judge and requiter of all'. That he is said to be a smelter we read in many other places too, but above all in Malachi and Isaiah, of whom the one says: Behold, he says, the Lord enters like the fire of a smelter and like the herb of the washers, and he will sit smelting as gold and silver, and he will smelt the sons of Levi, the other: And the Lord will wash away the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion, and he will cleanse the blood from their midst by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning; and I think that this is also the sense of what is said in the Psalms: Prove me, O Lord, and try me, after which is added: Burn my reins and my heart, so that all the phlegm of the harmful humor in my loins may be dried up.

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, say to her: You are a land unclean, and not rained upon in the day of fury. A conspiracy of prophets in her midst, like a lion roaring and seizing prey; they have devoured souls, they have taken wealth and price, they have multiplied her widows in her midst. Her priests have despised my law and have polluted my sanctuaries; between holy and profane they made no distinction, and between polluted and clean they did not discern, and from my sabbaths they turned away their eyes, and I was defiled in their midst. Her princes in her midst like wolves seizing prey, to shed blood and to destroy souls and greedily to pursue gains. And her prophets daubed them without tempering, seeing vain things and divining her falsehood, saying: Thus says the Lord God, when the Lord has not spoken. The people of the land they wronged with false accusation and plundered violently; the needy and the poor they afflicted, and the stranger they oppressed with false accusation without judgment. And I sought among them a man who would set up a wall and stand opposed against me for the land, so that I should not destroy it, and I did not find one. And I poured out my indignation upon them, in the fire of my anger I consumed them, I rendered their way upon their head, says the Lord God. A careful hearer might have asked what the dross was that violated the purity of the silver and mixed it with bronze, lead, tin and iron. What was expressed there, then, in the person of a city and a furnace is proclaimed here under the image of a land that has not been watered nor received rains — those rains of which it is written: I will command the clouds not to rain a shower upon it, the shower we await when the early and the late rain is given us, of which it is written: A voluntary rain you will set apart, O God, for your inheritance. And the day of fury is the one which each person procures for himself by the multitude of his sins.

We wish to know what the dross of the city is, what the squalor of a land most hard and full of brambles and thorns. A conspiracy, he says, of prophets (or, according to the Seventy, of leaders) in her midst, who bear the likeness of a lion, of which Peter too writes: Our adversary the devil goes about like a roaring lion; and this lion and all his companions seek to devour not bodies but souls, and they take rewards and decide everything by money. That this happened to the people of the Jews at that time indeed, no one doubts; for because of the priests and the princes and the prophets the Lord brought evil upon them.

But in our Jerusalem too we often see this: those who, according to the Seventy, devour souls in power and take a price, so as to make many widows who have lost the Lord, their bridegroom; and these prophets form a faction and a conspiracy, so as to be one another's supporters and to do everything for the sake of shameful gain; the priests, who ought to be the guardians of the temple and from whose mouth the knowledge of the law is sought, violate the sanctuaries and make no distinction between holy and profane except that of money; they turn their eyes away from the sabbaths and do not ponder the rest of God, which lies in the knowledge of the Scriptures, nor do they say with the prophet: Unveil my eyes, and I will consider the wonders of your law, nor that word of the Apostle: But we all with unveiled face behold the glory of the Lord. Among such prophets and priests the Lord, standing in their midst, is defiled, of whom it is written: In the midst of you stands one whom you do not know.

The prophets, then, or leaders, are compared to lions; but the princes, whom we understand as men of a lower rank, imitate the rapine of wolves, so as to shed the blood not of bodies but of souls, and greedily pursue gains, by no means content with this: Those who serve the altar live by the altar, but, once they have come to the ministry of God, they amass the riches of Croesus.

Her prophets also, who foretell things to come, daubed them without tempering — which we also discussed above, that of the soothsaying prophets who, without an admixture of chaff, plastered a wall that is broken down by the rains; men of this kind see vain things, and do not so much prophesy as divine falsehood, saying to the wretched land: 'Thus says the Lord, this he promises', when the Lord has not spoken to them; and the people of the land, being an imitator not of God at all but of the earthly works of the princes and priests, did everything through false accusation and power, oppressing not the rich but the poor, of whom it is written: But the poor man does not bear threatening, and: The ransom of a man's soul is his own riches; the stranger, too, and the sojourner, who had not yet become a citizen of the Church but was only a hearer, possessing the beginnings of faith, they oppressed with false accusation, so that, after one had gone around sea and dry land to make one proselyte, they made him a son of Gehenna.

'Amid such great', he says, 'vices and a multitude of crimes, I sought among them a man who could resist my anger and, after the pattern of Moses and Aaron and Samuel, set himself against my fire and my burning, and I could not find one — whence he said to Moses: Let me alone, and I will destroy this people —; and because I could not find one to resist me and hold me back, therefore I poured out all my indignation upon them and consumed them, not without measure and judgment, but so as to render their ways upon their own heads', either assigning to their authors the very sins they had committed, or surely upon the heads of the leader of the people, the prince and the prophets, of whom there was none who dared to resist the Lord in his anger, and on whose account the land, squalid and deserted, did not deserve to receive the rain of the Lord.