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Ezekiel 7-9

After such visual and visceral displays as representing Jerusalem on a brick and prophesying against it; lying on his side for over a year; and taking his own cut hair, burning it, and scattering it with a sword; Ezekiel must have acquired quite a reputation. His very life becomes an object lesson and a teaching display for the Judean exiles.

God is concerned about the glory of His name, so He must punish Jerusalem and the Judean population for their adulterous rebellion. Ironically, it is in the very places where God desires to have sweet and unhindered fellowship with His people that all types of lewd, profane acts of worship transpire. If there is any confusion as to what the Eternal is planning to do, then one need look no further than Ezekiel’s daily behavior.

The word of the Eternal came to me.

Eternal One: Son of man, this is what I, the Eternal Lord, have to say to the land of Israel:
    The end! The end has arrived
        for the four corners of the land and everyone in it.
    The end is upon you,
        and I will release My wrath against you.
    I will judge you according to your ways,
        and I will repay you for all your shocking actions.
    I will not look on you with pity or spare you—
        I will fully repay you for your shocking behavior and despicable deeds.
    Then you will know I am the Eternal One.

    This is what I, the Eternal Lord, have to say:
        Wave after wave of evil is coming!
    The end has arrived! The end has arrived!
        It has awakened against you! It has arrived!
    Doomsday has come for all who live in this land.
        The time has arrived; the day is near;
    There is no joy upon the mountains—
        only shouts of alarm and horrifying terror.
    It won’t be long now until I pour out My wrath on you,
        until I unleash My fierce anger against you;
    I will judge you according to your ways
        and repay you for all your shocking actions.
    I will not look on you with pity or spare you.
        I will fully repay you for your shocking behavior and despicable deeds.
    Then you will know it is I, the Eternal, who have crushed you.

10     Look, the day is here! It has arrived!
        Your doom has erupted.
    The rod has budded; conceit has blossomed!
11     The consequence—violence—has grown up into a rod to punish the wicked;
        no one will be left, not one of the many!
    No wealth, no valuables will be left from this doomsday.
12     The time has arrived; the day is now.
    Buyer, don’t celebrate; seller, don’t grieve,
        for My anger will come to burn all of you!
13     The seller won’t regain his treasures while they both live;
        for the vision has to do with everyone, and no one will escape My wrath!
    Because of each person’s iniquity,
        no one will be able to hold onto his life.

14     Though the trumpet will sound to get everything ready,
        no troops will march into battle
        because My wrath is against all the people of Jerusalem.
15     The sword falls on anyone outside the city;
        disease and famine ravage those who remain inside.
    Those in the open will die by the sword;
        those inside the city walls will be consumed by famine and disease.
16     The survivors will run for the mountains
        and moan like doves because of their sins.
17     Every hand will go weak and limp;
        every knee will turn to water.
18     They will dress in sackcloth,
        and horror will cover them.
    Their faces will be plastered with shame,
        and their heads will be shaved.
19     They will throw their silver into the streets
        and treat their gold as impure, worthless,
    Once they discover their silver and gold cannot rescue them
        on the day the Eternal ignites His fierce anger.
    They will not satisfy their hunger or fill their bellies with their riches,
        for their earthly riches are what made them stumble into sin.
20     They took pride in their attractive jewelry
        and constructed breathless idols and disgusting images with it.
    Therefore, I will make their riches impure and disgusting to them.
21     I will give their religious rubbish away to strangers
        as the wicked marauders of the earth loot and defile their treasures.
22     I will turn My head
        so they may desecrate My treasured place;
    Pillagers will enter into it, profane it, and vandalize it.

23     Forge a chain,
        for the land is soaked in blood and violence,
    And the city is brimming with brutality!
24     I will stir up the very worst of the nations
        to take possession of their houses.
    I will put an end to the strong ones’ pride,
        and their most sacred sites will be desecrated.
25     When the horror of My wrath comes, they will look for a calm place,
        but there will be nothing but torrential terror.
26     One disaster after another will hit them;
        one bad report after another will come to them.
    Then they will seek a vision from any prophet,
        but no instruction in the law from the priest
        and no wise counsel from the elders will be found.
27     The king will grieve,
        the prince will wrap himself in despair,
        and the hands of the common people will tremble.
    I will deal with them according to the way they dealt with others;
        I will judge them according to way they judged others.

Then they will know I am the Eternal One.

Fourteen months after my first vision, on the fifth day of the sixth month of the sixth year, while I was sitting at my house, the elders of Judah came to me. The hand of the Eternal Lord fell upon me, and I had a vision. I looked, and I saw what appeared to be a human—just as in my first vision. From his waist down I saw something like radiant fire, and from his waist up it was like gleaming metal surrounded by a glowing light. He held out what looked to be a hand and seized me by the hair. The Spirit hoisted me up between heaven and earth and transported me—through a vision of God—to Jerusalem. I was taken just inside the entrance of the gate to the inner court that faces north where the infuriating image sat—the image that arouses God’s jealousy. Right in front of me was the glory of the God of Israel, just as I had seen before in the plain.

Eternal One: Son of man, lift your eyes and look northward.

So I looked to the north, and I couldn’t help noticing the infuriating image that arouses God’s jealousy beside the entrance to the altar’s gate.

Eternal One: Son of man, do you see what they are doing right in front of the temple? The people of Israel are committing shocking actions that drive Me away from My own sanctuary! But you will see them doing things far worse than this.

He then led me to the entrance of the temple court. I looked and saw an opening in the wall.

Eternal One: Son of man, dig through this wall.

So I dug through the wall, widening that small hole until I saw another entrance.

Eternal One: Go inside, and witness the shocking sins being committed by the people of Israel.

10 And so I went in and looked around. It was unbelievable! There were engravings all over the wall of every forbidden thing—reptiles, impure animals, and all the lifeless idols worshiped by the people of Israel. 11 In front of the idols stood the 70 elders of Israel’s community, worshiping. Even Jaazaniah, son of Shaphan (a leader of Josiah’s reforms), was standing with them. Each one of the elders held a censer, and a perfumed cloud of incense was ascending from them.

Eternal One: 12 Son of man, are you seeing what each of the elders of Israel is doing in the dark with their carved images? They are foolish enough to say, “The Eternal does not see what we are doing since He abandoned the land to our Babylonian conquerors and their gods.”[a]

13 This isn’t even the worst of it. You will see them doing things far more shocking than this.

14 Then He led me to the entrance of the north-facing gate of the Eternal’s own sanctuary, and on the edge of the holiest ground in Judah, I saw women sitting around weeping for Tammuz.

Tammuz is a Babylonian god who descends every year into the underworld when the vegetation begins to die. Weeping is part of the religious rites performed for him.

Eternal One: 15 Are you seeing this, son of man? You will see things far more shocking than this.

16 Then He led me to the inner court of the Eternal’s temple. There, in that sacred place between the portico and the altar of burnt offerings, were roughly 25 men. They all had their backs to the temple of the Eternal One so they could face the east and bow to the rising sun.

Eternal One: 17 Are you seeing this, son of man? It’s bad enough that the people of Judah partake in the kind of shocking things that are happening here. But do they have to fill the land with violence and continue to arouse My anger with their disgusting acts over and over again? Look, they are putting the branch to their nose![b] 18 This is why I will respond in anger. I will not spare them or shed a single tear of compassion for them. No matter how loudly they plead to Me, I will not listen to them!

Then I heard Him exclaim a judgment on the people of Jerusalem.

Eternal One: Heavenly executioners, approach the city! Have your weapons in hand!

I then saw six men marching from the direction of the upper gate which faces north. Each of them had a deadly weapon in hand. Another man accompanied God’s executioners. He was clothed in linen and carried a writing kit at his side. All of them entered and stood next to the bronze altar.

The glory of the God of Israel rose up from the winged guardian[c] where it had rested and moved to the doorway of the temple. Then the Eternal called to the man who was dressed in linen—the one carrying the writing kit at his side.

Eternal One: Go through this city, yes Jerusalem, and put a mark on the forehead of all those who are grieved by the shocking things going on in the city.

The elders who come to Ezekiel to hear this vision must be confused. Jerusalem, they think, has already suffered enough. Surely it will not suffer more. But that is wishful thinking, not the prophet’s message. The subjugation of Judah to Babylon takes place over about 20 years. The Babylonians first assaulted Jerusalem in 605 b.c. and took some of the chief citizens into exile. Then in 597 b.c., Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem for 3 months, captured the city, looted the temple and palace, and deported many of the most prominent people to Babylon. The current exiles can hardly imagine anything worse, but it will happen. In 586 b.c., Nebuchadnezzar will return to Jerusalem, and this time he will leave nothing but ashes. After a grueling 18-month siege, Nebuchadnezzar will break through Jerusalem’s wall and level it, take whatever riches he desires, burn every building (including God’s temple) to the ground, and deport what few people survive the battle. This final battle and conquest will decimate God’s home; it will leave Jerusalem in ruins. There will be no place left for the exiles to return.

I listened as He addressed the other six, the heavenly executioners.

Eternal One: Follow this man through the city, and kill. Don’t shed a single tear of compassion. Obliterate the old people, young people, even women and children. Slaughter them all! But don’t lay a finger on anyone with the mark on his forehead. Begin at My sanctuary.

So the executioners started by killing the elders in front of the sanctuary.

Eternal One: Defile the sanctuary: fill the courts with the bodies of the slain! Go!

So they continued their slaughter in the city. While they went out to kill the people, I was left alone. I fell down and buried my face in the ground. I cried out to God.

Ezekiel: O Eternal Lord! Do You intend to wipe out everyone left in Israel the way You unleashed Your anger on Jerusalem?

Eternal One: The sins committed by the people of Israel and Judah are very great and serious indeed. The land is saturated with blood. The city has perverted justice. They all say, “The Eternal has abandoned the land to our Babylonian conquerors and their gods, so He doesn’t see anything.” 10 Therefore, I will not spare them or shed tears of compassion. I will set their deeds on their heads. They have done this to themselves.

11 Right then, the man clothed in linen and carrying the writing kit at his side returned and said, “I have done as You commanded.”

Hebrews 5

Remember what I said earlier about the role of the high priest, even the ones chosen by human beings? The job of every high priest is reconciliation: approaching God on behalf of others and offering Him gifts and sacrifices to repair the damage caused by our sins against God and each other. The high priest should have compassion for those who are ignorant of the faith and those who fall out of the faith because he also has wrestled with human weakness, and so the priest must offer sacrifices both for his sins and for those of the people. The office of high priest and the honor that goes along with it isn’t one that someone just takes. One must be set aside, called by God, just as God called Aaron, the brother of Moses.

In the same way, the Anointed One, our Liberating King, didn’t call Himself but was appointed to His priestly office by God, who said to Him,

You are My Son.
    Today I have become Your Father,[a]

and who also says elsewhere,

You are a priest forever—
    in the honored order of Melchizedek.[b]

Jesus is the Great High Priest because He serves as the ultimate mediator between God and humanity. In this role He serves as both the priest and the sacrifice that atones for sins once and for all. But we are still called to be priests for each other. These are not mutually exclusive ideas.

Whenever you share a cup of cold water in Jesus’ name or pray for someone, you’re a priest. You’re communicating the grace of God. There are times that we need a priest, too, right? If we are to be like Him, we must allow someone else to be a priest for us. There are problems so great and pains so deep and sins so intractable that we need a person of flesh and blood to join us in carrying our concerns to God.

When Jesus was on the earth, a man of flesh and blood, He offered up prayers and pleas, groans and tears to the One who could save Him from death. He was heard because He approached God with reverence. Although He was a Son, Jesus learned obedience through the things He suffered. And once He was perfected through that suffering He became the way of eternal salvation for all those who hear and follow Him, 10 for God appointed Him to be a High Priest in the order of Melchizedek.

11 I have a lot more to say about this, but it may be hard for you to follow since you’ve become dull in your understanding. 12 By this time, you ought to be teachers yourselves, yet I feel like you want me to reteach you the most basic things that God wants you to know. It’s almost like you’re a baby again, coddled at your mother’s breast, nursing, not ready for solid food. 13 No one who lives on milk alone can know the ins and outs of what it means to be righteous and pursue justice; that’s because he is only a baby. 14 But solid food is for those who have come of age, for those who have learned through practice to distinguish good from evil.

Psalm 105:1-15

Psalm 105

Come, offer thanks to the Eternal; invoke His holy name.
    Tell other people about the things He has done.
Sing songs of praise to Him;
    tell stories of all His miracles.
Revel in His holy name.
    May the hearts of the people who seek the Eternal celebrate and experience great joy.
Seek the Eternal and His power;
    look to His face constantly.
Remember the wonderful things He has done,
    His miracles and the wise decisions He has made,
O children of Abraham, His servant;
    O children of Jacob, His chosen people!

He is the Eternal, our True God;
    His justice extends to every corner of the earth.
He keeps His covenant promises forever
    and remembers the word He spoke to a thousand generations—
The covenant He made with Abraham
    and His sworn oath to Isaac, his son.
10 Then God confirmed it to Jacob—decreed it so—
    to Israel He promised a never-ending covenant,
11 Saying, “I will give you the land of Canaan
    as your part; it will be your inheritance.”

12 When God’s people were only a few in number—
    indeed, very few—they were strangers in a foreign land.
13 They roamed from place to place,
    from one kingdom to another.
14 God didn’t allow anyone to tyrannize them;
    He rebuked kings in order to protect His people:
15 “Do not lay a hand on My anointed people;
    do not do any harm to My prophets.”

Proverbs 26:28

28 Liars take no pity on those they crush with their lies,
    and flattery spoils everyone it touches.

The Voice (VOICE)

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.