Old/New Testament

3 He said to me, Son of man, eat what you find [in this book]; eat this scroll; then go and speak to the house of Israel.

² So I opened my mouth, and He caused me to eat the scroll.

³ And He said to me, Son of man, eat this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it. Then I ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth.

⁴ And He said to me, Son of man, go, get you to the house of Israel and speak to them with My words.

⁵ For you are not sent to a people of a foreign speech and of a difficult language but to the house of Israel;

⁶ Not to many peoples of foreign speech and of a hard language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely, had I sent you to such people, they would have listened to you and heeded My words.

⁷ But the house of Israel will not listen to you and obey you since they will not listen to Me and obey Me, for all the house of Israel are impudent and stubborn of heart.

⁸ Behold, I have made your face strong and hard against their faces and your forehead strong and hard against their foreheads.

⁹ Like an adamant harder than flint or a diamond point have I made your forehead; fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house.^(A)

¹⁰ Moreover, He said to me, Son of man, all My words that I shall speak to you, receive in your heart and hear with your ears.

¹¹ And go, get you to the [Jewish] captives [in Babylon], to the children of your people, and speak to them and tell them, Thus says the Lord God, whether they will hear or refuse to hear.

¹² Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me a voice of a great rushing [saying], Blessed be the glory of the Lord from His place [above the firmament].

¹³ I heard the noise of the wings of the living creatures as they touched and joined each one the other [its sister wing], and I heard the noise of the wheels beside them and the noise of a great rushing.

¹⁴ So the Spirit lifted me up and took me away [in the vision], and I went in bitterness [of discouragement] in the heat of my spirit; and the hand of the Lord was strong upon me.

¹⁵ Then I came to them of the captivity at Tel-abib, who sat and dwelt by the river of Chebar, and I sat where they sat and remained there among them seven days, overwhelmed with astonishment and silent.

¹⁶ And at the end of seven days, the word of the Lord came to me:

¹⁷ Son of man, I have made you a watchman to the house of Israel; therefore hear the word at My mouth and give them warning from Me.^(B)

¹⁸ If I say to the wicked, You shall surely die, and you do not give him warning or speak to warn the wicked to turn from his wicked way, to save his life, the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at your hand.

¹⁹ Yet if you warn the wicked and he turn not from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity, but you have delivered yourself.

²⁰ Again, if a righteous man turns from his righteousness (right doing and right standing with God) and some gift or providence which I lay before him he perverts into an occasion to sin and he commits iniquity, he shall die; because you have not given him warning, he shall die in his sin and his righteous deeds which he has done shall not be remembered, but his blood will I require at your hand.

²¹ Nevertheless if you warn the righteous man not to sin and he does not sin, he shall surely live because he is warned; also you have delivered yourself from guilt.

²² And the hand of the Lord was there upon me, and He said to me, Arise, go forth into the plain and I will talk with you there.

²³ Then I arose and went forth into the plain, and behold, the glory of the Lord stood there, like the glory I had seen by the river Chebar, and I fell on my face.

²⁴ Then the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet; He spoke and said to me, Go, shut yourself up in your house.

²⁵ But you, O son of man, behold, ropes will be put upon you and you will be bound with them, and you cannot go out among people.

²⁶ And I will make your tongue cleave to the roof of your mouth so that you cannot talk and be a reprover of the people, for they are a rebellious house.

²⁷ But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth and you shall say to the people, Thus says the Lord God; he who hears, let him hear, and he who refuses to hear, let him refuse; for they are a rebellious house.

4 And you, son of man, take a tile and lay it before you, and make upon it a drawing of a city, even Jerusalem.

² And put siege works against it, build a siege wall against it, and cast up a mound against it; set camps also against it and set battering rams against it round about.

³ Moreover, take a plate of iron and place it for an iron wall between you and the city; and set your face toward it and it shall be besieged, and you shall press the siege against it. This is a sign to the house of Israel.

⁴ Then [bound as you are] lie upon your left [and north] side to bear symbolically the iniquity of the house of the ten tribes of Israel upon that side. According to the number of days that you shall lie upon it you shall bear their iniquity.

⁵ For I have laid upon you the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, 390 days [representing 390 years]; so you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

⁶ And when you have fulfilled the days for Israel, lie again, but on your right [and south] side, and you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days. I have appointed you one day for each year.

⁷ Therefore you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem and your arm shall be uncovered [ready for battle], and you shall prophesy against [the city].

⁸ And, behold, I will lay bands upon you and you shall not turn yourself from one side to another till you have ended the days of your siege.

⁹ Also take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, and put them into one vessel and make bread of them. According to the number of the days that you shall lie upon your side, 390 days you shall eat of it.

¹⁰ And the food you eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels or a full half pound a day, to be eaten at a fixed time each day.

¹¹ You shall drink water by measure also, about one quart or the sixth part of a hin; you shall drink at a fixed time each day.

¹² And you shall eat your food as barley cakes and you shall bake it with human dung as fuel in the sight of the people.

¹³ And the Lord said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the nations to whom I will drive them.^(C)

¹⁴ Then said I, Ah, Lord God! Behold, I have never defiled myself. From my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dies of itself or is torn in pieces; neither did there ever come abominable flesh into my mouth.^(D)

¹⁵ Then He said to me, Behold, I will let you use cow’s dung instead of human dung, and you shall prepare your food with it.

¹⁶ Moreover, He said to me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread [by which life is supported] in Jerusalem; and they shall eat bread rationed by weight and with fearfulness, and they shall drink water rationed by measure and with dismay (silent, speechless grief caused by the impending starvation),^(E)

¹⁷ In order that they may lack bread and water and look at one another in dismay and waste away [in their punishment] for their iniquity.

²⁰ [With eyes of] faith Isaac, looking far into the future, invoked blessings upon Jacob and Esau.^(A)

²¹ [Prompted] by faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons and bowed in prayer over the top of his staff.^(B)

²² [Actuated] by faith Joseph, when nearing the end of his life, referred to [the promise of God for] the departure of the Israelites out of Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his own bones.^(C)

²³ [Prompted] by faith Moses, after his birth, was kept concealed for three months by his parents, because they saw how comely the child was; and they were not overawed and terrified by the king’s decree.^(D)

²⁴ [Aroused] by faith Moses, when he had grown to maturity and ^[a]become great, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter,^(E)

²⁵ Because he preferred to share the oppression [suffer the hardships] and bear the shame of the people of God rather than to have the fleeting enjoyment of a sinful life.

²⁶ He considered the contempt and abuse and shame [borne for] the Christ (the Messiah Who was to come) to be greater wealth than all the treasures of Egypt, for he looked forward and away to the reward (recompense).

²⁷ [Motivated] by faith he left Egypt behind him, being unawed and undismayed by the wrath of the king; for he never flinched but held staunchly to his purpose and endured steadfastly as one who gazed on Him Who is invisible.^(F)

²⁸ By faith (simple trust and confidence in God) he instituted and carried out the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood [on the doorposts], so that the destroyer of the firstborn (the angel) might not touch those [of the children of Israel].^(G)

²⁹ [Urged on] by faith the people crossed the Red Sea as [though] on dry land, but when the Egyptians tried to do the same thing they were swallowed up [by the sea].^(H)

³⁰ Because of faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encompassed for seven days [by the Israelites].^(I)

³¹ [Prompted] by faith Rahab the prostitute was not destroyed along with those who refused to believe and obey, because she had received the spies in peace [without enmity].^(J)

³² And what shall I say further? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets,^(K)

³³ Who by [the help of] faith subdued kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promised blessings, closed the mouths of lions,^(L)

³⁴ Extinguished the power of raging fire, escaped the devourings of the sword, out of frailty and weakness won strength and became stalwart, even mighty and resistless in battle, routing alien hosts.^(M)

³⁵ [Some] women received again their dead by a resurrection. Others were tortured ^[b]to death with clubs, refusing to accept release [offered on the terms of denying their faith], so that they might be resurrected to a better life.^(N)

³⁶ Others had to suffer the trial of mocking and scourging and even chains and imprisonment.

³⁷ They were stoned to death; they were lured with tempting offers [to renounce their faith]; they were sawn asunder; they were slaughtered by the sword; [while they were alive] they had to go about wrapped in the skins of sheep and goats, utterly destitute, oppressed, cruelly treated—

³⁸ [Men] of whom the world was not worthy—roaming over the desolate places and the mountains, and [living] in caves and caverns and holes of the earth.

³⁹ And all of these, though they won divine approval by [means of] their faith, did not receive the fulfillment of what was promised,

⁴⁰ Because God had us in mind and had something better and greater in view for us, so that they [these heroes and heroines of faith] should not come to perfection apart from us [before we could join them].