Bear your disgrace, you also means Jerusalem must suffer utter disgrace. Not only will she be shamed by being stripped naked in public (see verses 37-39), but her shame will be even greater because she has been so bad that other wicked people look good in comparison with her. In Hebrew this verse begins with the emphatic expression rendered you also, which draws attention back from the two sisters to Jerusalem. Every effort must be made to reflect this emphasis in translation, because it introduces a summary of the punishment on Jerusalem. Translators may begin with “It is you who must be disgraced” or “For your part, you will be utterly disgraced.”

For you have made judgment favorable to your sisters is literally “because you have interceded for your sisters by your sins.” This clause takes the idea of the previous verse (about her sisters looking good in comparison to Jerusalem) one step further. By being so bad, it was as if Jerusalem had intervened and asked for mercy on her two wicked sisters, so that they would not be punished so severely because now they did not seem so bad.

Because of your sins in which you acted more abominably than they, they are more in the right than you repeats the idea of verse 51 about how very bad Jerusalem is in comparison with the two sisters. This sentence and the previous clause may be rendered “It is as if you asked for me to show mercy on your sisters, because your sins are so much worse than theirs that they seem innocent in comparison to you.”

So be ashamed, you also, and bear your disgrace, for you have made your sisters appear righteous: As if the punishment is not clear, God repeats it almost word for word in this second half of the verse. Again there is the very emphatic phrase you also, and two Hebrew terms for “shame” are used to stress the disgrace that Jerusalem will suffer. Only the reference to Jerusalem making her sisters look good is shorter. By repeating the emphatic you also and referring to the punishment of shame twice, God reaches a climax here. This needs to be reflected in translation.

A model for this verse is:

• And now it’s your turn! You will feel great shame! You have done disgusting things. Because of your sins, you have been so bad and you have made your sisters look good. It is as if you asked me to have mercy on them and not punish them, because they were not as bad as you. So now it’s your turn! You will be humiliated! You will feel great shame! Compared with you, those two cities look as if they did not sin at all.

Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .