Ezekiel 14:12-23

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

¹² The word of the Lord came to me: ¹³ Mortal, when a land sins against me by acting faithlessly and I stretch out my hand against it and cut off its supply of bread^[a] and send famine upon it and cut off from it humans and animals,^{(A) 14} even if Noah, Daniel,^[b] and Job, these three, were in it, they would save only their own lives by their righteousness, says the Lord God.^{(B) 15} If I send wild animals through the land to ravage it so that it is made desolate and no one may pass through because of the animals,^{(C) 16} even if these three men were in it, as I live, says the Lord God, they would save neither sons nor daughters; they alone would be saved, but the land would be desolate. ¹⁷ Or if I bring a sword upon that land and say, “Let a sword pass through the land,” and I cut off humans and animals from it,^{(D) 18} though these three men were in it, as I live, says the Lord God, they would save neither sons nor daughters, but they alone would be saved. ¹⁹ Or if I send a pestilence into that land and pour out my wrath upon it with blood, to cut off humans and animals from it,^{(E) 20} even if Noah, Daniel,^[c] and Job were in it, as I live, says the Lord God, they would save neither son nor daughter; they would save only their own lives by their righteousness.

²¹ Therefore thus says the Lord God: How much more when I send upon Jerusalem my four deadly acts of judgment, sword, famine, wild animals, and pestilence, to cut off humans and animals from it!^{(F) 22} Yet survivors shall be left in it, sons and daughters who will be brought out; they will come out to you. When you see their ways and their deeds, you will be consoled for the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, for all that I have brought upon it.^{(G) 23} They shall console you when you see their ways and their deeds, and you shall know that it was not without cause that I did all that I have done in it, says the Lord God.^(H)