As I live: This is an oath formula to emphasize the truth of what God says. For further details on the significance of this oath and how to translate it, see the comments on 5.11. Here it may be translated “Just as I am alive.”

Says the Lord GOD: See Ezek 16.8. Here this clause may be rendered “I the Lord Yahweh declare to you.”

Your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done means Sodom and its surrounding villages were never as sinful as Jerusalem and the rest of Judah. For daughters see verse 46.

A model for this verse is:

• I am the Lord Yahweh, the living [or, true] God; I am telling you the truth—your sister, the people of Sodom and the villages around it, were never as sinful as you people of Jerusalem and the villages around you.

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 .