Ezekiel 6:1–38:23

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

²Son of man set thy face towards the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them.

³And say: Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God: Thus saith the Lord God to the mountains, and to the hills, and to the rocks, and the valleys: Behold, I will bring upon you the sword, and I will destroy your high places.

⁴And I will throw down your altars, and your idols shall be broken in pieces: and I will cast down your slain before your idols.

⁵And I will lay the dead carcasses of the children of Israel before your idols: and I will scatter your bones round about your altars,

⁶In all your dwelling places. The cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be thrown down, and destroyed, and your altars shall be abolished, and shall be broken in pieces: and your idols shall be no more, and your temples shall be destroyed, and your works shall be defaced.

⁷And the slain shall fall in the midst of you: and you shall know that I am the Lord.

⁸And I will leave in you some that shall escape the sword among the nations, when I shall have scattered you through the countries.

⁹And they that are saved of you shall remember me amongst the nations, to which they are carried captives: because I have broken their heart that was faithless, and revolted from me: and their eyes that went a fornicating after their idols: and they shall be displeased with themselves because of the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.

¹⁰And they shall know that I the Lord have not spoken in vain that I would do this evil to them.

¹¹Thus saith the Lord God: Strike with thy hand and stamp with thy foot, and say: Alas, for all the abominations of the evils of the house of Israel: for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.

¹²He that is far off shall die of the pestilence: and he that is near, shall fall by the sword: and he that remaineth, and is besieged, shall die by the famine: and I will accomplish my indignation upon them.

¹³And you shall know that I am the Lord, when your slain shall be amongst your idols, round about your altars, in every high hill, and on all the tops of mountains, and under every woody tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they burnt sweet smelling frankincense to all their idols.

¹⁴And I will stretch forth my hand upon them: and I will make the land desolate, and abandoned from the desert of Deblatha in all their dwelling places: and they shall know that I am the Lord.

Chapter 7

And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

²And thou son of man, thus saith the Lord God to the land of Israel: The end is come, the end is come upon the four quarters of the land.

³Now is an end come upon thee, and I will send my wrath upon thee, and I will judge thee according to thy ways: and I will set all thy abominations against thee.

⁴And my eye shall not spare thee, and I will shew thee no pity: but I will lay thy ways upon thee, and thy abominations shall be in the midst of thee: and you shall know that I am the Lord.

⁵Thus saith the Lord God: One affliction, behold an affliction is come.

⁶An end is come, the end is come, it hath awaked against thee: behold it is come.

⁷Destruction is come upon thee that dwellest in the land: the time is come, the day of slaughter is near, and not of the joy of mountains.

⁸Now very shortly I will pour out my wrath upon thee, and I will accomplish my anger in thee: and I will judge thee according to thy ways, and I will lay upon thee all thy crimes.

⁹And my eye shall not spare, neither will I shew mercy: but I will lay thy ways upon thee, and thy abominations shall be in the midst of thee: and you shall know that I am the Lord that strike.

¹⁰Behold the day, behold it is come: destruction is gone forth, the rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded.

¹¹Iniquity is risen up into a rod of impiety: nothing of them shall remain, nor of their people, nor of the noise of them: and there shall be no rest among them.

¹²The time is come, the day is at hand: let not the buyer rejoice: nor the seller mourn: for wrath is upon all the people thereof.

¹³For the seller shall not return to that which he hath sold, although their life be yet among the living. For the vision which regardeth all the multitude thereof, shall not go back: neither shall man be strengthened in the iniquity of his life.

¹⁴Blow the trumpet, let all be made ready, yet there is none to go to the battle: for my wrath shall be upon all the people thereof.

¹⁵The sword without: and the pestilence, and the famine within: he that is in the field shall die by the sword: and they that are in the city, shall be devoured by the pestilence, and the famine.

¹⁶And such of them as shall flee shall escape: and they shall be in the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them trembling, every one for his iniquity.

¹⁷All hands shall be made feeble, and all knees shall run with water.

¹⁸And they shall gird themselves with haircloth, and fear shall cover them and shame shall be upon every face, and baldness upon all their heads.

¹⁹Their silver shall be cast forth, and their gold shall become a dunghill. Their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord. They shall not satisfy their soul, and their bellies shall not be filled: because it hath been the stumblingblock of their iniquity.

²⁰And they have turned the ornament of their jewels into pride, and have made of it the images of their abominations, and idols: therefore I have made it an uncleanness to them.

²¹And I will give it into the hands of strangers for spoil, and to the wicked of the earth for a prey, and they shall defile it.

²²And I will turn away my face from them, and they shall violate my secret place: and robbers shall enter into it, and defile it.

²³Make a shutting up: for the land is full of the judgment of blood, and the city is full of iniquity.

²⁴And I will bring the worst of the nations, and they shall possess their houses: and I will make the pride of the mighty to cease, and they shall possess their sanctuary.

²⁵When distress cometh upon them, they will seek for peace and there shall be none.

²⁶Trouble shall come upon trouble, and rumour upon rumour, and they shall seek a vision of the prophet, and the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the ancients.

²⁷The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with sorrow, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled. I will do to them according to their way, and will judge them according to their judgments: and they shall know that I am the Lord.

Chapter 8

And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house, and the ancients of Juda sat before me, that the hand of the Lord God fell there upon me.

²And I saw, and behold a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of his loins, and downward, fire: and from his loins, and upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the appearance of amber.

³And the likeness of a hand was put forth and took me by a lock of my head: and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the vision of God into Jerusalem, near the inner gate, that looked toward the north, where was set the idol of jealousy to provoke to jealousy.

⁴And behold the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the vision which I had seen in the plain.

⁵And he said to me: Son of man, lift up thy eyes towards the way of the north, and I lifted up my eyes towards the way of the north: and behold on the north side of the gate of the altar the idol of jealousy in the very entry.

⁶And he said to me: Son of man, dost thou see, thinkest thou, what these are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I should depart far off from my sanctuary? and turn thee yet again and thou shalt see greater abominations.

⁷And he brought me in to the door of the court: and I saw, and behold a hole in the wall.

⁸And he said to me: Son of man, dig in the wall, and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door.

⁹And he said to me: Go in, and see the wicked abominations which they commit here.

¹⁰And I went in and saw, and behold every form of creeping things, and of living creatures, the abominations, and all the idols of the house of Israel, were painted on the wall all round about.

¹¹And seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and Jezonias the son of Saaphan stood in the midst of them, that stood before the pictures: and every one had a censer in his hand: and a cloud of smoke went up from the incense.

¹²And he said to me: Surely thou seest, O son of man, what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every one in private in his chamber: for they say: The Lord seeth us not, the Lord hath forsaken the earth.

¹³And he said to me: If thou turn thee again, thou shalt see greater abominations which these commit.

¹⁴And he brought me in by the door of the gate of the Lord’s house, which looked to the north: and behold women sat there mourning for Adonis.

¹⁵And he said to me: Surely thou hast seen, O son of man: but turn thee again, thou shalt see greater abominations than these.

¹⁶And he brought me into the inner court of the house of the Lord: and behold at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men having their backs towards the temple of the Lord, in their faces to the east: and they adored towards the rising of the sun.

¹⁷And he said to me: Surely thou hast seen, O son of man: is this a light thing to the house of Juda, that they should commit these abominations which they have committed here: because they have filled the land with iniquity, and have turned to provoke me to anger? and behold they put a branch to their nose.

¹⁸Therefore I also will deal with them in my wrath: my eye shall not spare them, neither will I…