Old/New Testament

1 ^1-2 When I was thirty years old, I was living near the Chebar Canal off the Euphrates River among the exiles. On the fifth day of the fourth month (during the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s exile), the windows of the heavens were thrown open and I saw visions of the True God.

³ The word of the Eternal One came to Ezekiel the priest (Buzi’s son) near the Chebar Canal in the land of the Chaldeans. It was there that the hand of the Eternal settled on him.

⁴ I looked up, and I saw a ferocious and stormy wind coming from the north—a monstrous cloud filled with the constant dance of lightning, surrounded by a glowing, all-encompassing light. At the center of the lightning flashes was something that looked like gleaming metal, ⁵ and within that otherworldly scene were what looked like four living creatures. The creatures had a form that resembled humans, ⁶ but they each had four faces and four wings. ⁷ Their legs were straight like the pillars of a temple, and their feet looked like the hoofs of a calf and shimmered in the firelight like polished bronze. ⁸ They had human hands on all four sides under each wing. All four of these living creatures had faces and wings, ⁹ and their wings touched one another. As they moved, they did not turn to the right or left; they all went straight ahead. ¹⁰ Each of the four creatures had four faces: a human face in front, the face of a lion on the right, the face of an ox on the left, and the face of an eagle in the back. ¹¹ The features of their faces were similar. Two of the creatures’ wings stretched upward, and one wing on each side of each creature was touching the wing of the creature on either side of it. The other two wings covered each creature’s body. ¹² All of the living creatures went straight ahead wherever the spirit directed them; the creatures moved without turning to the right or left. ¹³ The living creatures had an appearance of something that looked like burning charcoal. Untamed ribbons of fire darted back and forth among them. It was all very bright, and lightning bolted out of the glowing fire. ¹⁴ The living creatures ran back and forth like flashes of lightning.

¹⁵ As I observed the living creatures with their four faces, I saw a wheel on the ground next to each of them. ¹⁶ The wheels glittered like sun-kissed jewels. All four wheels looked exactly alike, each appearing to have another wheel inside it. ¹⁷ As the wheels moved, they were able to go in the four directions the living creatures faced. They rolled straight ahead, never swerving off to the side. ¹⁸ The rims of the four wheels were tall and inspired fear, filled with eyes all around. ¹⁹ The wheels went wherever the living creatures went: when the living creatures moved, the wheels stayed right beside them; when the living creatures rose up from the ground, the wheels rose with them. ²⁰ The living creatures went wherever the spirit directed, and the wheels stayed right beside them; for the spirit of the creatures directed the wheels. ²¹ When the creatures moved, so did the wheels; when the creatures stood still, so did the wheels; when the creatures rose up from the ground, so did the wheels, because the spirit of the four living creatures was in the wheels.

²² Suspended above the living creatures was something like a broad expanse; it had an awesome gleam like a crystal ceiling and stretched wide over them. ²³ Beneath the expanse, the creatures stretched out their wings toward each other, and each creature had another pair of wings it used to cover both sides of its body. ^24-25 Whenever the creatures moved, I heard the violent fluttering of their wings, like roaring rapids, like the voice of God Almighty, like the sound of an army besieging a city. Whenever the creatures stopped, they lowered their wings to their sides. As they stood silent, with their wings lowered, a thunderous voice sounded high above the expanse over their heads.

²⁶ And above that expanse over their heads was something that looked like a throne made of sapphire. Sitting on that throne high above the earth was a humanlike figure. ²⁷ From his waist up, I saw what looked to be glowing metal surrounded by an all-encompassing fire. Below his waist, I looked and saw something like a blazing fire. A glorious radiance was all around Him. ²⁸ The glorious radiance resembled a rainbow that lights up the clouds on a rainy day. This was nothing less than the glory of the Eternal that appeared to me. When I saw the vision of the Eternal and His glory, I fell upon my face and heard a voice speaking to me.

² As soon as the voice spoke, the Spirit entered me and lifted me to my feet; I listened to what the voice told me.

⁹ When I looked, I saw a hand extended toward me. In its palm was a scroll. ¹⁰ As I looked on, the scroll was unrolled, and I could see that there was writing on the front and back. It was covered with words of lament, grief, and disaster.

11 Faith is the assurance of things you have hoped for, the absolute conviction that there are realities you’ve never seen. ² It was by faith that our forebears were approved. ³ Through faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God; everything we now see was fashioned from that which is invisible.

⁴ By faith Abel presented to God a sacrifice more acceptable than his brother Cain’s. By faith Abel learned he was righteous, as God Himself testified by approving his offering. And by faith he still speaks, although his voice was silenced by death.

⁵ By faith Enoch was carried up into heaven so that he did not see death; no one could find him because God had taken him. Before he was taken up, it was said of him that he had pleased God. ⁶ Without faith no one can please God because the one coming to God must believe He exists, and He rewards those who come seeking.

⁷ By faith Noah respected God’s warning regarding the flood—the likes of which no one had ever seen—and built an ark that saved his family. In this he condemned the world and inherited the righteousness that comes by faith.

⁸ By faith Abraham heard God’s call to travel to a place he would one day receive as an inheritance; and he obeyed, not knowing where God’s call would take him. ⁹ By faith he journeyed to the land of the promise as a foreigner; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, his fellow heirs to the promise ¹⁰ because Abraham looked ahead to a city with foundations, a city laid out and built by God.

¹¹ By faith Abraham’s wife Sarah became fertile long after menopause because she believed God would be faithful to His promise. ¹² So from this man, who was almost at death’s door, God brought forth descendants, as many as the stars in the sky and as impossible to count as the sands of the shore.

¹³ All these I have mentioned died in faith without receiving the full promises, although they saw the fulfillment as though from a distance. These people accepted and confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on this earth ¹⁴ because people who speak like this make it plain that they are still seeking a homeland. ¹⁵ If this was only a bit of nostalgia for a time and place they left behind, then certainly they might have turned around and returned. ¹⁶ But such saints as these look forward to a far better place, a heavenly country. So God is not ashamed to be called their God because He has prepared a heavenly city for them.

¹⁷ By faith Abraham, when he endured God’s testing, offered his beloved son Isaac as a sacrifice. The one who had received God’s promise was willing to offer his only son; ¹⁸ God had told him, “It is through Isaac that your descendants will bear your name,”^{[a] 19} and he concluded that God was capable of raising him from the dead, which, figuratively, is indeed what happened.