Discovery BoxEzekiel 22:12-13 
Context22:12 They take bribes within you to shed blood. You engage in usury and charge interest; 1 you extort money from your neighbors. You have forgotten me, 2 declares the sovereign Lord. 3
22:13 “‘See, I strike my hands together 4 at the dishonest profit you have made, and at the bloodshed 5 they have done among you.
Ezekiel 22:27-29
Context22:27 Her officials are like wolves in her midst rending their prey – shedding blood and destroying lives – so they can get dishonest profit. 22:28 Her prophets coat their messages with whitewash. 6 They see false visions and announce lying omens for them, saying, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says,’ when the Lord has not spoken. 22:29 The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery. They have wronged the poor and needy; they have oppressed the foreigner who lives among them and denied them justice. 7
1 tn Heb “usury and interest you take.” See 18:13, 17. This kind of economic exploitation violated the law given in Lev 25:36.
2 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.
3 tn The second person verb forms are feminine singular in Hebrew, indicating that the personified city is addressed here as representing its citizens.
4 sn This gesture apparently expresses mourning and/or anger (see 6:11; 21:14, 17).
5 tn Heb “the blood which was in you.”
6 tn Heb “her prophets coat for themselves with whitewash.” The expression may be based on Ezek 13:10-15.
7 tn Heb “and the foreigner they have oppressed without justice.”
