Old/New Testament
The scroll Ezekiel is handed is a transcript of what he will report about Jerusalem’s fate to his fellow exiles in Babylonia. Although scrolls typically have writing on only one side (the front), the prophet sees that this scroll is covered with writing on both sides. This signals not only the overflowing anger that God harbors for His people but also the scope of the disaster that will overwhelm God’s rebellious nation.
3 The Voice (to Ezekiel): Son of man, eat what you find here—consume the scroll you see before you. Then go and preach to the people of Israel.
2 So I opened my mouth, and He fed me the scroll.
The Voice: 3 Son of man, swallow this scroll I am giving you, and let it fill your stomach.
So I ate it, and these words of God tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth.
The Voice: 4 Son of man, go to the people of Israel and preach My message to them. 5-6 You are not being sent to a far away nation with an unintelligible language. I am sending you to the people of Israel. But if I had sent you to foreign peoples with unintelligible languages, surely they would listen to you. 7 But the people of Israel will refuse to listen to you because they refuse to listen to Me. As I told you, the Israelites are a hard-headed, stubborn-hearted people. 8 But I have set your jaw just as tightly and furrowed your brow just as deeply as theirs. 9 I have made your head as hard as any rock. Do not be scared or intimidated by them, even though they are a rebellious lot.
10 Son of man, take to heart all the words I am speaking to you. Listen carefully to what I am saying. 11 Now go to your people, the exiles in Babylonia, and give them My message. Proclaim to them, “This is what the Eternal Lord has to say.” It doesn’t matter whether they listen to you.
12 Suddenly the Spirit picked me up, and I heard a loud rumbling sound behind me—it seemed to say, “May the glory of the Eternal One be praised in His holy place!” 13 The sound I heard was the sound made by the wings of the four living creatures brushing up against one another and the rumble made by the spinning wheels beside them. 14 The Spirit picked me up and carried me away. I was at once resentful and impassioned, but I couldn’t escape because the hold the Eternal had on me was strong.
The name Ezekiel means “God strengthens.” God makes Ezekiel strong enough to face many challenges and accomplish his mission, but his strength is no match for God’s.
15 The Spirit took me to a group of the exiles who lived by the Chebar Canal at Tel-abib. I sat there among them in a daze for seven days.
16 After those seven days of confusion, the word of the Eternal finally came to me.
Eternal One: 17 Son of man, I have appointed you a sentry for the people of Israel. Listen to what I say, then deliver My warning to them. 18 If I send this message to a wicked person—“You will die”—but then you fail to warn him or help him to reconsider his wickedness so that he may not die, then he will die as a result of his evil deeds. It will be your fault for not warning him. His blood will be on your hands. 19 But if you do forewarn a wicked person and give him My message, and yet he does not change his wicked thoughts and actions, then he will die as a result of his evil deeds. But you will have saved your own life by doing what I directed. 20 Or again, when a righteous person turns his back on righteousness and falls into evil, then I will place a stumbling block before him, and he will surely die as well. Since you haven’t alerted him, he will die for his evil ways. None of the righteous things he did will be remembered, and I will hold you responsible for his death. 21 But if you do forewarn a righteous person not to give in to sin, and he does not sin, he will certainly live because he listened to your warning, and you will have saved your own life by doing what I directed.
22 There the hand of the Eternal came upon me, and His voice spoke to me:
Eternal One: Get up, and venture out to the plain near Tel-abib. I will speak to you there.
23 So I stood up and ventured out to the plain where I saw the glory of the Eternal looming there—the same glory I had seen earlier by the Chebar Canal. I was overwhelmed, so I fell down with my face on the ground. 24 The Spirit entered me, lifted me to my feet, and spoke to me.
Eternal One: Go inside your house and shut the door behind you. 25 Son of man, they will tie you up with ropes so that you cannot get out of your house and walk among your fellow exiles. 26 I will stick your tongue to the roof of your mouth so that you cannot speak to warn them because they are a rebellious lot. 27 But when I speak to you the next time, I will reopen your mouth, and you will proclaim to them, “This is what the Eternal Lord has to say.” At that point, it’s each person’s choice whether to listen. Some will listen; others will refuse because they are a rebellious lot.
Like other prophets, Ezekiel often acts out his messages in bizarre ways. These chapters contain a series of prophetic actions that communicate God’s message in powerful, nonverbal ways. By dramatizing God’s plan before an audience, a prophet is better able to change the people’s perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors because they can see an outcome instead of just imagining it.
4 Eternal One: Now, son of man, put a brick in front of you, and draw a picture of the city of Jerusalem on it. 2 Then lay siege against it: build a wall around it and place a siege ramp against it; prepare to attack it by placing tiny battering rams and pitching tiny camps around it. 3 Then take an iron pan and put it between you and the city to represent the iron wall My people have put between them and Me. Turn your face toward it to show that Jerusalem will be under siege. This will be a sign to the people of Israel.
4 Then lie down on your left side, facing the Jerusalem brick, and place all of Israel’s sins on you. You are to carry their sins for as long as you lie on your left side. 5 I have decided you will represent the carrying of sins the exact number of days as the years of their sin. For 390 days, you will carry the wickedness of Israel’s Northern Kingdom. 6 After you have completed this, lie down again, this time on your right side. While you lie down on your right side, you carry the sins of the people of the Southern Kingdom, Judah. This time, you are to lie on your right side for 40 days, one day for each year of their wickedness. 7 Turn your face toward the siege on Jerusalem, and preach to her with raw passion, with your arm bared ready to strike. 8 I will see that you are tied up with ropes so that you cannot turn from side to side or move until the days of your siege are completed.
9 Then take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; store them together in one crock; use them to make bread for yourself during the siege. Eat the bread during the 390 days you are lying on your left side. 10 Eat no more than 8 ounces of bread per day, and eat your portion at set times each day. 11 Drink no more than 11 ounces of water each day, and drink it at designated times. 12 Eat the bread in the same manner you would eat a barley cake. Let the people see you bake it, and use human excrement instead of animal dung as fuel. 13 This is exactly what will happen to the people of Israel. They will be forced to eat their bread defiled and impure when I drive them to other nations.
Ezekiel: 14 Never, Eternal Lord! I have never defiled myself in such a way. Since childhood, I have never eaten anything that is impure—nothing diseased or ripped apart by wild animals.[a] Not a morsel of impure meat has ever been in my mouth.
Eternal One: 15 All right then, I’ll let you bake your bread over cow dung instead of human excrement.
16-17 Son of man, I am going to cut off the food supply from Jerusalem. The people will slowly starve, living off minimal rations of food and water. As they eat their morsels of bread and drink their minimal ration of water, they will be constantly worrying about what they will eat and drink the next day. When bread and water become more and more scarce, everyone will look at each other in horror. They will slowly waste away beneath the weight of their sins.
20 By faith Isaac spoke blessings upon his sons, Jacob and Esau, concerning things yet to come.
21 By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed the sons of his son Joseph, bowing in worship as he leaned upon his staff.[a]
22 By faith Joseph, at his life’s end, predicted that the children of Israel would make an exodus from Egypt; and he gave instructions that his bones be buried in the land they would someday reach.
23 By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born because they saw that he was handsome; and they did not fear Pharaoh’s directive that all male Hebrew children were to be slain.
24 By faith Moses, when he was grown, refused to be identified solely as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter 25 and chose instead to share the sufferings of the people of God, not just living in sin and ease for a time. 26 He considered the abuse that he and the people of God had suffered in anticipation of the Anointed One more valuable than all the riches of Egypt because he looked ahead to the coming reward.
27 By faith Moses left Egypt, unafraid of Pharaoh’s wrath and moving forward as though he could see the invisible God. 28 Through faith, he instituted the Passover and the sprinkling of blood on the doorposts among the Hebrews so that the destroyer of the firstborn would pass over their homes without harming them. 29 By faith the people crossed through the Red Sea as if they were walking on dry land, although the pursuing Egyptian soldiers were drowned when they tried to follow.
30 By faith the walls of Jericho toppled after the people had circled them for seven days. 31 By faith the prostitute Rahab welcomed the Hebrew spies into her home so that she did not perish with the unbelievers.
32 I could speak more of faith; I could talk until time itself ran out. If I continued, I could speak of the examples of Gideon, Barak, Samson, and Jephthah, of David and Samuel and all the prophets. 33 I could give accounts of people alive with faith who conquered kingdoms, brought justice, obtained promises, and closed the mouths of hungry lions. 34 I could tell you how people of faith doused raging fires, escaped the edge of the sword, made the weak strong, and—stoking great valor among the champions of God—sent opposing armies into panicked flight.
35 I could speak of faith bringing women their loved ones back from death and how the faithful accepted torture instead of earthly deliverance because they believed they would obtain a better life in the resurrection. 36 Others suffered mockery and whippings; they were placed in chains and in prisons. 37 The faithful were stoned, sawn in two,[b] killed by the sword, clothed only in sheepskins and goatskins; they were penniless, afflicted, and tormented. 38 The world was not worthy of these saints. They wandered across deserts, crossed mountains, and lived in the caves, cracks, and crevasses of the earth.
Stories of faith and faithfulness are central to the First Testament. The writer of Hebrews recalls some of the most memorable examples of how people of faith lived their lives. But what is faith? Faith is more than belief; it is trust, assurance, and firm conviction. Ironically most of those who lived by faith never fully realized the promises God had made. Like us they journeyed as strangers and exiles, longing for another country. We should remember their patient faith when we face prolonged hardships and allow the trials we face to strengthen our faith rather than destroy it. If we are comfortable here and don’t face suffering for our faith, perhaps we aren’t fully living by faith and looking forward to a future hope.
39 These, though commended by God for their great faith, did not receive what was promised. 40 That promise has awaited us, who receive the better thing that God has provided in these last days, so that with us, our forebears might finally see the promise completed.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.