The Geneva Bible Translation Notes, [1599], at sacred-texts.com
(a) Are you ready to execute your charge, which I commit to you against Jerusalem that murders the prophets and them that are godly?
Then say thou, Thus saith the Lord GOD, The city sheddeth blood in the midst of it, that her (b) time may come, and maketh idols against (c) herself to defile herself.
(b) That is, the time of her destruction.
(c) To her own undoing.
[Those that are] near, and [those that are] far from thee, shall mock thee, [who art] (d) infamous [and] much troubled.
(d) Whose very name all men hate.
In thee have they set light by father and mother: in the midst of thee (e) have they dealt by oppression with the stranger: in thee have they oppressed the fatherless and the widow.
(e) He means by this that there was no kind of wickedness which was not committed in Jerusalem and therefore the plagues of God would speedily come on her.
Behold, therefore I have (f) smitten my hand at thy dishonest gain which thou hast made, and at thy blood which hath been in the midst of thee.
(f) In token of my wrath and vengeance.
Can thy heart endure, or can thy hands (g) be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee? I the LORD have spoken [it], and will do [it].
(g) That is, able to defend yourself.
And I will scatter thee among the nations, and disperse thee in the countries, and will consume thy (h) filthiness out of thee.
(h) I will thus take away the occasion of your wickedness.
And thou shalt take thy (i) inheritance in thyself in the sight of the nations, and thou shalt know that I [am] the LORD.
(i) You will be no more the inheritance of the Lord, but forsaken.
Son of man, the house of Israel is to me become (k) dross: all they [are] brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace; they are [even] the dross of silver.
(k) Which before was most precious.
[As] they gather silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt [it]; so will I gather [you] in my anger and in my fury, and I will leave [you there], (l) and melt you.
(l) Meaning by this that the godly would be tried and the wicked destroyed.
Son of man, say to her, Thou [art] the land that is not cleansed, (m) nor rained upon in the day of indignation.
(m) You are like a barren land which the Lord plagues with drought.
[There is] a conspiracy (n) of her prophets in the midst of her, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls; they have taken the treasure and precious things; they have made her many widows in the midst of her.
(n) The false prophets have conspired together to make their doctrine more probable.
Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned my holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shown [difference] between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their (o) eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.
(o) They have neglected my service.
And her (p) prophets have daubed them with untempered [mortar], seeing vanity, and divining lies to them, saying, Thus saith the Lord GOD, when the LORD hath not spoken.
(p) They who would have reproved them, flattered them in their vices and covered their doings with lies. See Eze 13:10
And I sought for a man among them, that should (q) make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.
(q) Who would show himself zealous in my cause by resisting vice, (Isa 59:16) also pray to me to withhold my plagues, (Psa 106:23).