Ezekiel 23:32-34

“Thus says the Lord Yahweh:

Your sister's cup you will drink,

Deep and large,

You will be laughed at and derided,

It contains much.

Drunkenness and sorrow you will be filled with,

A cup of waste and desolation,

The cup of your sister Samaria,

You will drink and drain it,

You will gnaw at its broken pieces,

And will tear at your breasts.

For I have spoken, the word of the Lord Yahweh.”

This vivid poem in a three-two metre brings home God's message to Jerusalem and its awful consequences. She is likened to someone drinking deeply from a large cup so that she loses all control over herself. And the wine she drinks is of sorrow, waste and desolation. All will laugh at her drunken behaviour once she has drunk, and when she has broken the cup she will gnaw at the broken pieces in her drunkenness, it is all that is now left to her, and she will tear at her breasts in anguish. And the cup she will drink will be the same as that drunk by her sister Samaria. She is to share the same fate. And it is doubly stressed that this is the word of Yahweh. She, as it were, drinks the cup at His hand.

As ever we must not overpress the parable. The stress of the song is on the fact that she will drink, not on who gave her the cup. The point of the song is that she is drinking what she has brought on herself, and drinking deeply to the derision of others, and will thus end up in pathetic need and despair. her end will be in desperation. Those who keep bad company will reap the consequences.