Ezekiel 6:1–38:23

Prophecy against Israel’s Idolatry

6The word of the Lord came to me: ²“Son of man, turn your face toward the mountains of Israel ^qand 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. ^r4Your altars will be desolated and your incense altars 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, ^syour idols smashed and obliterated, your incense altars cut down, and your works wiped out. ⁷The slain will fall among you, and you will know that I am Yahweh.

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. ^t9Then your survivors will remember Me among the nations where they are taken captive, ^uhow I was crushed by their promiscuous hearts that turned away from Me and by their eyes that lusted after their idols. ^vThey will loathe themselves because of the evil things they did, ^wtheir detestable practices 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, ^xand cry out over all the evil and detestable practices of the house of Israel, who will fall by the sword, famine, and plague. ^y12The 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 ^zwill die of famine. In this way I will exhaust My wrath on them. ^a13You will all know that I am Yahweh when their slain lie among their idols around their altars, ^bon every high hill, ^con 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, ^dand wherever they live I will make the land a desolate waste, from the wilderness to Diblah. ^eThen they will know that I am Yahweh.”

Announcement of the End

7And the word of the Lord came to me: ²“Son of man, this is what the Lord God says to the land of Israel:

An end! The end has come

on the four corners of the land. ^f

³The end is now upon you;

I will send My anger against you

and judge you according to your ways.

I will punish you for all your detestable practices.

⁴I will not look on you with pity or spare you, ^g

but I will punish you for your ways ^h

and for your detestable practices within you.

Then you will know that I am Yahweh.” ⁱ

⁵This is what the Lord God says:

Look, one disaster after another is coming! ^j

⁶An end has come; the end has come!

It has awakened against you.

Look, it is coming!

⁷Doom ^khas come on you, ^l

inhabitants of the land.

The time has come; the day is near.

There will be panic on the mountains

and not celebration. ^m

⁸I will pour out My wrath on you very soon; ⁿ

I will exhaust My anger against you

and judge you according to your ways.

I will punish you for all your detestable practices.

⁹I will not look on you with pity or spare you.

I will punish you for your ways

and for your detestable practices within you.

Then you will know

that it is I, Yahweh, who strikes.

¹⁰Look, the day is coming!

Doom has gone out. ^o

The rod has blossomed; ^p

arrogance has bloomed. ^q

¹¹Violence has grown into a rod of wickedness. ^r

None of them will remain:

none of their multitude,

none of their wealth,

and none of the eminent ^samong them.

¹²The time has come; the day has arrived.

Let the buyer not rejoice ^t

and the seller not mourn,

for wrath is on all her masses. ^u

¹³The seller will certainly not return

to what was sold

as long as he and the buyer remain alive. ^v

For the vision concerning all its people

will not be revoked,

and none of them will preserve

his life because of his iniquity.

¹⁴They have blown the trumpet ^w

and prepared everything,

but no one goes to war,

for My wrath is on all her masses.

¹⁵The sword is on the outside; ^x

plague and famine are on the inside.

Whoever is in the field will die by the sword,

and famine and plague will devour

whoever is in the city.

¹⁶The survivors among them will escape ^y

and live on the mountains

like doves of the valley,

all of them moaning,

each over his own iniquity.

¹⁷All their hands will become weak, ^z

and all their knees will turn to water.

¹⁸They will put on sackcloth,

and horror will overwhelm them.

Shame will cover all their faces,

and all their heads will be bald. ^a

¹⁹They will throw their silver into the streets,

and their gold will seem like something filthy. ^b

Their silver and gold will be unable to save them

in the day of the Lord’s wrath. ^c

They will not satisfy their appetites

or fill their stomachs,

for these were the stumbling blocks ^d

that brought about their iniquity.

²⁰He appointed His beautiful ornaments for majesty,

but ^ethey made their abhorrent images from them,

their detestable things. ^f

Therefore, I have made these

into something filthy for them.

²¹I will hand these things over

to foreigners as plunder ^g

and to the wicked of the earth as spoil,

and they will profane them.

²²I will turn My face from the wicked

as they profane My treasured place.

Violent men will enter it and profane it.

²³Forge the chain, ^h

for the land is filled with crimes of bloodshed,

and the city is filled with violence. ⁱ

²⁴So I will bring the most evil of nations ^j

to take possession of their houses.

I will put an end to the pride of the strong,

and their sacred places will be profaned. ^k

²⁵Anguish is coming!

They will seek peace, but there will be none.

²⁶Disaster after disaster will come, ^l

and there will be rumor after rumor. ^m

Then they will seek a vision from a prophet, ⁿ

but instruction will perish from the priests

and counsel from the elders. ^o

²⁷The king will mourn;

the prince will be clothed in grief;

and the hands of the people of the land will tremble.

I will deal with them according to their own conduct,

and I will judge them by their own standards. ^p

Then they will know that I am Yahweh.

Visionary Journey to Jerusalem

8In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, I was sitting in my house and the elders of Judah were sitting in front of me, ^qand there the hand of the Lord God came down on me. ^r2I looked, and there was a form that had the appearance of a man. ^sFrom what seemed to be His waist down was fire, and from His waist up was something that looked bright, ^tlike the gleam of amber. ^u3He stretched out what appeared to be a hand and took me by the hair of my head. Then the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and carried me in visions of God ^vto Jerusalem, to the entrance of the inner gate that faces north, where the offensive statue that provokes jealousy ^wwas located. ⁴I saw the glory of the God of Israel ^xthere, like the vision I had seen in the plain. ^y

Pagan Practices in the Temple

⁵The Lord said to me, “Son of man, look toward the north.” I looked to the north, and there was this offensive statue north of the altar gate, at the entrance. ⁶He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing here, more detestable things that the house of Israel is committing, ^zso that I must depart from My sanctuary? You will see even more detestable things.”

⁷Then He brought me to the entrance of the court, and when I looked there was a hole in the wall. ⁸He said to me, “Son of man, dig through the wall.” So I dug through the wall, and there was a doorway. ⁹He said to me, “Go in and see the terrible and detestable things they are committing here.” ¹⁰I went in and looked, and there engraved all around the wall was every form of detestable thing, crawling creatures and beasts, as well as all the idols of the house of Israel. ^a

¹¹Seventy elders from the house of Israel were standing before them, with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan ^bstanding among them. Each had a firepan in his hand, and a fragrant cloud of incense was rising up. ¹²Then He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the darkness, each at the shrine of his idol? For they are saying, ‘The Lord does not see us. The Lord has abandoned the land.’ ” ^c13Again He said to me, “You will see even more detestable things, which they are committing.”

¹⁴So He brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the Lord’s house, and I saw women sitting there weeping for Tammuz. ¹⁵And He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? You will see even more detestable things than these.”

¹⁶So He brought me to the inner court of the Lord’s house, and there were about 25 men at the entrance of the Lord’s temple, between the portico and the altar, ^dwith their backs to the Lord’s temple and their faces turned to the east. ^eThey were bowing to the east in worship of the sun. ^f17And He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? Is it not enough for the house of Judah to commit the detestable things they are practicing here, that they must also fill the land with violence ^gand repeatedly provoke Me to anger, ^heven putting the branch to their nose? ^ij18Therefore I will respond with wrath. ^kI will not show pity or spare them. ^lThough they cry out in My ears with a loud voice, ^mI will not listen to them.”

Vision of Slaughter in Jerusalem

9Then He called to me directly with a loud voice, “Come near, executioners of the city, each of you with a destructive weapon in his hand.” ²And I saw six men coming from the direction of the Upper Gate, ⁿwhich faces north, each with a war club in his hand. There was another man among them, clothed in linen, ^owith writing equipment at his side. They came and stood beside the bronze altar.

³Then the glory of the…