11 A wind lifted me up and brought me to the east gate of the Lord’s temple. There at the entrance to the gate were twenty-five men, and I saw that two officials of the people, Jaazaniah, Azzur’s son, and Pelatiah, Benaiah’s son, were with them.

² He said to me: Human one, these men devise evil plans and give wicked advice in this city. ³ They are the ones who say, “The nearest relatives aren’t building houses.^[a] The city is the cooking pot, and we are the meat.” ⁴ Therefore, prophesy against them, human one, prophesy! ⁵ The Lord’s spirit took hold of me, and he said to me: Say, This is what the Lord God proclaims: So you have said, house of Israel! But I know what you really mean. ⁶ You continue to commit murder in this city, and you fill its streets with the slain.

⁷ Therefore, the Lord God proclaims: The city is the cooking pot, and the ones you have slain in it are the meat. But you will be taken out of it. ⁸ You fear the sword, so I will bring the sword against you. This is what the Lord God says! ⁹ I will lead you out of the city, hand you over to foreigners, and execute judgments against you. ¹⁰ You will fall by the sword! At Israel’s borders I will judge you, and you will know that I am the Lord. ¹¹ The city won’t be your cooking pot, and you won’t be the meat in it. At Israel’s borders, I will judge you. ¹² You will know that I am the Lord, whose regulations you didn’t observe and whose case laws you didn’t follow. Instead, you followed the case laws of the nations around you.

¹³ While I was prophesying, Benaiah’s son Pelatiah dropped dead. I fell on my face, and I wailed and said, “Oh, Lord God! Are you finishing off even the Israelites who are left?”

¹⁴ The Lord’s word came to me: ¹⁵ Human one, when the people living in Jerusalem said, “They’ve gone far from the Lord, and we’ve been given the land as an inheritance,” they were talking about your family, your nearest relatives, the whole house of Israel, all of it.

¹⁶ Therefore, say, The Lord God proclaims: Even though I made them go far away among the nations and caused them to scatter throughout the earth, I’ve provided some sanctuary for them in the countries to which they’ve gone.

¹⁷ Therefore, say, The Lord God proclaims: I will gather you from the nations, assemble you from the countries where you were scattered, and I will give you Israel’s fertile land. ¹⁸ They will enter the land, and they will remove from it all its disgusting and detestable things. ¹⁹ I will give them a single heart, and I will put a new spirit in them. I will remove the stony hearts from their bodies and give them hearts of flesh ²⁰ so that they may follow my regulations and carefully observe my case laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God. ²¹ As for those whose hearts continue to go after their disgusting and detestable things, I will hold them accountable for their ways. This is what the Lord God says!

²² Then the winged creatures raised their wings. The wheels were next to them, and the glory of Israel’s God was above them. ²³ The Lord’s glory ascended from the middle of the city, and it stopped at the mountain east of the city. ²⁴ And a wind lifted me up and brought me to the exiles in Chaldea, through a vision with a divine wind.^[b] When the vision I had seen left me, ²⁵ I spoke to the exiles about everything the Lord had shown to me.