For the blood she has shed is still in the midst of her is literally “For her blood is in the midst of her” (King James Version; similarly New American Standard Bible, Jerusalem Bible), which means the guilt from the murders that the people have committed in Jerusalem still contaminates the city and the people. The pronouns she and her refer to the people of Jerusalem. New Century Version provides a good model for this clause, saying “The blood from her killings is still in the city.” Another possible model is “The blood from the people she [or, the people of the city] killed is still in the city.”

She put it on the bare rock; she did not pour it upon the ground to cover it with dust: To leave the blood of a dead animal uncovered was against the Law of Moses (see Lev 17.13), and to leave the blood of murdered victims uncovered, or their bodies unburied, showed that the murderers in Jerusalem arrogantly believed that they would never be punished. These wicked people did not try to hide their crimes, and they also seemed to boast about them, because they poured the blood of their victims on the bare rock, as if to show off to everyone what they had done. The Hebrew word for rock refers to a rocky cliff, and the word for bare has the idea of “shining” or “dazzling.” Translators may want to put these ideas in a footnote, but in the translation itself they may render these clauses as “Her people poured the blood of the people they killed out on the bare rocks, not even on the ground where the dust could cover it.”

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 .