Old/New Testament
5 “Son of dust, take a sharp sword and use it as a barber’s razor to shave your head and beard; use balances to weigh the hair into three equal parts. 2 Place a third of it at the center of your map of Jerusalem. After your siege, burn it there. Scatter another third across your map and slash at it with a knife. Scatter the last third to the wind, for I will chase my people with the sword. 3 Keep just a bit of the hair and tie it up in your robe; 4 then take a few hairs out and throw them into the fire, for a fire shall come from this remnant and destroy all Israel.”
5-7 The Lord God says, “This illustrates what will happen to Jerusalem, for she has turned away from my laws and has been even more wicked than the nations surrounding her.” 8 Therefore the Lord God says: “I, even I, am against you and will punish you publicly while all the nations watch. 9 Because of the terrible sins you have committed, I will punish you more terribly than I have ever done before or ever will again. 10 Fathers will eat their own sons, and sons will eat their fathers; and those who survive will be scattered into all the world.
11 “For I promise you: Because you have defiled my Temple with idols and evil sacrifices, therefore I will not spare you nor pity you at all. 12 One-third of you will die from famine and disease; one-third will be slaughtered by the enemy; and one-third I will scatter to the winds, sending the sword of the enemy chasing after you. 13 Then at last my anger will be appeased. And all Israel will know that what I threaten I do.
14 “So I will make a public example of you before all the surrounding nations and before everyone traveling past the ruins of your land. 15 You will become a laughingstock to the world and an awesome example to everyone, for all to see what happens when the Lord turns against an entire nation in furious rebuke. I, the Lord, have spoken it!
16 “I will shower you with deadly arrows of famine to destroy you. The famine will become more and more serious until every bit of bread is gone. 17 And not only famine will come, but wild animals will attack and kill you and your families; disease and war will stalk your land, and the sword of the enemy will slay you; I, the Lord, have spoken it!”
6 Again a message came from the Lord:
2 “Son of dust, look over toward the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them. 3 Say to them, ‘O mountains of Israel, hear the message of the Lord God against you and against the rivers and valleys. I, even I the Lord, will bring war upon you to destroy your idols. 4-7 All your cities will be smashed and burned, and the idol altars abandoned. Your gods will be shattered; the bones of their worshipers will lie scattered among the altars. Then at last you will know I am the Lord.
8 “‘But I will let a few of my people escape—to be scattered among the nations of the world. 9 Then when they are exiled among the nations, they will remember me, for I will take away their adulterous hearts—their love of idols—and I will blind their lecherous eyes that long for other gods. Then at last they will loathe themselves for all this wickedness. 10 They will realize that I alone am God and that I wasn’t fooling when I told them that all this would happen to them.’”
11 The Lord God says: “Raise your hands in horror and shake your head[a] with deep remorse and say, ‘Alas for all the evil we have done!’ For you are going to perish from war and famine and disease. 12 Disease will strike down those in exile; war will destroy those in the land of Israel; and any who remain will die by famine and siege. So at last I will expend my fury on you. 13 When your slain lie scattered among your idols and altars on every hill and mountain and under every green tree and great oak where they offered incense to their gods—you will realize that I alone am God. 14 I will crush you and make your cities desolate from the wilderness in the south to Riblah in the north. Then you will know I am the Lord.”
7 This further message came to me from God:
2 “Tell Israel, ‘Wherever you look—east, west, north, or south—your land is finished. 3 No hope remains, for I will loose my anger on you for your worshiping of idols. 4 I will turn my eyes away and show no pity; I will repay you in full, and you shall know I am the Lord.’”
5-6 The Lord God says: “With one blow after another I will finish you. The end has come; your final doom is waiting. 7 O Israel, the day of your damnation dawns; the time has come; the day of trouble nears. It is a day of shouts of anguish, not shouts of joy! 8-9 Soon I will pour out my fury and let it finish its work of punishing you for all your evil deeds. I will not spare nor pity you, and you will know that I, the Lord, am doing it. 10-11 The day of judgment has come; the morning dawns, for your wickedness and pride have run their course and reached their climax—none of these rich and wicked men of pride shall live. All your boasting will die away, and no one will be left to bewail your fate.
12 “Yes, the time has come; the day draws near. There will be nothing to buy or sell, for the wrath of God is on the land. 13 And even if a merchant lives, his business will be gone, for God has spoken against all the people of Israel; all will be destroyed. Not one of those whose lives are filled with sin will recover.
14 “The trumpets shout to Israel’s army, ‘Mobilize!’ but no one listens, for my wrath is on them all. 15 If you go outside the walls, there stands the enemy to kill you. If you stay inside, famine and disease will devour you. 16 Any who escape will be lonely as mourning doves hiding on the mountains, each weeping for his sins. 17 All hands shall be feeble, and all knees as weak as water. 18 You shall clothe yourselves with sackcloth, and horror and shame shall cover you; you shall shave your heads in sorrow and remorse.
19 “Throw away your money! Toss it out like worthless rubbish, for it will have no value in that day of wrath. It will neither satisfy nor feed you, for your love of money is the reason for your sin. 20 I gave you gold to use in decorating the Temple, and you used it instead to make idols! Therefore, I will take it all away from you. 21 I will give it to foreigners and to wicked men as booty. They shall defile my Temple. 22 I will not look when they defile it, nor will I stop them. Like robbers, they will loot the treasures and leave the Temple in ruins.
23 “Prepare chains for my people, for the land is full of bloody crimes. Jerusalem is filled with violence, so I will enslave her people. 24 I will crush your pride by bringing to Jerusalem the worst of the nations to occupy your homes, break down your fortifications you are so proud of, and defile your Temple. 25 For the time has come for the cutting off of Israel. You will sue for peace, but you won’t get it. 26-27 Calamity upon calamity will befall you; woe upon woe, disaster upon disaster! You will long for a prophet to guide you, but the priests and elders and the kings and princes will stand helpless, weeping in despair. The people will tremble with fear, for I will do to them the evil they have done and give them all their just deserts. They shall learn that I am the Lord.”
12 Since we have such a huge crowd of men of faith watching us from the grandstands, let us strip off anything that slows us down or holds us back, and especially those sins that wrap themselves so tightly around our feet and trip us up; and let us run with patience the particular race that God has set before us.
2 Keep your eyes on Jesus, our leader and instructor. He was willing to die a shameful death on the cross because of the joy he knew would be his afterwards; and now he sits in the place of honor by the throne of God.
3 If you want to keep from becoming fainthearted and weary, think about his patience as sinful men did such terrible things to him. 4 After all, you have never yet struggled against sin and temptation until you sweat great drops of blood.
5 And have you quite forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you, his child? He said, “My son, don’t be angry when the Lord punishes you. Don’t be discouraged when he has to show you where you are wrong. 6 For when he punishes you, it proves that he loves you. When he whips you, it proves you are really his child.”
7 Let God train you, for he is doing what any loving father does for his children. Whoever heard of a son who was never corrected? 8 If God doesn’t punish you when you need it, as other fathers punish their sons, then it means that you aren’t really God’s son at all—that you don’t really belong in his family. 9 Since we respect our fathers here on earth, though they punish us, should we not all the more cheerfully submit to God’s training so that we can begin really to live?
10 Our earthly fathers trained us for a few brief years, doing the best for us that they knew how, but God’s correction is always right and for our best good, that we may share his holiness. 11 Being punished isn’t enjoyable while it is happening—it hurts! But afterwards we can see the result, a quiet growth in grace and character.
12 So take a new grip with your tired hands, stand firm on your shaky legs, 13 and mark out a straight, smooth path for your feet so that those who follow you, though weak and lame, will not fall and hurt themselves but become strong.
14 Try to stay out of all quarrels, and seek to live a clean and holy life, for one who is not holy will not see the Lord. 15 Look after each other so that not one of you will fail to find God’s best blessings. Watch out that no bitterness takes root among you, for as it springs up it causes deep trouble, hurting many in their spiritual lives. 16 Watch out that no one becomes involved in sexual sin or becomes careless about God as Esau did: he traded his rights as the oldest son for a single meal. 17 And afterwards, when he wanted those rights back again, it was too late, even though he wept bitter tears of repentance. So remember, and be careful.
18 You have not had to stand face to face with terror, flaming fire, gloom, darkness, and a terrible storm as the Israelites did at Mount Sinai when God gave them his laws. 19 For there was an awesome trumpet blast and a voice with a message so terrible that the people begged God to stop speaking. 20 They staggered back under God’s command that if even an animal touched the mountain it must die. 21 Moses himself was so frightened at the sight that he shook with terrible fear.
22 But you have come right up into Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the gathering of countless happy angels; 23 and to the church, composed of all those registered in heaven; and to God who is Judge of all; and to the spirits of the redeemed in heaven, already made perfect; 24 and to Jesus himself, who has brought us his wonderful new agreement; and to the sprinkled blood, which graciously forgives instead of crying out for vengeance as the blood of Abel did.
25 So see to it that you obey him who is speaking to you. For if the people of Israel did not escape when they refused to listen to Moses, the earthly messenger, how terrible our danger if we refuse to listen to God who speaks to us from heaven! 26 When he spoke from Mount Sinai his voice shook the earth, but, “Next time,” he says, “I will not only shake the earth but the heavens too.” 27 By this he means that he will sift out everything without solid foundations so that only unshakable things will be left.
28 Since we have a Kingdom nothing can destroy, let us please God by serving him with thankful hearts and with holy fear and awe. 29 For our God is a consuming fire.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.