The Slaughter of Idolaters

9 Then the Lord thundered, “Bring on the men appointed to punish the city! Tell them to bring their weapons with them!”

⁸ Then I heard the Lord asking, “Whom should I send as a messenger to this people? Who will go for us?”

I said, “Here I am. Send me.”

⁷ “Fear God,” he shouted. “Give glory to him. For the time has come when he will sit as judge. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all the springs of water.”

¹⁰ It was the Lord’s Day, and I was worshiping in the Spirit.^[a] Suddenly, I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet blast. ¹¹ It said, “Write in a book^[b] everything you see, and send it to the seven churches in the cities of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.”

⁶ And I heard someone speaking to me from within the Temple, while the man who had been measuring stood beside me. ⁷ The Lord said to me, “Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place where I will rest my feet. I will live here forever among the people of Israel. They and their kings will not defile my holy name any longer by their adulterous worship of other gods or by honoring the relics of their kings who have died.^[a]

¹⁵ And God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem. But just as the angel was preparing to destroy it, the Lord relented and said to the death angel, “Stop! That is enough!” At that moment the angel of the Lord was standing by the threshing floor of Araunah^[a] the Jebusite.

²⁴ So they were all inside the temple to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings. Now Jehu had stationed eighty of his men outside the building and had warned them, “If you let anyone escape, you will pay for it with your own life.”

²³ For the Lord will pass through the land to strike down the Egyptians. But when he sees the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe, the Lord will pass over your home. He will not permit his death angel to enter your house and strike you down.