Ezekiel 3:6–21

⁶not to many peoples of foreign speech and a hard language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely, if I sent you to such, they would listen to you. ⁷But the house of Israel will not listen to you; for they are not willing to listen to me; because all the house of Israel are of a hard forehead and of a stubborn heart. ⁸Behold, I have made your face hard against their faces, and your forehead hard against their foreheads. ⁹Like adamant harder than flint have I made your forehead; fear them not, nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house.” ¹⁰Moreover he said to me, “Son of man, all my words that I shall speak to you receive in your heart, and hear with your ears. ¹¹And go, get you to the exiles, to your people, and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD’; whether they hear or refuse to hear.”

¹²Then the Spirit lifted me up, and as the glory of the Lord arose^k from its place, I heard behind me the sound of a great earthquake; ¹³it was the sound of the wings of the living creatures as they touched one another, and the sound of the wheels beside them, that sounded like a great earthquake. ¹⁴The Spirit lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness in the heat of my spirit, the hand of the Lord being strong upon me; ¹⁵and I came to the exiles at Tel-abib, who dwelt by the river Chebar.^l And I sat there overwhelmed among them seven days.

¹⁶And at the end of seven days, the word of the Lord came to me: ¹⁷“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. ¹⁸If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. ¹⁹But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you will have saved your life. ²⁰Again, if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die; because you have not warned him, he shall die for his sin, and his righteous deeds which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood I will require at your hand. ²¹Nevertheless if you warn the righteous man not to sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live, because he took warning; and you will have saved your life.”