Ezekiel 6–38

CHAPTER 6

Yahweh Will Destroy Israel’s Pagan Altars

¹And the word of Yahweh came to me saying,

²“Son of man, set your face toward the ^amountains of Israel, and prophesy against them

³and say, ‘Mountains of Israel, hear the word of Lord Yahweh! Thus says Lord Yahweh to the mountains, the hills, the ravines, and the valleys: “Behold, I Myself am going to bring a sword on you, and ^aI will destroy your high places.

⁴“So your ^aaltars will become desolate, and your incense altars will be broken; and I will make your slain fall in front of your idols.

⁵“I will also put the dead bodies of the sons of Israel in front of their idols; and I will scatter your ^abones all around your altars.

⁶“In all your places of habitation, ^acities will become waste, and the high places will be desolate, that your altars may become waste and ¹desolate, your ^bidols may be broken and cease, your incense altars may be cut in pieces, and your works may be blotted out.

⁷“The slain will fall among you, and you will know that I am Yahweh.

⁸“However, I will leave a ^aremnant, for you will have those who ^bescaped the sword among the nations when you are scattered among the lands.

⁹“Then those of you who escape will ^aremember Me among the nations to which they will be carried captive, how I have ^bbeen broken over their adulterous hearts which turned away from Me, and by their eyes which played the harlot after their idols; and they will ^cloathe themselves to their own faces for the evils which they have done, for all their abominations.

¹⁰“Then they will know that I am Yahweh; I have not said in vain that I would do this calamitous evil against them.” ’

¹¹“Thus says Lord Yahweh, ‘Strike your hands together, ^astamp your foot and say, “^bAlas, because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel, which will fall by the ^csword, by the famine, and by the plague!

¹²“He who is ^afar off will die by the plague, and he who is near will fall by the sword, and he who remains and is besieged will die by the famine. Thus will I ^bspend My wrath on them.

¹³“Then you will know that I am Yahweh when their ^aslain are among their idols all around their altars, on ^bevery high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, under every green tree, and under every leafy oak—the places where they ¹offered a soothing aroma to all their idols.

¹⁴“So throughout all their habitations I will ^astretch out My hand against them and make the land more desolate and desecrated than the wilderness toward Diblah; thus they will know that I am Yahweh.” ’ ”

CHAPTER 7

The Pitiless Wrath of Yahweh

¹Moreover, the word of Yahweh came to me saying,

²“Now as for you, son of man, thus says Lord Yahweh to the land of Israel, ‘An ^aend! The end is coming on the four corners of the earth.

³‘Now the end is upon you, and I will send My anger against you; I will judge you according to your ways and put all your abominations upon you.

⁴‘For My eye will have no pity on you, nor will I spare you, but I will ^aput your ways upon you, and your abominations will be among you; then you will ^bknow that I am Yahweh!’

⁵“Thus says Lord Yahweh, ‘A ^acalamitous evil, a unique calamitous evil, behold, it is coming!

⁶‘An end has come; the end has come! It has ^aawakened against you; behold, it is coming!

⁷‘Your doom has come to you, O inhabitant of the land. The ^atime has come; the ^bday is near—confusion rather than joyful shouting on the mountains.

⁸‘Now it is near when I will ^apour out My wrath on you and spend My anger against you and ^bjudge you according to your ways and put on you all your abominations.

⁹‘My eye will show no pity, nor will I spare. I will give to you according to your ways, while your abominations are among you; then you will know that I, Yahweh, do the striking.

¹⁰‘Behold, the day! Behold, it is coming! Your doom has gone forth; the ^arod has blossomed; arrogance has budded.

¹¹‘Violence ¹has grown into a rod of ^awickedness. None of them shall remain, none of their multitude, none of their ^bmoaning, nor anything eminent among them.

¹²‘The ^atime has come; the day has arrived. Let not the ^bbuyer be glad nor the seller mourn; for ^cwrath is against all their multitude.

¹³‘Indeed, the seller will not ^areturn to himself ¹what he sold as long as ²they both live; for the vision regarding all their multitude will not return empty, nor will any of them strengthen his life by his iniquity.

¹⁴‘They have ^ablown the trumpet and made everything ready, but no one is going to the battle, for My wrath is against all ¹their multitude.

¹⁵‘The ^asword is outside, and the plague and the famine are inside. He who is in the field will die by the sword; famine and the plague will also devour those in the city.

¹⁶‘Even when their survivors ^aescape, they will be on the mountains like ^bdoves of the valleys, all of them ^cmoaning, each over his own iniquity.

¹⁷‘All ^ahands will hang limp, and all knees will ¹become like water.

¹⁸‘They will ^agird themselves with sackcloth, and ^bhorror will cover them; and shame will be on all faces and ^cbaldness on all their heads.

¹⁹‘They will ^athrow their silver into the streets, and their gold will become an impure thing; their ^bsilver and their gold will not be able to deliver them in the day of the fury of Yahweh. They cannot satisfy their soul, nor can they fill their stomachs, for their iniquity has become an occasion of stumbling.

The Temple Profaned

²⁰‘They ¹transformed the beauty of His ornaments into pride, and ^athey made the images of their abominations and their detestable things with it; therefore I will make it an impure thing to them.

²¹‘I will give it into the hands of the ^aforeigners as plunder and to the wicked of the earth as spoil, and they will profane it.

²²‘I will also turn My ^aface from them, and they will profane My secret place; then robbers will enter and profane it.

²³‘^aMake the chain, for the land is full of ^bjudgments that promote bloodshed, and the city is ^cfull of violence.

²⁴‘Therefore, I will bring the most evil of the ^anations, and they will possess their houses. I will also make the ^bpride of the strong ones cease, and their ^choly places will be profaned.

²⁵‘Anguish has come, and they will seek ^apeace, but there will be none.

²⁶‘^aDisaster will come upon disaster, and ^breport will be added to report; then they will seek a ^cvision from a prophet, but the ^dlaw will be lost from the priest and ^ecounsel from the elders.

²⁷‘The king will mourn, the prince will be ^aclothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land will be dismayed. According to their way I will deal with them, and by their judgments I will judge them. And they will know that I am Yahweh.’”

CHAPTER 8

Visions of Abominations in the Sanctuary

¹Now it happened in the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth month, as I was sitting in my house with the elders of Judah sitting before me, that the hand of Lord Yahweh fell on me there.

²Then I looked, and behold, a likeness as the appearance of ¹one on fire; from His loins and downward there was the ^aappearance of fire, and from His loins and upward the appearance of brightness, like ^bthe gleam of ²glowing metal.

³He sent forth the form of a hand and took me by a lock of my head; and the ^aSpirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the ¹north gate of the inner court, where the seat of the figure of jealousy, which ^bprovokes to jealousy, was located.

⁴And behold, the ^aglory of the God of Israel was there, like the appearance which I saw in the plain.

⁵Then He said to me, “Son of man, ^araise your eyes now toward the north.” So I raised my eyes toward the north, and behold, to the north of the altar gate was this ^bfigure of jealousy at the entrance.

⁶And He said to me, “Son of man, are you seeing what they are doing, the great ^aabominations which the house of Israel is doing here, so that I would be far from My sanctuary? But yet you will see still greater abominations.”

⁷Then He brought me to the entrance of the court, and when I looked, behold, a hole in the wall.

⁸He said to me, “Son of man, now ^adig through the wall.” So I dug through the wall, and behold, an entrance.

⁹And He said to me, “Go in and see the evil abominations that they are doing here.”

¹⁰So I entered and looked, and behold, every form of creeping things and beasts and detestable things, with all the idols of the house of Israel, were carved on the wall all around.

¹¹Standing in front of them were ^aseventy ^belders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan standing among them, each man with his ^ccenser in his hand and the fragrance of the cloud of incense rising.

¹²Then He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each man in the room of his carved images? For they say, ‘^aYahweh does not see us; Yahweh has ^bforsaken the land.’”

¹³And He said to me, “Yet you will see still greater abominations which they are doing.”

¹⁴Then He brought me to the entrance of the ^agate of the house of Yahweh which was toward the north; and behold, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz.

¹⁵He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? Yet you will see still greater abominations than these.”

¹⁶Then He brought me into the inner court of the house of Yahweh. And behold, at the entrance to the temple of Yahweh, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their ^abacks to the temple of Yahweh and their faces toward the east; and ^bthey were ¹prostrating themselves eastward toward the sun.

¹⁷He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? Is it too light a thing for the house of Judah to do the abominations which they have done here, that they have ^afilled the land with violence and ^bprovoked Me to anger still more? For behold, they are sending forth the twig to their nose.

¹⁸“Therefore, I also will do this in wrath: My eye will have no pity, nor will I spare; and ^athey will cry in My ears with a loud voice, yet I will not listen to them.”

CHAPTER 9

The…