Ezekiel 22:12-16

22:12 They take bribes within you to shed blood. You engage in usury and charge interest; you extort money from your neighbors. You have forgotten me, declares the sovereign Lord.

22:13 “‘See, I strike my hands together at the dishonest profit you have made, and at the bloodshed they have done among you. 22:14 Can your heart endure, or can your hands be strong when I deal with you? I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will do it! 22:15 I will scatter you among the nations and disperse you among various countries; I will remove your impurity from you. 22:16 You will be profaned within yourself in the sight of the nations; then you will know that I am the Lord.’”


tn Heb “usury and interest you take.” See 18:13, 17. This kind of economic exploitation violated the law given in Lev 25:36.

sn Forgetting the Lord is also addressed in Deut 6:12; 8:11, 14; Jer 3:21; 13:25; Ezek 23:35; Hos 2:15; 8:14; 13:6.

tn The second person verb forms are feminine singular in Hebrew, indicating that the personified city is addressed here as representing its citizens.

sn This gesture apparently expresses mourning and/or anger (see 6:11; 21:14, 17).

tn Heb “the blood which was in you.”

tn Heb “stand.” The heart here stands for the emotions; Jerusalem would panic in the face of God’s judgment.

tn Heb “in the days when I act against you.”

sn The ultimate purpose of divine judgment is to purify the covenant community of its sins.

tc Several ancient versions read the verb as first person, in which case the Lord refers to how his people’s sin brings disgrace upon him. For a defense of the Hebrew text, see D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:712, n. 68, and M. Greenberg, Ezekiel (AB), 2:457-58.

tn The phrase “within yourself” is the same as the several previous occurrences of “within you” but adjusted to fit this clause which is the culmination of the series of indictments.