Ezekiel 6

PROPHECY AGAINST ISRAEL’S IDOLATRY

6The word of the Lord came to me: ²“Son of man, face the mountains of Israel^k and prophesy against them. ³You are to say: Mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God! This is what the Lord God says to the mountains and the hills, to the ravines and the valleys: I am about to bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places.^{l 4}Your altars will be desolated and your shrines smashed. I will throw down your slain in front of your idols. ⁵I will lay the corpses of the Israelites in front of their idols and scatter your bones around your altars. ⁶Wherever you live the cities will be in ruins and the high places will be desolate, so that your altars will lie in ruins and be desecrated,^B your idols smashed and obliterated, your shrines cut down, and what you have made wiped out. ⁷The slain will fall among you, and you will know that I am the Lord.

⁸“Yet I will leave a remnant when you are scattered among the nations, for throughout the countries there will be some of you who will escape the sword.^{m 9}Then your survivors will remember me among the nations where they are taken captive,ⁿ how I was crushed by their promiscuous hearts that turned away from me and by their eyes that lusted after their idols.^o They will loathe themselves because of the evil things they did,^p their detestable actions of every kind. ¹⁰And they will know that I am the Lord; I did not threaten to bring this disaster on them without a reason.

LAMENT OVER THE FALL OF JERUSALEM

¹¹“This is what the Lord God says: Clap your hands, stamp your feet,^q and cry out over all the evil and detestable practices of the house of Israel, who will fall by the sword, famine, and plague.^{r 12}The one who is far off will die by plague; the one who is near will fall by the sword; and the one who remains and is spared^C will die of famine. In this way I will exhaust my wrath on them.^{s 13}You will all know that I am the Lord when their slain lie among their idols around their altars,^t on every high hill,^u on all the mountaintops, and under every green tree and every leafy oak—the places where they offered pleasing aromas to all their idols. ¹⁴I will stretch out my hand against them,^v and wherever they live I will make the land a desolate waste, from the wilderness to Riblah. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”