A Sword Against Jerusalem

5 “And you, son of man, take a sharp sword, take it as a barber’s razor, ^(A)and pass it over your head and your beard; then take scales to weigh and divide the hair. ^2 (B)You shall burn with fire one-third in the midst of ^(C)the city, when ^(D)the days of the siege are finished; then you shall take one-third and strike around it with the sword, and one-third you shall scatter in the wind: I will draw out a sword after ^(E)them. ^3 (F)You shall also take a small number of them and bind them in the edge of your garment. ⁴ Then take some of them again and ^(G)throw them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire. From there a fire will go out into all the house of Israel.

⁵ “Thus says the Lord God: ‘This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst of the nations and the countries all around her. ⁶ She has rebelled against My judgments by doing wickedness more than the nations, and against My statutes more than the countries that are all around her; for they have refused My judgments, and they have not walked in My statutes.’ ⁷ Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Because you have ^[a]multiplied disobedience more than the nations that are all around you, have not walked in My statutes ^(H)nor kept My judgments, ^[b]nor even done according to the judgments of the nations that are all around you’— ⁸ therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Indeed I, even I, am against you and will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations. ^9 (I)And I will do among you what I have never done, and the like of which I will never do again, because of all your abominations. ¹⁰ Therefore fathers ^(J)shall eat their sons in your midst, and sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments among you, and all of you who remain I will ^(K)scatter to all the winds.

¹¹ ‘Therefore, as I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘surely, because you have ^(L)defiled My sanctuary with all your ^(M)detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will also diminish you; ^(N)My eye will not spare, nor will I have any pity. ^12 (O)One-third of you shall die of the pestilence, and be consumed with famine in your midst; and one-third shall fall by the sword all around you; and ^(P)I will scatter another third to all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after ^(Q)them.

¹³ ‘Thus shall My anger ^(R)be spent, and I will ^(S)cause My fury to rest upon them, ^(T)and I will be avenged; ^(U)and they shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it in My zeal, when I have spent My fury upon them. ¹⁴ Moreover ^(V)I will make you a waste and a reproach among the nations that are all around you, in the sight of all who pass by.

¹⁵ ‘So ^[c]it shall be a ^(W)reproach, a taunt, a ^(X)lesson, and an astonishment to the nations that are all around you, when I execute judgments among you in anger and in fury and in ^(Y)furious rebukes. I, the Lord, have spoken. ¹⁶ When I ^(Z)send against them the terrible arrows of famine which shall be for destruction, which I will send to destroy you, I will increase the famine upon you and cut off your ^(AA)supply of bread. ¹⁷ So I will send against you famine and ^(AB)wild beasts, and they will bereave you. ^(AC)Pestilence and blood shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I, the Lord, have spoken.’ ”

Judgment on Idolatrous Israel

6 Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying: ² “Son of man, ^(AD)set your face toward the ^(AE)mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them, ³ and 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 ^(AF)I will destroy your ^[d]high places. ⁴ Then your altars shall be desolate, your incense altars shall be broken, and ^(AG)I will cast down your slain men before your idols. ⁵ And I will lay the corpses of the children of Israel before their idols, and I will scatter your bones all around your altars. ⁶ In all your dwelling places the cities shall be laid waste, and the ^[e]high 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. ⁷ The slain shall fall in your midst, and ^(AH)you shall know that I am the Lord.

^8 (AI)“Yet I will leave a remnant, so that you may have some who escape the sword among the nations, when you are ^(AJ)scattered through the countries. ⁹ Then those of you who escape will ^(AK)remember Me among the nations where they are carried captive, because ^(AL)I was crushed by their adulterous heart which has departed from Me, and ^(AM)by their eyes which play the harlot after their idols; ^(AN)they will loathe themselves for the evils which they committed in all their abominations. ¹⁰ And 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: ^(AO)“Pound^[f] your fists and stamp your feet, and say, ‘Alas, for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! ^(AP)For they shall fall by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. ¹² He 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. ^(AQ)Thus will I spend My fury upon them. ¹³ Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when their slain are among their idols all around their altars, ^(AR)on every high hill, ^(AS)on all the mountaintops, ^(AT)under every green tree, and under every thick oak, wherever they offered sweet incense to all their idols. ¹⁴ So I will ^(AU)stretch out My hand against them and make the land desolate, yes, more desolate than the wilderness toward ^(AV)Diblah, in all their dwelling places. Then they shall know that I am the Lord.’ ” ’ ”

Judgment on Israel Is Near

7 Moreover 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:

⁵ “Thus says the Lord God:

Abominations in the Temple

8 And 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 ^(BV)the elders of Judah sitting before me, that ^(BW)the hand of the Lord God fell upon me there. ^2 (BX)Then 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, ^(BY)like the color of amber. ³ He ^(BZ)stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my hair; and ^(CA)the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven, and ^(CB)brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the north gate of the inner court, ^(CC)where the seat of the image of jealousy was, which ^(CD)provokes^[j] to jealousy. ⁴ And behold, the ^(CE)glory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision that I ^(CF)saw in the plain.

⁵ Then 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.

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

⁹ And He said to me, “Go in, and see the wicked abominations which they are doing there.” ¹⁰ So I went in and saw, and there—every ^(CH)sort of ^(CI)creeping thing, abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, ^[k]portrayed all around on the walls. ¹¹ And there stood before them ^(CJ)seventy 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. ¹² Then 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, ^(CK)‘The Lord does not see us, the Lord has forsaken the land.’ ”

¹³ And He said to me, “Turn again, and you will see greater abominations that they are doing.” ¹⁴ So 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 ^[l]Tammuz.

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

¹⁷ And 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 ^(CP)filled the land with violence; then they have returned to provoke Me to anger. Indeed they put the branch to their nose. ^18 (CQ)Therefore I also will act in fury. My ^(CR)eye will not spare nor will I have pity; and though they ^(CS)cry in My ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.”

The Wicked Are Slain

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

³ Now ^(CU)the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub, where it had been, to the threshold of the ^[p]temple. And He called to the man clothed with linen, who had the writer’s inkhorn at his side; ⁴ and the Lord said to him, “Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put ^(CV)a mark on the foreheads of the men ^(CW)who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it.”

⁵ To the others He said in my ^[q]hearing, “Go after him through the city and ^(CX)kill;^{[r] (CY)}do not let your eye spare, nor have any pity. ^6 (CZ)Utterly^[s] slay old and young men, maidens and little children and women; but ^(DA)do not come near anyone on whom is the mark; and ^(DB)begin at My sanctuary.” ^(DC)So they began with the elders who were before the ^[t]temple. ⁷ Then He said to them, “Defile the ^[u]temple, and fill the courts with the slain. Go out!” And they went out and killed in the city.

⁸ So it was, that while they were killing them, I was left alone; and I ^(DD)fell on my face and cried out, and said, ^(DE)“Ah, Lord God! Will You destroy all the remnant of Israel in pouring out Your fury on Jerusalem?”

⁹ Then He said to me, “The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and ^(DF)the land is full of bloodshed, and the city full of perversity; for they say, ^(DG)‘The Lord has forsaken the land, and ^(DH)the Lord does not see!’ ¹⁰ And as for Me also, My ^(DI)eye will neither spare, nor will I have pity, but ^(DJ)I will recompense their deeds on their own head.”

¹¹ Just then, the man clothed with linen, who had the inkhorn at his side, reported back and said, “I have done as You commanded me.”