[As] I live, saith the Lord God
This is an oath, which the Lord God swore; who, because he could
swear by no greater, he swore by himself, by his life; and this
he did to confirm what he had and was about to say, that the sins
of Judah were greater than those of Samaria and Sodom; which
might not be easily believed, but it was as true as he was the
living God: Sodom thy sister hath, or done, she nor her
daughters, as thou hast
done, thou and thy daughters;
that is, the inhabitants of Sodom, and of the villages adjacent,
as the Targum, had not committed such gross iniquities as the
inhabitants of Jerusalem, and of the towns and villages about it,
and of other cities of Judah.