Old/New Testament

Ezekiel Cuts His Hair with a Sword

5 “As for you, son of man, take a sharp sword. Use it to cut the hair from your head and face. Then weigh and divide the hair. ² A third part you must burn in the fire in the center of the city, when the days of the battle are completed. Then take a third part and cut it up with your sword as you move around the city. And a third part you must throw to the wind. For I will pull out a sword behind them. ³ Take a small number of the hairs and tie them in the cloth of your coat. ⁴ Take some more of them and throw them into the fire, and burn them up. A fire will spread from there to all the people of Israel. ⁵ The Lord God says, ‘This is Jerusalem. I have set her in the center of the nations, with lands around her. ⁶ But she has turned against My Laws worse than the nations and the lands around her. The people of Jerusalem have turned away from My Laws and have not obeyed them.’ ⁷ So the Lord God says, ‘You have been more sinful than the nations around you. You have not walked in My Laws or kept them. You have not even kept Laws like the nations around you have. Because you have acted this way,’ ⁸ the Lord God says, ‘I Myself am against you, and I will punish you in the eyes of the nations. ⁹ Because of all the things you have done which I hate, I will do with you what I have never done before, and what I will never do again. ¹⁰ Fathers will eat their sons among you, and sons will eat their fathers. I will punish you and divide you, and spread to every wind those of you who are left. ¹¹ You have made My holy place unclean with all your hated objects of worship and sinful ways. So as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘for sure I will turn away from you. My eye will have no pity and I will punish all of you. ¹² One third of you will die by disease or be destroyed by hunger among you. A third will be killed by the sword around you. And a third I will spread to every wind, and go after them with a sword.

¹³ ‘This is how My anger will stop. I will cause My anger to be upon them, and I will be comforted. Then they will know that I, the Lord, have spoken in My jealousy when I have sent My anger upon them. ¹⁴ I will make you a waste and a shame among the nations around you, in the eyes of all who pass by. ¹⁵ You will be a shame, and people will speak against you. You will show people the danger of sinning and fill the nations around you with fear, when I punish you in anger and with angry words. I, the Lord, have spoken. ¹⁶ I will keep you from getting food. I will make your hunger worse, and take away the bread you need. ¹⁷ I will send hunger and wild animals against you, and they will take away your children. Disease and death will pass through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I, the Lord, have spoken.’”

The Lord Judges Israel for Worshiping False Gods

6 The Word of the Lord came to me, saying, ² “Son of man, turn your face toward the mountains of Israel, and tell what is going to happen against them. ³ Say, ‘Mountains of Israel, listen to the Word of the Lord God! This is what the Lord God says to the mountains, the hills, the deep and wide valleys: “I Myself am going to bring a sword against you. And I will destroy your high places. ⁴ So your altars will be laid waste. Your altars for special perfume will be broken. And I will kill your people in front of your false gods. ⁵ I will lay the dead bodies of the sons of Israel in front of their false gods, and spread your bones around your altars. ⁶ In every place you live, cities will be laid waste and the high places will be destroyed. Your altars will be laid waste and destroyed. Your false gods will be broken and destroyed. Your altars for special perfume will come to an end. ⁷ Your people will fall dead among you, and you will know that I am the Lord.

⁸ “But I will leave some of you alive. For some of you will get away from the sword when you are spread among the lands and nations. ⁹ Then those who get away will remember Me in the nations where they have been taken. They will remember how I have been hurt by their sinful hearts which turned away from Me, and by their sinful eyes which followed after their false gods. And they will hate themselves in their own eyes for the sins they have done, for all their sinful ways. ¹⁰ Then they will know that I am the Lord. I have not spoken with empty words that I would bring this trouble upon them.”’

¹¹ “The Lord God says, ‘Clap your hands, and step hard with your feet, and say, “It is bad because of all the hated sins of the people of Israel! They will fall by the sword, hunger, and disease. ¹² He who is far away will die by disease. And he who is near will be killed by the sword. He who stays and is shut in by armies will die by hunger. This is how I will send My anger upon them. ¹³ Then you will know that I am the Lord, when their dead lie among their false gods around their altars. They will lie on every high hill, on all the mountain tops, under every green tree, and under every oak tree with many leaves. Their dead will be in all the places where they burned special perfume to all their false gods. ¹⁴ I will put out My hand against them in every place they live. I will make the land more of a waste than the desert toward Diblah. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”’”

The End Has Come for Israel

7 The Word of the Lord came to me saying, ² “Son of man, this is what the Lord God says to the land of Israel: ‘The end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land. ³ Now the end is upon you. I will send My anger against you and punish you because of your ways. I will make you pay for all your sinful actions. ⁴ My eye will have no pity on you. And I will not let you go without punishment. I will punish you for your ways, and for the hated sins that are among you. Then you will know that I am the Lord!’

⁵ “The Lord God says, ‘See, much trouble is coming! ⁶ An end has come! The end has come! It has come up against you. See, it has come! ⁷ Your punishment has come upon you, O you who live in the land. The time has come. The day is near. The sound of trouble and not of joy is upon the mountains. ⁸ Now I will soon pour out My anger upon you. I will send My anger against you. I will punish you for your ways and for the hated sins that are among you. ⁹ My eye will show no pity, and I will not let you go without punishment. I will make you pay for your ways, and for the hated sins that are among you. Then you will know that it is I, the Lord, Who punishes you.

¹⁰ ‘See, the day! See, it is coming! The time for your punishment has come. The power against you has started to grow. Pride has begun to grow. ¹¹ Angry action has grown into a power of sin. None of them will be left. None of their people, none of their riches, or anything of honor, will be left among them. ¹² The time has come. The day has come. Let not the one who buys have joy, or the one who sells have sorrow. For anger is against all their people. ¹³ For the one who sells will not get back what he has sold as long as both of them live. For the punishment of all their people will not be turned back. Because of their sins, not one of them will keep his life.

¹⁴ ‘They have sounded the horn and made everything ready, but no one is going to the battle. For My anger is against all their people. ¹⁵ The sword is outside, and disease and hunger are inside. He who is in the field will die by the sword. And he who is in the city will be destroyed by disease and hunger. ¹⁶ Whoever gets away alive will be on the mountains like doves of the valleys. Each of them will be crying in sorrow because of his sin. ¹⁷ All hands will hang without strength, and all knees will be as weak as water. ¹⁸ They will dress themselves in cloth made from hair. Much fear will cover them. Shame will be upon all faces, and the hair will be cut from all their heads. ¹⁹ They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will become an unclean thing. Their silver and gold will not be able to help them in the day of the Lord’s anger. They cannot stop their hunger or fill their stomachs with it. For riches have been the cause of their falling into sin. ²⁰ They turned the beauty of gold into objects of pride, and made their hated objects of worship with it. So I will make it an unclean thing to them. ²¹ I will give it to the strangers and to the sinful people of the earth as a prize of war, and they will make it sinful. ²² I will turn My face from them, and they will make My secret place sinful. Robbers will go into it and make it sinful.

²³ ‘Make chains, for the land is guilty of blood and the city is full of angry actions. ²⁴ So I will bring the worst of the nations to take their houses for their own. I will put an end to the pride of the strong ones, and their holy places will become unclean. ²⁵ When suffering comes, they will look for peace, but there will be none. ²⁶ Trouble will come upon trouble, and one story will come after another. They will look for a special dream from a man of God, but the Law will be lost from the religious leader. And wisdom will be lost from the leaders. ²⁷ The king will be full of sorrow. The king’s son will be covered with fear. And the hands of the people of the land will shake in fear. I will punish them for their ways. I will give them the punishment they have earned. And they will know that I am the Lord.’”

Christ the Perfect One

12 All these many people who have had faith in God are around us like a cloud. Let us put every thing out of our lives that keeps us from doing what we should. Let us keep running in the race that God has planned for us. ² Let us keep looking to Jesus. Our faith comes from Him and He is the One Who makes it perfect. He did not give up when He had to suffer shame and die on a cross. He knew of the joy that would be His later. Now He is sitting at the right side of God.

³ Sinful men spoke words of hate against Christ. He was willing to take such shame from sinners. Think of this so you will not get tired and give up. ⁴ In your fight against sin, you have not yet had to stand against sin with your blood. ⁵ Do you remember what God said to you when He called you His sons? “My son, listen when the Lord punishes you. Do not give up when He tells you what you must do. ⁶ The Lord punishes everyone He loves. He whips every son He receives.” ^{(A) 7} Do not give up when you are punished by God. Be willing to take it, knowing that God is teaching you as a son. Is there a father who does not punish his son sometimes? ⁸ If you are not punished as all sons are, it means that you are not a true son of God. You are not a part of His family and He is not your Father. ⁹ Remember that our fathers on earth punished us. We had respect for them. How much more should we obey our Father in heaven and live? ¹⁰ For a little while our fathers on earth punished us when they thought they should. But God punishes us for our good so we will be holy as He is holy. ¹¹ There is no joy while we are being punished. It is hard to take, but later we can see that good came from it. And it gives us the peace of being right with God.

¹² So lift up your hands that have been weak. Stand up on your weak legs. ¹³ Walk straight ahead so the weak leg will not be turned aside, but will be healed.

¹⁴ Be at peace with all men. Live a holy life. No one will see the Lord without having that kind of life. ¹⁵ See that no one misses God’s loving-favor. Do not let wrong thoughts about others get started among you. If you do, many people will be turned to a life of sin. ¹⁶ None of you should fall into sex sins or forget God like Esau did. He had a right to get all Isaac had because he was the oldest son. But for one plate of food he sold this right to his brother. ¹⁷ You know that later he would have received everything. But he did not get it even when he asked for it with tears. It was too late to make right the wrong he had done.

¹⁸ For you have not come close to a mountain that you can touch. You have not come to worship where there is burning fire and darkness and storm and wind. ¹⁹ The sound of a horn was heard and God’s voice spoke. The people cried out to Moses to have God stop speaking to them. ²⁰ They could not stand to listen to His strong words, “Even if an animal comes to the mountain, it must be killed.” ^{(B) 21} What Moses saw was so hard to look at that he said, “I am full of fear and am shaking.” ^(C)

²² But instead, you have come to the mountain of Jerusalem. It is the city of the living God. It is the Jerusalem of heaven with its thousands of angels. ²³ You have gathered there with God’s children who were born long ago. They are citizens of heaven. God is there. He will judge all men. The spirits of all those right with God are there. They have been made perfect. ²⁴ Jesus is there. He has made a way for man to go to God. He gave His blood that men might worship God the New Way. The blood of Jesus tells of better things than that which Abel used.

²⁵ Be sure you listen to the One Who is speaking to you. The Jews did not obey when God’s Law was given to them on earth. They did not go free. They were punished. We will be punished more if we do not listen to God as He speaks from heaven. ²⁶ On Mount Sinai, God’s voice shook the earth. But now He has promised, saying, “Once more I will shake the earth and the heavens.” ^(D)

²⁷ When God says, “Once more,” He means He will take away everything of this world that can be shaken so the things that cannot be shaken will be left.

²⁸ Since we have received a holy nation that cannot be moved, let us be thankful. Let us please God and worship Him with honor and fear. ²⁹ For our God is a fire that destroys everything.