Beginning
Chapter 5
1 Son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a barber’s razor to shave your head and your beard. Then take scales and divide the hair you have cut off. 2 When the days of the siege come to an end, burn one-third of the hair inside the city. Take another third and cut it up with the sword throughout the city. Scatter the last third to the wind while I pursue it with the sword. 3 In addition, take a few of these hairs and conceal them in a fold of your robe. 4 From these, however, take some and cast them into the fire and burn them completely. A fire will spread from there against the entire house of Israel.
5 Thus says the Lord God: This is Jerusalem, which I have established in the midst of the nations and surrounded with foreign countries. 6 But she has rebelled against my ordinances and my statutes more wickedly than all the nations and the countries around her, rejecting my ordinances and refusing to obey my laws.
7 Therefore, thus says the Lord God: Because you have been more rebellious than the nations that surround you and have not followed my statutes or respected my ordinances and have not even observed the laws of the nations that surround you, 8 therefore, thus says the Lord God: I too am coming against you, and I will execute my judgments on you for all the nations to see. 9 And because of all your abominable offenses, I will inflict punishment on you that I have never done before and the like of which I will never do again. 10 Those of you who are parents will eat your children, and children will eat their parents. I will execute judgments on you, and any of you who survive I will scatter to the winds.
11 Therefore, as I live, says the Lord God, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all of your detestable and vile abominations, I will destroy you. I will not take pity on you or spare you. 12 One-third of you will die of pestilence or perish because of famine, one-third will fall by the sword outside your walls, and one-third I will scatter to the four winds and pursue them with the sword.
13 Then, once my anger has abated and I have vented my wrath against them, they will know that I, the Lord, have spoken in my jealousy. 14 I will make you a desolate waste and the object of mockery among the nations that surround you, a fate clearly evident to all those who pass by. 15 You will be an object of mockery and abuse, a frightening warning to the nations that surround you, when I execute my judgment on you in anger and fury and dreadful punishments. I, the Lord, have spoken.
16 When I loose my deadly arrows of famine against you, arrows of destruction which I will send forth to destroy you, and when I afflict you with one famine after another and cut off your supply of food, 17 I will afflict you with even more intense famine and wild beasts, and you will be left childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I, the Lord, have spoken.
Chapter 6
Against the Mountains of Israel. 1 This word of the Lord came to me: 2 Son of man, turn your face toward the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them. 3 Say: Mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God. Thus says the Lord God to the mountains and the hills, to the ravines and the valleys: Behold, I am going to bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places. 4 Your altars will be demolished and your incense stands will be shattered, and I will throw down your slain in front of your idols.
5 I will lay the corpses of the people of Israel in front of their idols, and I will scatter their bones all around your altars. 6 Wherever you live, your towns will be destroyed and your high places will be laid waste, your idols will be shattered and destroyed, your incense stands will be smashed, and all of the idols you have made will be obliterated. 7 As the slain will fall in your midst, you will know that I am the Lord.
8 However, among the nations I will spare some of you who will manage to escape the sword and be scattered throughout foreign lands. 9 Those of you who escape will remember me among the nations where you were carried away as captives—how I crushed their adulterous hearts for having deserted me and by their wanton eyes for lusting after idols. Then they will loathe themselves for all the evils that they have done with their abominable practices. 10 And they will know that I, the Lord, was not uttering a vain warning when I threatened to inflict this disaster upon them.
11 Thus says the Lord God: Clap your hands, stamp your feet, and cry, “Alas!” because of all the loathsome abominations of the house of Israel, for which the people will fall by the sword, famine, and pestilence. 12 Those who are far off will die of pestilence; those who are near will fall by the sword; any who survive and are spared will die of famine. Thus, I will exhaust my wrath upon them.
13 Then you will know that I am the Lord, when their slain lie among the idols around their altars, on every high hill, on every mountaintop, under every green tree, and under every leafy oak, wherever they offered sweet-smelling sacrifices to any of their idols. 14 I will stretch out my hand against them and reduce every place where they have settled to a desolate waste, from the desert to Riblah.[a] Then they will know that I am the Lord.
Chapter 7
The End Is Near. 1 This word of the Lord came to me: 2 Son of man, thus says the Lord God to the land of Israel:
It is finished. The end is coming
upon the four corners of the land.
3 Now the end is upon you.
I will unleash my anger against you.
I will judge you according to your conduct,
and punish you for all your loathsome deeds.
4 I will not look upon you with pity
or be merciful to you.
I will punish you for your evil conduct
and for your abominable practices.
Then you will know
that I am the Lord.
5 Thus says the Lord God:
Disasters are coming, one after another.
6 The end is coming; it is coming upon you.
Behold its approach!
7 Your doom is coming upon you,
O inhabitant of the land.
The time is coming, the day is near—
a time of panic and not of rejoicing.
8 Soon I will pour out my wrath upon you
and vent my anger against you.
I will judge you according to your conduct
and punish you for your abominable deeds.
9 I will not look upon you with mercy,
nor will I have pity on you.
I will repay you for your conduct
and for the abominations in your midst.
Then you will know
that it is I, the Lord, who strike.
10 Now is the day of the Lord.
Behold, the end is at hand.
The scepter has blossomed;
insolence is at its peak.
11 Violence has now become the means
to punish wickedness.
None of the people will be left,
nor their wealth nor anything of value.
12 The time has come; the day is near.
Let not the buyer rejoice nor the seller mourn,
for fury engulfs the entire populace.
13 The seller will not be able to recover what he has sold as long as he lives. Neither party will be willing to cancel out the transaction.
14 They have sounded the trumpet
and made everything ready,
but no one goes to battle,
my wrath falls upon all alike.
15 The sword is outside;
pestilence and famine are within.
Those in the country will die by the sword;
those in the city will be devoured
by famine and pestilence.
16 If any manage to survive,
they will escape to the mountains
like doves of the valleys.
There I will slaughter them all,
each one for his iniquity.
17 All their hands will be limp,
and all their knees will turn to water.
18 They will put on sackcloth,
their entire body trembling.
Shame shall be on all their faces,
and their heads will be shaved.
19 They shall fling their silver into the streets,
and their gold shall be considered as refuse.
Their silver and gold will not be able to save them
on the day of the Lord’s wrath.
They will not be able to satisfy their hunger
or to fill their bellies,
for wealth was the reason for their iniquity.
20 They used to take pride
in their beautiful jewelry
from which they would fashion
vile, abominable images.
Therefore, I will regard their jewelry
as nothing more than filth.
21 I will hand it all over to foreigners as plunder
and as booty to the wicked of the earth,
and they will defile it.
22 I will turn my face away from them
while they profane my treasured land;
the violent shall enter and defile it.
23 Prepare chains,
because the land is full of bloodshed
and the city is filled with violence.
24 I will bring in the cruelest of the nations
to seize their houses.
I will put an end to the arrogance of the strong,
and their sanctuaries will be profaned.
25 When terror comes, they will seek peace,
but there will be none.
26 There will be disaster after disaster
and rumor upon rumor.
Prophets will be pestered endlessly for a vision;
priests will fail to offer guidance,
and the elders will provide no counsel.
27 The king will go into mourning;
the prince will be enveloped in despair;
the hands of the common people will tremble.
I will deal with them as their conduct deserves,
and I will judge them in accordance with their judgments.
Thus they will know that I am the Lord.
Chapter 8
Idolatry in the Temple.[b] 1 In the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth month, as I was sitting in my house, with the elders of Judah sitting beside me, suddenly the hand of the Lord fell upon me there.
2 As I looked, I beheld a figure that had the form of a man. From the area of his waist downward, he appeared to be like fire, and upward from his waist, he seemed to have a brilliance like gleaming amber. 3 He stretched forth what appeared to be a hand and grasped me by a lock of my hair. A Spirit then lifted me up between earth and heaven, and in divine visions he brought me to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the inner north gate, where stood the idol that arouses one to jealousy.[c] 4 The glory of the God of Israel was present before me, like the vision I had seen in the valley.
5 Then the Lord said to me, “Son of man, look toward the north.” I raised my eyes toward the north, and there, north of the temple gate, a statue of jealousy stood at the entrance. 6 He asked, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing? Behold the loathsome abominations that the house of Israel is engaging in here in their determination to drive me out of my sanctuary. And you will see still greater abominations.”
7 Then he brought me to the entrance of the court, where I perceived a hole in the wall. 8 He then ordered, “Son of man, dig through the wall.” After I dug through the wall, I beheld a door. 9 He said to me, “Enter and behold the vile abominations in which they are engaged there.”
10 I entered and looked around. Upon the wall were depicted the carved figures of every kind of creeping thing and loathsome animals and all the idols of the house of Israel.[d] 11 Before them stood seventy of the elders of the house of Israel, including Jaazaniah, the son of Shaphan. Each of them held a censer in his hand, and all the fragrance of the incense ascended upward.
12 Then he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each one at the shrine of his own idol? They think that the Lord has forsaken the land and that he does not see them.” 13 He also said to me, “You will see even greater abominations practiced by them.”
14 Next he took me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the Lord, where women were sitting, weeping for Tammuz. 15 Then he said to me, “Son of man, do you see this? You will see even greater abominations than these.”
16 He then brought me into the inner court of the house of the Lord. There, at the entrance of the temple of the Lord, between the portico and the altar, were about twenty-five men, with their backs to the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east, prostrating themselves toward the east before the rising sun.
17 Then he said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? Is it not bad enough for the house of Judah to do the loathsome things they have done here? They have filled the land with violence and provoked me to anger time after time. Observe how they put the branch to their nose.[e] 18 Therefore, I will turn against them in fury. I will not pity them or spare them. No matter how loudly they may cry out to me, I will not listen to them.”
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