Ezekiel 5-8

Ezekiel 5

¹You, son of man, take a sharp sword; You shall take it as a barber's razor to you, and shall cause it to pass on your head and on your beard: then take balances to weigh, and divide the hair.

²A third part you shall burn in the fire in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled; and you shall take a third part, and strike with the sword around it; and a third part you shall scatter to the wind, and I will draw out a sword after them.

³You shall take of it a few in number, and bind them in your skirts.

⁴Of these again you shall take, and cast them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire; from it shall a fire come forth into all the house of Israel.

⁵Thus says the Lord Yahweh: This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst of the nations, and countries are around her.

⁶She has rebelled against my ordinances in doing wickedness more than the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries that are around her; for they have rejected my ordinances, and as for my statutes, they have not walked in them.

⁷Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Because you are turbulent more than the nations that are around you, and have not walked in my statutes, neither have kept my ordinances, neither have done after the ordinances of the nations that are around you;

⁸therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I, even I, am against you; and I will execute judgments in the midst of you in the sight of the nations.

⁹I will do in you that which I have not done, and whereunto I will not do any more the like, because of all your abominations.

¹⁰Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of you, and the sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments on you; and the whole remnant of you will I scatter to all the winds.

¹¹Therefore, as I live, says the Lord Yahweh, surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things, and with all your abominations, therefore will I also diminish [you]; neither shall my eye spare, and I also will have no pity.

¹²A third part of you shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of you; and a third part shall fall by the sword around you; and a third part I will scatter to all the winds, and will draw out a sword after them.

¹³Thus shall my anger be accomplished, and I will cause my wrath toward them to rest, and I shall be comforted; and they shall know that I, Yahweh, have spoken in my zeal, when I have accomplished my wrath on them.

¹⁴Moreover I will make you a desolation and a reproach among the nations that are around you, in the sight of all that pass by.

¹⁵So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment, to the nations that are around you, when I shall execute judgments on you in anger and in wrath, and in wrathful rebukes; (I, Yahweh, have spoken it;)

¹⁶when I shall send on them the evil arrows of famine, that are for destruction, which I will send to destroy you: and I will increase the famine on you, and will break your staff of bread;

¹⁷and I will send on you famine and evil animals, and they shall bereave you; and pestilence and blood shall pass through you; and I will bring the sword on you: I, Yahweh, have spoken it.

Ezekiel 6

¹The word of Yahweh came to me, saying,

²Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy to them,

³and say, You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Yahweh: Thus says the Lord Yahweh to the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys: Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword on you, and I will destroy your high places.

⁴Your altars shall become desolate, and your incense altars shall be broken; and I will cast down your slain men before your idols.

⁵I will lay the dead bodies of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones around your altars.

⁶In all your dwelling places the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your incense altars may be cut down, and your works may be abolished.

⁷The slain shall fall in the midst of you, and you shall know that I am Yahweh.

⁸Yet will I leave a remnant, in that you shall have some that escape the sword among the nations, when you shall be scattered through the countries.

⁹Those of you that escape shall remember me among the nations where they shall be carried captive, how that I have been broken with their lewd heart, which has departed from me, and with their eyes, which play the prostitute after their idols: and they shall loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.

¹⁰They shall know that I am Yahweh: I have not said in vain that I would do this evil to them.

¹¹Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Strike with your hand, and stamp with your foot, and say, Alas! because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel; for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.

¹²He who is far off shall die of the pestilence; and he who is near shall fall by the sword; and he who remains and is besieged shall die by the famine: thus will I accomplish my wrath on them.

¹³You shall know that I am Yahweh, when their slain men shall be among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the places where they offered pleasant aroma to all their idols.

¹⁴I will stretch out my hand on them, and make the land desolate and waste, from the wilderness toward Diblah, throughout all their habitations: and they shall know that I am Yahweh.

Ezekiel 7

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

²You, son of man, thus says the Lord Yahweh to the land of Israel, An end: the end is come on the four corners of the land.

³Now is the end on you, and I will send my anger on you, and will judge you according to your ways; and I will bring on you all your abominations.

⁴My eye shall not spare you, neither will I have pity; but I will bring your ways on you, and your abominations shall be in the midst of you: and you shall know that I am Yahweh.

⁵Thus says the Lord Yahweh: An evil, an only evil; behold, it comes.

⁶An end has come, the end has come; it awakes against you; behold, it comes.

⁷Your doom has come to you, inhabitant of the land: the time has come, the day is near, [a day of] tumult, and not [of] joyful shouting, on the mountains.

⁸Now will I shortly pour out my wrath on you, and accomplish my anger against you, and will judge you according to your ways; and I will bring on you all your abominations.

⁹My eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will bring on you according to your ways; and your abominations shall be in the midst of you; and you shall know that I, Yahweh, do strike.

¹⁰Behold, the day, behold, it comes: your doom is gone forth; the rod has blossomed, pride has budded.

¹¹Violence is risen up into a rod of wickedness; none of them [shall remain], nor of their multitude, nor of their wealth: neither shall there be eminency among them.

¹²The time is come, the day draws near: don't let the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn; for wrath is on all its multitude.

¹³For the seller shall not return to that which is sold, although they be yet alive: for the vision is touching the whole multitude of it, none shall return; neither shall any strengthen himself in the iniquity of his life.

¹⁴They have blown the trumpet, and have made all ready; but none goes to the battle; for my wrath is on all its multitude.

¹⁵The sword is outside, and the pestilence and the famine within: he who is in the field shall die with the sword: and he who is in the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him.

¹⁶But those of those who escape shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them moaning, every one in his iniquity.

¹⁷All hands shall be feeble, and all knees shall be weak as water.

¹⁸They shall also clothe themselves with sackcloth, and horror shall cover them; and shame shall be on all faces, and baldness on all their heads.

¹⁹They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be as an unclean thing; their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of Yahweh: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels; because it has been the stumbling block of their iniquity.

²⁰As for the beauty of his ornament, he set it in majesty; but they made the images of their abominations [and] their detestable things therein: therefore have I made it to them as an unclean thing.

²¹I will give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil; and they shall profane it.

²²My face will I turn also from them, and they shall profane my secret [place]; and robbers shall enter into it, and profane it.

²³Make the chain; for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence.

²⁴Therefore I will bring the worst of the nations, and they shall possess their houses: I will also make the pride of the strong to cease; and their holy places shall be profaned.

²⁵Destruction comes; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none.

²⁶Mischief shall come on mischief, and rumor shall be on rumor; and they shall seek a vision of the prophet; but the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the elders.

²⁷The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled: I will do to them after their way, and according to their own judgments will I judge them; and they shall know that I am Yahweh.

Ezekiel 8

¹It happened in the sixth year, in the sixth [month], in the fifth [day] of the month, as I sat in my house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord Yahweh fell there on me.

²Then I saw, and behold, a likeness as the appearance of fire; from the appearance of his waist and downward, fire; and from his waist and upward, as the appearance of brightness, as it were glowing metal.

³He put forth the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and the sky, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the gate of the inner [court] that looks toward the north; where there was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy.

⁴Behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the appearance that I saw in the plain.

⁵Then he said to me, Son of man, lift up your eyes now the way toward the north. So I lifted up my eyes the way toward the north, and see, northward of the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry.

⁶He said to me, Son of man, do you see what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel do commit here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? But you shall again see yet other great abominations.

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

⁸Then he said to me, Son of man, dig now in the wall: and when I had dug in the wall, behold, a door.

⁹He said to me, Go in, and see the wicked abominations that they do here.

¹⁰So I went in and saw; and see, every form of creeping things, and abominable animals, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed around on the wall.

¹¹There stood before them seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel; and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, every man with his censer in his hand; and the odor of the 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 his rooms of imagery? for they say, Yahweh doesn't see us; Yahweh has forsaken the land.

¹³He said also to me, You shall again see yet other great abominations which they do.

¹⁴Then he brought me to the door of the gate of Yahweh's house which was toward the north; and see, there sat the women weeping for Tammuz.

¹⁵Then he said to me, Have you seen [this], son of man? You shall again see yet greater abominations than these.

¹⁶He brought me into the inner court of Yahweh's house; and see, at the door of the temple of Yahweh, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men, with their backs toward the temple of Yahweh, and their faces toward the east; and they were worshipping the sun toward the east.

¹⁷Then he said to me, Have you seen [this], son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have turned again to provoke me to anger: and behold, they put the branch to their nose.

¹⁸Therefore will I also deal in wrath; my eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; and though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.