Old/New Testament

Ezekiel Cuts His Hair

5 “Now, human being, take a sharp sword. Use it like a barber’s razor to shave your head and beard. Then take scales and weigh and divide the hair. ² Burn one-third with fire when the days of the attack on Jerusalem are over. Burn it in the middle of the city. Then take one-third and cut it up with the knife all around the city. And scatter one-third to the wind. This is how I will chase them with a sword. ³ Also take a few of these hairs and tie them in the folds of your clothes. ⁴ Take a few more and throw them into the fire and burn them up. From there a fire will spread to all the people of Israel.

⁵ “This is what the Lord says: This is Jerusalem. I have put her at the center of the nations with countries all around her. ⁶ But she has refused to obey my laws. She has been more evil than the nations. She has refused to obey my rules even more than those around her. The people of Jerusalem have rejected my laws and have not lived by my rules.

⁷ “So this is what the Lord God says: You caused more confusion than the nations around you. You did not follow my rules or obey my laws. You have not even obeyed the laws of the nations around you.

⁸ “So this is what the Lord God says: I myself am against you. I will punish you and the nations will watch. ⁹ I will do things among you that I have not done before. I will never do anything like them again. I will do them because you do the things I hate. ¹⁰ So fathers among you will eat their children. And children will eat their fathers. I will punish you. I will scatter to the winds all who are left alive. ¹¹ So the Lord God says: As surely as I live, you have made my Temple unclean. You have done it with all your evil idols and the hated things you do. Because of this I will cut you off. I will have no pity. I will show no mercy. ¹² A third of you will die by disease or be destroyed by hunger inside your walls. A third will fall dead by the sword outside your walls. And a third I will scatter in every direction. I will chase them with a sword. ¹³ Then my anger will come to an end. I will use it up against them. Then I will be satisfied. Then they will know that I, the Lord God, have spoken. After I have carried out my anger against them, they will know how strongly I felt.

¹⁴ “I will make you a ruin. And I will make you a shame among the nations around you. All who pass by will see this. ¹⁵ Then you will be shamed by the nations around you. They will make fun of you. You will be a warning to them. They will be terrified. This will happen when I punish you in my great anger. I, the Lord, have spoken. ¹⁶ I will send a time of hunger to destroy you. Then I will make your hunger get even worse. I will cut off your supply of food. ¹⁷ I will send a time of hunger and wild animals against you. They will kill your children. Disease and death will sweep through your people. I will bring the sword against you to kill you. I, the Lord, have spoken.”

Prophecies Against the Mountains

6 Again the Lord spoke his word to me. The Lord said, ² “Human being, look toward the mountains of Israel. Prophesy against them. ³ Say, ‘Mountains of Israel, listen to the word of the Lord God. The Lord God says this to the mountains, the hills, the ravines and the valleys: I will bring a sword against you. I will destroy your places of idol worship. ⁴ Your altars will be destroyed. Your incense altars will be broken down. Your people will be killed in front of your idols. ⁵ I will lay the dead bodies of the Israelites before their idols. And I will scatter your bones around your altars. ⁶ In all the places you live, cities will become empty. And the places of idol worship will be ruined. Your altars will become lonely ruins. Your idols will be broken and brought to an end. Your incense altars will be cut down. And the things you made will be wiped out. ⁷ Your people will be killed and fall among you. Then you will know that I am the Lord God.

⁸ “‘But I will leave some people alive. Some will not be killed by the nations when you are scattered among the foreign lands. ⁹ Then those who have escaped will remember me. They will be living among the nations where they have been taken as captives. They will remember how I was hurt because they were unfaithful to me. They had turned away from me. They will remember how I was hurt because they desired to worship their idols. They will hate themselves because of the evil things they did that I hate. ¹⁰ Then they will know that I am the Lord. I did not bring this terrible thing on them for no reason.

¹¹ “‘This is what the Lord God says: Clap your hands, stamp your feet. Say, “Oh!” because the people of Israel have done terrible things. So they will die by war, hunger and disease. ¹² The person who is far away will die by disease. The one who is nearby will die in war. The person who is still alive and has escaped these will die from hunger. So I will carry out my anger on them. ¹³ Their people will lie dead among their idols around the altars. They will be on every high hill, on all the mountain tops and under every green tree and leafy oak. These are the places where they offered sweet-smelling incense to their idols. Then you will know that I am the Lord. ¹⁴ I will use my power against them. I will make the land empty and wasted from the desert to Diblah, wherever they live. Then they will know that I am the Lord.’”

Ezekiel Tells of the End

7 Again the Lord spoke his word to me. He said: ² “Human being, the Lord says this to the land of Israel: An end! The end has come on the four corners of the land. ³ Now the end has come for you. I will send my anger against you. I will judge you for the way you have lived. I will make you pay for your terrible actions. ⁴ I will have no pity on you. I will not hold back punishment from you. I will make you pay for your ways and for your terrible actions. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

⁵ “This is what the Lord God says: Disaster on top of disaster is coming. ⁶ The end has come! The end has come! It has stirred itself up against you! Look! It has come! ⁷ The end has come for you who live in the land! The time has come. The day of confusion is near. There will be no happy shouting on the mountains. ⁸ Soon I will pour out my anger against you. I will carry out my anger against you. I will judge you for the way you have lived. I will make you pay for all the things you have done that I hate. ⁹ I will show no pity. I will not hold back punishment. I will pay you back for the way you have lived and the terrible things you have done. Then you will know that I am the Lord who punishes.

¹⁰ “Look, the day is here. It has come. Destruction has come. Violence has grown. There is more pride than ever. ¹¹ Violence has grown into a weapon for punishing wickedness. None of the people will be left. None of that crowd, none of their wealth, and nothing of value will be left among them. ¹² The time has come. The day has arrived. Don’t let the buyer be happy or the seller be sad. My burning anger is against the whole crowd. ¹³ Sellers will not return to the land they have sold as long as they live. This is because the vision against all that crowd will not be changed. Because of their sins, no one will save his life. ¹⁴ They have blown the trumpet, and everything is ready. But no one is going to the battle. My anger is against all that crowd.

¹⁵ “The sword is outside. Disease and hunger are inside. The person who is in the field will die by the sword. Hunger and disease will destroy those in the city. ¹⁶ Those who are left alive and who escape will be on the mountains. They will moan like doves of the valleys. Each person will groan about his own sin. ¹⁷ All hands will hang weakly. All knees will become as weak as water. ¹⁸ They will put on rough cloth to show how sad they are. They will tremble all over with fear. Their faces will show their shame. And all their heads will be shaved. ¹⁹ The people will throw their silver into the streets. Their gold will be like trash. Their silver and gold will not save them from the Lord’s anger. It will not satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs. It was what caused them to fall into sin. ²⁰ They were proud of their beautiful jewelry. They used it to make their idols, which I hate, and their evil statues. So I will turn their wealth into something they hate. ²¹ And I will give it to the foreigners as treasures from war. I will give it to the evil people of the earth as treasure. These foreigners and evil people will dishonor the people’s jewelry. ²² I will also turn away from the people of Israel. They will dishonor my treasured place. Then robbers will enter and dishonor it.

²³ “Make chains for captives. The land is full of bloody crimes. And the city is full of violence. ²⁴ So I will bring the worst of the nations to take over the people’s houses. I will also end the pride of the rich. And their holy places will be dishonored. ²⁵ When the people are suffering greatly, they will look for peace. But there will be none. ²⁶ Disaster will come on top of disaster. Rumor will be added to rumor. Then they will try to get a vision from a prophet. Even the teachings of God from the priest will be lost. And advice from the elders will also be lost. ²⁷ The king will cry greatly. The prince will give up hope. The hands of the people who owned land will shake with fear. I will punish them for the way they have lived. The way they have judged others is the way I will judge them. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

Follow Jesus’ Example

12 So we have many people of faith around us. Their lives tell us what faith means. So let us run the race that is before us and never give up. We should remove from our lives anything that would get in the way. And we should remove the sin that so easily catches us. ² Let us look only to Jesus. He is the one who began our faith, and he makes our faith perfect. Jesus suffered death on the cross. But he accepted the shame of the cross as if it were nothing. He did this because of the joy that God put before him. And now he is sitting at the right side of God’s throne. ³ Think about Jesus. He held on patiently while sinful men were doing evil things against him. Look at Jesus’ example so that you will not get tired and stop trying.

God Is Like a Father

⁴ You are struggling against sin, but your struggles have not yet caused you to be killed. ⁵ You have forgotten his encouraging words for his sons:

⁷ So accept your sufferings as if they were a father’s punishment. God does these things to you as a father punishing his sons. All sons are punished by their fathers. ⁸ If you are never punished (and every son must be punished), you are not true children and not really sons. ⁹ We have all had fathers here on earth who punished us. And we respected our fathers. So it is even more important that we accept punishment from the Father of our spirits. If we do this, we will have life. ¹⁰ Our fathers on earth punished us for a short time. They punished us the way they thought was best. But God punishes us to help us, so that we can become holy as he is. ¹¹ We do not enjoy punishment. Being punished is painful at the time. But later, after we have learned from being punished, we have peace, because we start living in the right way.

Be Careful How You Live

¹² You have become weak. So make yourselves strong again. ¹³ Keep on the right path so the weak will not stumble but rather be strengthened.

¹⁴ Try to live in peace with all people. And try to live lives free from sin. If anyone’s life is not holy, he will never see the Lord. ¹⁵ Be careful that no one fails to get God’s grace. Be careful that no one becomes like a bitter weed growing among you. A person like that can ruin all of you. ¹⁶ Be careful that no one takes part in sexual sin. And be careful that no person is unholy like Esau. He sold all his rights as the oldest son for a single meal. ¹⁷ You remember that after Esau did this, he wanted to get his father’s blessing. He wanted this blessing so much that he cried. But his father refused to give him the blessing, because Esau could find no way to change what he had done.

¹⁸ You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire. You have not come to darkness, sadness and storms. ¹⁹ You have not come to the noise of a trumpet or to the sound of a voice. When the people of Israel heard the voice, they begged not to have to hear another word. ²⁰ They did not want to hear the command: “If anything, even an animal, touches the mountain, it must be put to death with stones.”^{[a] 21} What they saw was so terrible that Moses said, “I am shaking with fear.”^[b]

²² But you have not come to that kind of place. The new place you have come to is Mount Zion.^[c] You have come to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands of angels gathered together with joy. ²³ You have come to the meeting of God’s firstborn^[d] children. Their names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all people. And you have come to the spirits of good people who have been made perfect. ²⁴ You have come to Jesus, the One who brought the new agreement from God to his people. You have come to the sprinkled blood^[e] that has a better message than the blood of Abel.^[f]

²⁵ So be careful and do not refuse to listen when God speaks. They refused to listen to him when he warned them on earth. And they did not escape. Now God is warning us from heaven. So it will be worse for us if we refuse to listen to him. ²⁶ When he spoke before, his voice shook the earth. But now he has promised, “Once again I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.”^{[g] 27} The words “once again” clearly show us that everything that was made will be destroyed. These are the things that can be shaken. And only the things that cannot be shaken will remain.

²⁸ So let us be thankful because we have a kingdom that cannot be shaken. We should worship God in a way that pleases him. So let us worship him with respect and fear, ²⁹ because our God is like a fire that burns things up.