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The end
7 The Lord’s word came to me: 2 You, human one, this is what the Lord God proclaims to the land of Israel:
An end! The end has come to the four corners of the earth!
3 Even now the end is upon you!
I’ll send my anger against you,
I’ll judge you according to your ways,
and I’ll turn all your detestable practices against you.
4 I won’t shed a tear for you or show any pity.
Instead, I’ll turn your ways against you,
and your detestable practices will stay with you.
Then you will know that I am the Lord.
5 The Lord God proclaims:
Disaster! A singular disaster! Look, it comes!
6 The end has come! Oh, yes, it has come!
It has come to you! Look, it’s here!
7 You who live on the earth,
you are finally caught in your own trap!
The time has come; the day draws near.
On the hills panic, not glory.
8 And now it’s near!
Against you I will pour out my wrath,
and my anger will be satisfied.
I’ll judge you according to your ways,
and turn all your detestable practices against you.
9 I won’t shed a tear or show any pity
when I turn your ways against you,
and your detestable practices stay with you.
Then you will know that I, the Lord, am the one who strikes you!
10 Look, the day! Look, it comes!
Doom has arrived! The staff blossoms, and pride springs up!
11 Violence rises up as a wicked master.[a]
It isn’t from others or their armies or their violence.
It hasn’t loomed up because of them.
12 The time is coming! The day draws near!
No buyer should rejoice, and no seller should mourn,
because wrath overcomes the whole crowd.
13 The seller will never get back what was sold,
even if both of them survive.
The vision concerns the whole crowd.
It won’t be revoked.
And the guilty ones—
they won’t even be able to hang on to their lives.
14 They have blown the horn,
and everything is ready, but no one goes to battle,
because my wrath overcomes the whole crowd.
15 Outside, the sword! Inside, plague and famine!
Whoever is out in the field will die by the sword.
Whoever is in the city,
plague and famine will consume them.
16 And those who flee?
They will turn up on the hills like valley doves,
all of them moaning, those guilty ones.
17 Every hand will hang limp;
urine will run down every leg.
18 They will put on mourning clothes,
and horror will cover them.
On every face, shame;
on all their heads, baldness.
19 They will hurl their silver into the street,
and their gold will seem unclean.
Their silver and their gold won’t deliver them
on the day of the Lord’s anger.
They won’t satisfy their appetites or fill their bellies.
Their guilt will bring them down.
20 From their beautiful ornament, in which they took pride,
they have made horrible and detestable images!
Therefore, I’ve declared it an unclean thing for them.
21 I’ll hand it over to foreigners as loot taken in war,
to the earth’s wicked ones as plunder—they will defile it!
22 When I hide my face from my people,
foreigners will defile my treasured place.
Violent intruders will invade it; they will defile it!
23 Make a chain!
The earth is full of perverted justice,
the city full of violence.
24 I’ll bring up the cruelest nations,
and they will seize their houses.
I’ll break their proud strength,
and their sanctuaries will be defiled.
25 Disaster! It has come!
They seek peace, but there is none.
26 One disaster comes after another,
and rumor follows rumor.
They seek a vision from the prophet.
Instruction disappears from the priest,
and counsel from the elders.
27 The king will go into mourning,
the prince will clothe himself in despair,
and the hands of the land’s people will tremble.
When I do to them as they have done
and judge them by their own justice,
they will know that I am the Lord.
Temple vision
8 In the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth month, I was sitting in my house, and Judah’s elders were sitting with me, when the Lord God’s power overcame me. 2 I looked, and there was a form that looked like fire. Below what looked like his waist was fire, but above his waist it looked like gold, like gleaming amber. 3 He stretched out the form of a hand and picked me up by the hair of my head. A wind lifted me up between earth and heaven, and in a divine vision it brought me to Jerusalem, to the north-facing entrance of the gate to the inner court. That was where the pedestal was for the outrageous image that incites outrage. 4 There I saw the glory of Israel’s God, exactly like what I had seen in the valley. 5 He said to me: Human one, look toward the north. So I looked north, and there, north of the altar gate, was this outrageous image in the entrance. 6 He said to me: Human one, do you see what they are doing, the terribly detestable practices that the house of Israel is doing here that drive me far from my sanctuary? Yet you will see even more detestable practices than these.
7 Then he brought me to the court entrance. When I looked, I saw a hole in the wall. 8 He said to me: Human one, dig through the wall. So I dug through the wall, and I discovered a doorway. 9 And he said to me: Go in and see what wicked and detestable things they are doing in there. 10 So I went in and looked, and I saw every form of loathsome beasts and creeping things and all the idols of the house of Israel engraved on the walls all around. 11 The seventy elders of the house of Israel were standing in front of them, and all of them were holding censers in their hands. Jaazaniah, Shaphan’s son, was standing right there with them, and the scent of the incense cloud rose up. 12 He said to me: Human one, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, every one of them in their rooms full of sculptured images? They say, “The Lord doesn’t see us; the Lord has abandoned the land.” 13 He said to me: You will see them performing even more detestable practices. 14 He brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the temple, where women were sitting and performing the Tammuz lament.
15 He said to me: Human one, do you see? Yet you will see even more detestable practices than these. 16 He brought me to the inner court of the Lord’s temple. There, at the entrance to the Lord’s temple, between the porch and the altar, were twenty-five men facing toward the east with their backs to the Lord’s temple. They were bowing to the sun in the east. 17 He said to me: Do you see, human one? Isn’t it enough that the house of Judah has observed here all these detestable things? They have filled the land with violence, and they continue to provoke my fury. Look at them! They even put the branch to their noses! 18 I will certainly respond with wrath. I won’t spare or pity anyone. Even though they call out loudly to me in my hearing, I won’t listen to them.
9 Then in my hearing he called out loudly: Draw near, you guardians of the city, and bring your weapons of destruction! 2 Suddenly, six men came from the Upper Gate that faces north. All of them were holding weapons of destruction. Among them was another man who was dressed in linen and had a writing case at his side. When they came in and stood beside the bronze altar, 3 the glory of Israel’s God rose from above the winged creatures[b] where he had been and moved toward the temple’s threshold. The Lord called to the man who was dressed in linen with the writing case at his side: 4 Go through the city, through Jerusalem, and mark the foreheads of those who sigh and groan because of all the detestable practices that have been conducted in it. 5 To the others he said in my hearing: Go through the city after him, and attack. Spare no one! Be merciless! 6 Kill them all, old men, young men and women, babies and mothers. Only don’t touch anyone who has the mark. Begin at my sanctuary. So they began with the men, the elders in front of the temple. 7 He said to them: Make the temple unclean! Fill the courts with the slain! Go! And they went out and attacked the city.
8 While they were attacking, I was left alone. I fell on my face, and I cried out, “Oh, Lord God! When you pour out your wrath on Jerusalem, will you destroy all that is left of Israel?”
9 He said to me: “Judah and the house of Israel are very, very guilty. The land is filled with blood, and the city is full of injustice. They have said, ‘The Lord has forsaken the land; the Lord sees nothing.’ 10 I most definitely won’t spare or pity anyone! I will hold them accountable for their ways.”
11 Just then the man who was dressed in linen with the writing case at his side returned and said, “I’ve done just as you commanded.”
Introduction to a deeper teaching
5 Every high priest is taken from the people and put in charge of things that relate to God for their sake, in order to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. 2 The high priest is able to deal gently with the ignorant and those who are misled since he himself is prone to weakness. 3 Because of his weakness, he must offer sacrifices for his own sins as well as for the people. 4 No one takes this honor for themselves but takes it only when they are called by God, just like Aaron.
5 In the same way Christ also didn’t promote himself to become high priest. Instead, it was the one who said to him,
You are my Son.
Today I have become your Father,
6 as he also says in another place,
You are a priest forever,
according to the order of Melchizedek.[a]
7 During his days on earth, Christ offered prayers and requests with loud cries and tears as his sacrifices to the one who was able to save him from death. He was heard because of his godly devotion. 8 Although he was a Son, he learned obedience from what he suffered. 9 After he had been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for everyone who obeys him. 10 He was appointed by God to be a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.
11 We have a lot to say about this topic, and it’s difficult to explain, because you have been lazy and you haven’t been listening. 12 Although you should have been teachers by now, you need someone to teach you an introduction to the basics about God’s message. You have come to the place where you need milk instead of solid food. 13 Everyone who lives on milk is not used to the word of righteousness, because they are babies. 14 But solid food is for the mature, whose senses are trained by practice to distinguish between good and evil.
Psalm 105
105 Give thanks to the Lord;
call upon his name;
make his deeds known to all people!
2 Sing to God;
sing praises to the Lord;
dwell on all his wondrous works!
3 Give praise to God’s holy name!
Let the hearts rejoice of all those seeking the Lord!
4 Pursue the Lord and his strength;
seek his face always!
5 Remember the wondrous works he has done,
all his marvelous works, and the justice he declared—
6 you who are the offspring of Abraham, his servant,
and the children of Jacob, his chosen ones.
7 The Lord—he is our God.
His justice is everywhere throughout the whole world.
8 God remembers his covenant forever,
the word he commanded to a thousand generations,
9 which he made with Abraham,
the solemn pledge he swore to Isaac.
10 God set it up as binding law for Jacob,
as an eternal covenant for Israel,
11 promising, “I hereby give you the land of Canaan
as your allotted inheritance.”
12 When they were few in number—
insignificant, just immigrants—
13 wandering from nation to nation,
from one kingdom to the next,
14 God didn’t let anyone oppress them.
God punished kings for their sake:
15 “Don’t touch my anointed ones;
don’t harm my prophets!”
28 A lying tongue hates those it crushes;
a flattering mouth causes destruction.
Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible