Ezekiel 6:1–38:23

Judgment on Idolatrous Israel

6Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying: ²“Son of man, ^aset your face toward the ^bmountains of Israel, and prophesy against them, ³and say, ‘O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God! Thus says the Lord God to the mountains, to the hills, to the ravines, and to the valleys: “Indeed I, even I, will bring a sword against you, and ^cI will destroy your ¹high places. ⁴Then your altars shall be desolate, your incense altars shall be broken, and ^dI will cast down your slain men before your idols. ⁵And I will lay the corpses of the children of Israel before their idols, and I will scatter your bones all around your altars. ⁶In all your dwelling places the cities shall be laid waste, and the ²high places shall be desolate, so that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, your idols may be broken and made to cease, your incense altars may be cut down, and your works may be abolished. ⁷The slain shall fall in your midst, and ^eyou shall know that I am the Lord.

^8f“Yet I will leave a remnant, so that you may have some who escape the sword among the nations, when you are ^gscattered through the countries. ⁹Then those of you who escape will ^hremember Me among the nations where they are carried captive, because ⁱI was crushed by their adulterous heart which has departed from Me, and ^jby their eyes which play the harlot after their idols; ^kthey will loathe themselves for the evils which they committed in all their abominations. ¹⁰And they shall know that I am the Lord; I have not said in vain that I would bring this calamity upon them.”

¹¹‘Thus says the Lord God: ^l“Pound ³your fists and stamp your feet, and say, ‘Alas, for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! ^mFor they shall fall by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. ¹²He who is far off shall die by the pestilence, he who is near shall fall by the sword, and he who remains and is besieged shall die by the famine. ⁿThus will I spend My fury upon them. ¹³Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when their slain are among their idols all around their altars, ^oon every high hill, ^pon all the mountaintops, ^qunder every green tree, and under every thick oak, wherever they offered sweet incense to all their idols. ¹⁴So I will ^rstretch out My hand against them and make the land desolate, yes, more desolate than the wilderness toward ^sDiblah, in all their dwelling places. Then they shall know that I am the Lord.’ ” ’ ”

Judgment on Israel is Near

7Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ²“And you, son of man, thus says the Lord God to the land of Israel:

^a‘An end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land.

³Now the end has come upon you,

And I will send My anger against you;

I will judge you ^baccording to your ways,

And I will repay you for all your abominations.

^4cMy eye will not spare you,

Nor will I have pity;

But I will repay your ways,

And your abominations will be in your midst;

^dThen you shall know that I am the Lord!’

⁵“Thus says the Lord God:

‘A disaster, a singular ^edisaster;

Behold, it has come!

⁶An end has come,

The end has come;

It has dawned for you;

Behold, it has come!

^7fDoom has come to you, you who dwell in the land;

^gThe time has come,

A day of trouble is near,

And not of rejoicing in the mountains.

⁸Now upon you I will soon ^hpour out My fury,

And spend My anger upon you;

I will judge you according to your ways,

And I will repay you for all your abominations.

⁹‘My eye will not spare,

Nor will I have pity;

I will ¹repay you according to your ways,

And your abominations will be in your midst.

Then you shall know that I am the Lord who strikes.

¹⁰‘Behold, the day!

Behold, it has come!

ⁱDoom has gone out;

The rod has blossomed,

Pride has budded.

^11jViolence has risen up into a rod of wickedness;

None of them shall remain,

None of their multitude,

None of ²them;

^kNor shall there be wailing for them.

¹²The time has come,

The day draws near.

‘Let not the buyer ^lrejoice,

Nor the seller ^mmourn,

For wrath is on their whole multitude.

¹³For the seller shall not return to what has been sold,

Though he may still be alive;

For the vision concerns the whole multitude,

And it shall not turn back;

No one will strengthen himself

Who lives in iniquity.

¹⁴‘They have blown the trumpet and made everyone ready,

But no one goes to battle;

For My wrath is on all their multitude.

¹⁵ⁿThe sword is outside,

And the pestilence and famine within.

Whoever is in the field

Will die by the sword;

And whoever is in the city,

Famine and pestilence will devour him.

¹⁶‘Those who ^osurvive will escape and be on the mountains

Like doves of the valleys,

All of them mourning,

Each for his iniquity.

¹⁷Every ^phand will be feeble,

And every knee will be as weak as water.

¹⁸They will also ^qbe girded with sackcloth;

Horror will cover them;

Shame will be on every face,

Baldness on all their heads.

¹⁹‘They will throw their silver into the streets,

And their gold will be like refuse;

Their ^rsilver and their gold will not be able to deliver them

In the day of the wrath of the Lord;

They will not satisfy their souls,

Nor fill their stomachs,

Because it became their stumbling block of iniquity.

²⁰‘As for the beauty of his ornaments,

He set it in majesty;

^sBut they made from it

The images of their abominations—

Their detestable things;

Therefore I have made it

Like refuse to them.

²¹I will give it as ^tplunder

Into the hands of strangers,

And to the wicked of the earth as spoil;

And they shall defile it.

²²I will turn My face from them,

And they will defile My secret place;

For robbers shall enter it and defile it.

²³‘Make a chain,

For ^uthe land is filled with crimes of blood,

And the city is full of violence.

²⁴Therefore I will bring the ^vworst of the Gentiles,

And they will possess their houses;

I will cause the pomp of the strong to cease,

And their holy places shall be ^wdefiled.

²⁵³Destruction comes;

They will seek peace, but there shall be none.

^26xDisaster will come upon disaster,

And rumor will be upon rumor.

^yThen they will seek a vision from a prophet;

But the law will perish from the priest,

And counsel from the elders.

²⁷‘The king will mourn,

The prince will be clothed with desolation,

And the hands of the common people will tremble.

I will do to them according to their way,

And according to what they deserve I will judge them;

Then they shall know that I am the Lord!’ ”

Abominations in the Temple

8And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house with ^athe elders of Judah sitting before me, that ^bthe hand of the Lord God fell upon me there. ^2cThen I looked, and there was a likeness, like the appearance of fire—from the appearance of His waist and downward, fire; and from His waist and upward, like the appearance of brightness, ^dlike the color of amber. ³He ^estretched out the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my hair; and ^fthe Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven, and ^gbrought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the north gate of the inner court, ^hwhere the seat of the image of jealousy was, which ⁱprovokes ¹to jealousy. ⁴And behold, the ^jglory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision that I ^ksaw in the plain.

⁵Then He said to me, “Son of man, lift your eyes now toward the north.” So I lifted my eyes toward the north, and there, north of the altar gate, was this image of jealousy in the entrance.

⁶Furthermore He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great ^labominations that the house of Israel commits here, to make Me go far away from My sanctuary? Now turn again, you will see greater abominations.” ⁷So He brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, there was a hole in the wall. ⁸Then He said to me, “Son of man, dig into the wall”; and when I dug into the wall, there was a door.

⁹And He said to me, “Go in, and see the wicked abominations which they are doing there.” ¹⁰So I went in and saw, and there—every ^msort of ⁿcreeping thing, abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, ²portrayed all around on the walls. ¹¹And there stood before them ^oseventy men of the elders of the house of Israel, and in their midst stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan. Each man had a censer in his hand, and a thick cloud of incense went up. ¹²Then He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the room of his idols? For they say, ^p‘The Lord does not see us, the Lord has forsaken the land.’ ”

¹³And He said to me, “Turn again, and you will see greater abominations that they are doing.” ¹⁴So He brought me to the door of the north gate of the Lord’s house; and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for ³Tammuz.

¹⁵Then He said to me, “Have you seen this, O son of man? Turn again, you will see greater abominations than these.” ¹⁶So He brought me into the inner court of the Lord’s house; and there, at the door of the temple of the Lord, ^qbetween the porch and the altar, ^rwere about twenty-five men ^swith their backs toward the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east, and they were worshiping ^tthe sun toward the east.

¹⁷And He said to me, “Have you seen this, O son of man? Is it a trivial thing to the house of Judah to commit the abominations which they commit here? For they have ^ufilled the land with violence; then they have returned to provoke Me to anger. Indeed they put the branch to their nose. ^18vTherefore I also will act in fury. My ^weye will not spare nor will I have pity; and though they ^xcry in My ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.”

The Wicked are Slain

9Then He called out in my hearing with a loud voice, saying, “Let those who have charge over the city draw near, each with a ¹deadly weapon in his hand.” ²And suddenly six men came from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with his ²battle-ax in his hand. ^aOne man among them was clothed with linen and had a writer’s inkhorn ³at his side. They went in and stood beside the bronze altar.

³Now ^bthe glory of the God of Israel had gone…