Ezekiel 8:3–16

³He stretched out the form of a hand and caught 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 idol 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 ^bidol of jealousy at the entrance.

⁶And He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great ^aabominations which the house of Israel are committing 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 wicked abominations that they are committing 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 committing in the dark, each man in the room of his carved images? For they say, ‘^aThe Lord does not see us; the Lord has ^bforsaken the land.’ ”

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

¹⁴Then He brought me to the entrance of the ^agate of the Lord’s house 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 Lord’s house. And behold, at the entrance to the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their ^abacks to the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east; and ^bthey were ¹prostrating themselves eastward toward the sun.