Ezekiel 7–9

Ezekiel Tells of the End

7Again the Lord spoke his word to me, saying: ²“Human, the Lord God says this to the land of Israel: An end! The end has come on the four corners of the land. ³Now the end has come for you, and I will send my anger against you. I will judge you for the way you have lived, and I will make you pay for all your actions that I hate. ⁴I will have no pity on you; I will not hold back punishment from you. Instead, I will make you pay for the way you have lived and for your actions that I hate. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

⁵“This is what the Lord God says: Disaster on top of disaster is coming. ⁶The end has come! The end has come! It has stirred itself up against you! Look! It has come! ⁷Disaster has come for you who live in the land! The time has come; the day of confusion is near. There will be no happy shouting on the mountains. ⁸Soon I will pour out my anger against you; I will carry out my anger against you. I will judge you for the way you have lived and will make you pay for everything you have done that I hate. ⁹I will show no pity, and I will not hold back punishment. I will pay you back for the way you have lived and the things you have done that I hate. Then you will know that I am the Lord who punishes.

¹⁰“Look, the day is here. It has come. Disaster has come, violence has grown, and there is more pride than ever. ¹¹Violence has grown into a weapon for punishing wickedness. None of the people will be left—none of that crowd, none of their wealth, and nothing of value. ¹²The time has come; the day has arrived. Don’t let the buyer be happy or the seller be sad, because my burning anger is against the whole crowd. ¹³Sellers will not return to the land they have sold as long as they live, because the vision against all that crowd will not be changed. Because of their sins, they will not save their lives. ¹⁴They have blown the trumpet, and everything is ready. But no one is going to the battle, because my anger is against all that crowd.

¹⁵“The sword is outside, and disease and hunger are inside. Whoever is in the field will die by the sword. Hunger and disease will destroy those in the city. ¹⁶Those who are left alive and who escape will be on the mountains, moaning like doves of the valleys about their own sin. ¹⁷All hands will hang weakly with fear, and all knees will become weak as water. ¹⁸They will put on rough cloth to show how sad they are. They will tremble all over with fear. Their faces will show their shame, and all their heads will be shaved. ¹⁹The people will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will be like trash. Their silver and gold will not save them from the Lord’s anger. It will not satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs, because it caused them to fall into sin. ²⁰They were proud of their beautiful jewelry and used it to make their idols and their evil statues, which I hate. So I will turn their wealth into trash. ²¹I will give it to foreigners as loot from war and to the most evil people in the world as treasure, and they will dishonor it. ²²I will also turn away from the people of Israel, and they will dishonor my treasured place. Then robbers will enter and dishonor it.

²³“Make chains for captives, because the land is full of bloody crimes and the city is full of violence. ²⁴So I will bring the worst of the nations to take over the people’s houses. I will also end the pride of the strong, and their holy places will be dishonored. ²⁵When the people are suffering greatly, they will look for peace, but there will be none. ²⁶Disaster will come on top of disaster, and rumor will be added to rumor. Then they will try to get a vision from a prophet; the teachings of God from the priest and the advice from the elders will be lost. ²⁷The king will cry greatly, the prince will give up hope, and the hands of the people who own land will shake with fear. I will punish them for the way they have lived. The way they have judged others is the way I will judge them. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

Ezekiel’s Vision of Jerusalem

8It was the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth month of our captivity. I was sitting in my house with the elders of Judah in front of me. There I felt the power of the Lord God. ²I looked and saw something that looked like a human. From the waist down it looked like fire, and from the waist up it looked like bright glowing metal. ³It stretched out the shape of a hand and caught me by the hair on my head. The Spirit lifted me up between the earth and the sky. He took me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance to the north gate of the inner courtyard of the Temple. In the courtyard was the idol that caused God to be jealous. ⁴I saw the glory of the God of Israel there, as I had seen on the plain.

⁵Then he said to me, “Human, now look toward the north.” So I looked up toward the north, and in the entrance north of the gate of the altar was the idol that caused God to be jealous.

⁶He said to me, “Human, do you see what they are doing? Do you see how many hateful things the people of Israel are doing here that drive me far away from my Temple? But you will see things more hateful than these.”

⁷Then he brought me to the entry of the courtyard. When I looked, I saw a hole in the wall. ⁸He said to me, “Human, dig through the wall.” So I dug through the wall and saw an entrance.

⁹Then he said to me, “Go in and see the hateful, evil things they are doing here.” ¹⁰So I entered and looked, and I saw every kind of crawling thing and hateful beast and all the idols of the people of Israel, carved on the wall all around. ¹¹Standing in front of these carvings and idols were seventy of the elders of Israel and Jaazaniah son of Shaphan. Each man had his pan for burning incense in his hand, and a sweet-smelling cloud of incense was rising.

¹²Then he said to me, “Human, have you seen what the elders of Israel are doing in the dark? Have you seen each man in the room of his own idol? They say, ‘The Lord doesn’t see us. The Lord has left the land.’ ” ¹³He also said to me, “You will see even more hateful things that they are doing.”

¹⁴Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the Temple of the Lord, where I saw women sitting and crying for Tammuz. ^{n 15}He said to me, “Do you see, human? You will see things even more hateful than these.”

¹⁶Then he brought me into the inner courtyard of the Temple. There I saw about twenty-five men at the entrance to the Temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar. With their backs turned to the Temple of the Lord, they faced east and were worshiping the sun in the east.

¹⁷He said to me, “Do you see, human? Is it unimportant that the people of Judah are doing the hateful things they have done here? They have filled the land with violence and made me continually angry. Look, they are insulting me every way they can. ¹⁸So I will act in anger. I will have no pity, nor will I show mercy. Even if they shout in my ears, I won’t listen to them.”

Vision of the Angels

9Then he shouted with a loud voice in my ears, “You who are chosen to punish this city, come near with your weapon in your hand.” ²Then six men came from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with his powerful weapon in his hand. Among them was a man dressed in linen with a writing case at his side. The men went in and stood by the bronze altar.

³Then the glory of the God of Israel went up from above the creatures with wings, where it had been, to the place in the Temple where the door opened. He called to the man dressed in linen who had the writing case at his side. ⁴He said to the man, “Go through Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of the people who groan and cry about all the hateful things being done among them.”

⁵As I listened, he said to the other men, “Go through the city behind the man dressed in linen and kill. Don’t pity anyone, and don’t show mercy. ⁶Kill and destroy old men, young men and women, little children, and older women, but don’t touch any who have the mark on them. Start at my Temple.” So they started with the elders who were in front of the Temple.

⁷Then he said to the men, “Make the Temple unclean, and fill the courtyards with those who have been killed. Go out!” So the men went out and killed the people in the city. ⁸While the men were killing the people, I was left alone. I bowed facedown on the ground and I cried out, “Oh, Lord God! Will you destroy everyone left alive in Israel when you turn loose your anger on Jerusalem?”

⁹Then he said to me, “The sin of the people of Israel and Judah is very great. The land is filled with people who murder, and the city is full of people who are not fair. The people say, ‘The Lord has left the land, and the Lord does not see.’ ¹⁰But I will have no pity, nor will I show mercy. I will bring their evil back on their heads.”

¹¹Then the man dressed in linen with the writing case at his side reported, “I have done just as you commanded me.”