Old/New Testament
5 Eternal One: Now, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a straight razor to shave your head and beard. Then take scales and divide the hair up by weight into thirds. 2 When the days prescribed for the siege are over, take a third of the hair and burn it in a fire within the city walls. Then take another third and thrash it with a sword all around the city. Scatter the last third of the hair to the wind. Then I will draw My sword and chase them! 3 Keep a few strands of the hairs and tie them to the edges of your garment. 4 Take some of these extra strands of hair and fling them into the fire to burn them up. From there, a fire will spread to the whole house of Israel.
5 This is what the Eternal One says:
Eternal One: This stands for Jerusalem. I have placed her at the center of all nations, with countries surrounding her. 6 Yet she has defied My teachings and acted more wickedly than any of the other nations living around her; she has rejected My decrees and ignored My guidance. 7 This is what I, the Eternal Lord, have to say: You have been more rebellious toward My guidance and decrees than any other nation, choosing not to live even under the ethical and moral standards of other nations, and certainly not under My laws. 8 Therefore, I say, I am no longer your ally, Jerusalem. I am your enemy! I am going to punish you in front of all nations. 9 Because of your shocking actions, I am going to do something I have never done before and will never do again: 10 The day will come when fathers will devour their sons, and sons will feed off their fathers’ flesh. This is how I will punish you and scatter the few of you who survive to the wind.
When a powerful army surrounds the walls of a city, it cuts off the people’s access to their fields, animals, and water sources. If the siege lasts long enough, death is inevitable for those inside the city walls. As the bodies pile up and hunger becomes unbearable, cannibalism may be the only way to stay alive. There is something horrid about cannibalism. The notion that parents may be reduced to eating their children disrupts every natural impulse a parent has. But Scripture teaches that those who break God’s law and violate His holiness may be cursed with this punishment (Leviticus 26:29).
Eternal One: 11 Consequently, as surely as I live, because you have degraded My holy sanctuary with all your detestable images and shocking actions, I will leave you. I will shed no tears of compassion over you. 12 One-third of your people will suffer during the siege, starving to death or dying from disease within the city walls. Another third of you will die in battles outside of the city walls as they try to escape. The remaining third will be scattered to the winds, and I will draw My sword and chase after them.
13 After this My anger will subside. I will not be satisfied until I have unleashed My fiery judgment on them. Then they will know that I, the Eternal One, am the one who commanded all of this, for I jealously desire their devotion. 14 When I am finished with you, your nation will lie in ruins. You will be mocked and ridiculed by the nations around you and those who pass by. 15 You will become a byword to the nations, a warning to the world as they watch your horrific downfall when I punish you with anger, with fury, and with fiery judgment. I, the Eternal One, have spoken. 16 When I shoot My deadly arrows of famine and war at you, I will shoot to kill. I’ll curse you with more famine and cut off your food supply. 17 And when the famine has run its course, I will send savage beasts to attack you and eat the rest of your children. Plague, disease, murder, and bloodshed will pass through your land as I wage war against you!
I, the Eternal, have spoken.
6 The word of the Eternal came to me about Israel’s coming destruction.
The personification of the mountains and land of Israel emphasizes the severity of the situation. The actions of God’s wayward people not only defile them—they defile the land.
Eternal One: 2 Son of man, turn your gaze to the mountains of Israel; prophesy against them. 3 Tell the mountains of Israel to listen to the word of the Eternal Lord. I have a message for the high mountains and green hills, riverbeds and lush, fertile valleys: I am bringing the weapons of war against you, and I will demolish the shrines on your heights. 4 Your sacrificial altars will be ruined, your incense altars smashed. I will throw down your slain before your lifeless idols. 5 I will lay the remains of the dead Israelites in front of your lifeless idols; and I will scatter your bones around your altars so the place is contaminated with death. 6 In every place you live, the towns will be left in ruins and the high places will be rubble so that every place becomes a desolate wasteland. Your sacrificial altars will be destroyed and abandoned, your idols crushed and flattened, your incense altars smashed, and all you have created will be wiped out. 7 Your towns will be full of corpses. Then you will know I am the Eternal One.
8 But I will spare a few of you, and those who escape My punishing war will be scattered throughout other lands and nations. 9 In the nations where they have been taken as exiles, those who have been spared will remember Me—how I have been wounded by their promiscuous hearts that turned away from Me, how I have been hurt by their wandering eyes that desired lifeless idols. They will hate themselves for the evil they have done and for their detestable actions. 10 Then they will know I am the Eternal One. They will understand I did not utter empty threats when I said I would bring disaster on them.
11 Here is what I, the Eternal Lord, have to say: Clap your hands together, stomp your feet, and shout, How awful it will be for the people of Israel because of all the evil, shocking actions they have committed. They will be slain. War, famine, and disease will fall upon them! 12 Those who are far away will die of disease; those who are near will fall in battle; those who are spared will die of starvation. This is how I will spend My wrath on them. 13 After all the destruction, you will know I am the Eternal—when the rotting corpses of their slain are spread out among their fallen altars and shattered idols, on every green hill and high mountaintop, beneath every green tree and leafy oak, any place they offered sweet incense to their breathless idols. 14 Wherever they live, I will stretch out My hand against them and make their land an empty wasteland, from the wilderness to Diblah. Then they will know I am the Eternal One.
After such visual and visceral displays as representing Jerusalem on a brick and prophesying against it; lying on his side for over a year; and taking his own cut hair, burning it, and scattering it with a sword; Ezekiel must have acquired quite a reputation. His very life becomes an object lesson and a teaching display for the Judean exiles.
God is concerned about the glory of His name, so He must punish Jerusalem and the Judean population for their adulterous rebellion. Ironically, it is in the very places where God desires to have sweet and unhindered fellowship with His people that all types of lewd, profane acts of worship transpire. If there is any confusion as to what the Eternal is planning to do, then one need look no further than Ezekiel’s daily behavior.
7 The word of the Eternal came to me.
2 Eternal One: Son of man, this is what I, the Eternal Lord, have to say to the land of Israel:
The end! The end has arrived
for the four corners of the land and everyone in it.
3 The end is upon you,
and I will release My wrath against you.
I will judge you according to your ways,
and I will repay you for all your shocking actions.
4 I will not look on you with pity or spare you—
I will fully repay you for your shocking behavior and despicable deeds.
Then you will know I am the Eternal One.
5 This is what I, the Eternal Lord, have to say:
Wave after wave of evil is coming!
6 The end has arrived! The end has arrived!
It has awakened against you! It has arrived!
7 Doomsday has come for all who live in this land.
The time has arrived; the day is near;
There is no joy upon the mountains—
only shouts of alarm and horrifying terror.
8 It won’t be long now until I pour out My wrath on you,
until I unleash My fierce anger against you;
I will judge you according to your ways
and repay you for all your shocking actions.
9 I will not look on you with pity or spare you.
I will fully repay you for your shocking behavior and despicable deeds.
Then you will know it is I, the Eternal, who have crushed you.
10 Look, the day is here! It has arrived!
Your doom has erupted.
The rod has budded; conceit has blossomed!
11 The consequence—violence—has grown up into a rod to punish the wicked;
no one will be left, not one of the many!
No wealth, no valuables will be left from this doomsday.
12 The time has arrived; the day is now.
Buyer, don’t celebrate; seller, don’t grieve,
for My anger will come to burn all of you!
13 The seller won’t regain his treasures while they both live;
for the vision has to do with everyone, and no one will escape My wrath!
Because of each person’s iniquity,
no one will be able to hold onto his life.
14 Though the trumpet will sound to get everything ready,
no troops will march into battle
because My wrath is against all the people of Jerusalem.
15 The sword falls on anyone outside the city;
disease and famine ravage those who remain inside.
Those in the open will die by the sword;
those inside the city walls will be consumed by famine and disease.
16 The survivors will run for the mountains
and moan like doves because of their sins.
17 Every hand will go weak and limp;
every knee will turn to water.
18 They will dress in sackcloth,
and horror will cover them.
Their faces will be plastered with shame,
and their heads will be shaved.
19 They will throw their silver into the streets
and treat their gold as impure, worthless,
Once they discover their silver and gold cannot rescue them
on the day the Eternal ignites His fierce anger.
They will not satisfy their hunger or fill their bellies with their riches,
for their earthly riches are what made them stumble into sin.
20 They took pride in their attractive jewelry
and constructed breathless idols and disgusting images with it.
Therefore, I will make their riches impure and disgusting to them.
21 I will give their religious rubbish away to strangers
as the wicked marauders of the earth loot and defile their treasures.
22 I will turn My head
so they may desecrate My treasured place;
Pillagers will enter into it, profane it, and vandalize it.
23 Forge a chain,
for the land is soaked in blood and violence,
And the city is brimming with brutality!
24 I will stir up the very worst of the nations
to take possession of their houses.
I will put an end to the strong ones’ pride,
and their most sacred sites will be desecrated.
25 When the horror of My wrath comes, they will look for a calm place,
but there will be nothing but torrential terror.
26 One disaster after another will hit them;
one bad report after another will come to them.
Then they will seek a vision from any prophet,
but no instruction in the law from the priest
and no wise counsel from the elders will be found.
27 The king will grieve,
the prince will wrap himself in despair,
and the hands of the common people will tremble.
I will deal with them according to the way they dealt with others;
I will judge them according to way they judged others.
Then they will know I am the Eternal One.
12 So since we stand surrounded by all those who have gone before, an enormous cloud of witnesses, let us drop every extra weight, every sin that clings to us and slackens our pace, and let us run with endurance the long race set before us.
We may feel alone, but we aren’t. We are surrounded by an army of witnesses. They have run the race of faith and finished well. It is now our turn.
2 Now stay focused on Jesus, who designed and perfected our faith. He endured the cross and ignored the shame of that death because He focused on the joy that was set before Him; and now He is seated beside God on the throne, a place of honor.
3 Consider the life of the One who endured such personal attacks and hostility from sinners so that you will not grow weary or lose heart. 4 Among you, in your striving against sin, none has resisted the pressure to the point of death, as He did.
God “disciplines” His “disciples.” God is training us not just to live here and now, but to have life in the age to come, to share His life and holiness.
5 Indeed, you seem to have forgotten the proverb directed to you as children:
My child, do not ignore the instruction that comes from the Lord,
or lose heart when He steps in to correct you;
6 For the Lord disciplines those He loves,
and He corrects each one He takes as His own.[a]
7 Endure hardship as God’s discipline and rejoice that He is treating you as His children, for what child doesn’t experience discipline from a parent? 8 But if you are not experiencing the correction that all true children receive, then it may be that you are not His children after all. 9 Remember, when our human parents disciplined us, we respected them. If that was true, shouldn’t we respect and live under the correction of the Father of all spirits even more? 10 Our parents corrected us for a time as seemed good to them, but God only corrects us to our good so that we may share in His holiness.
11 When punishment is happening, it never seems pleasant, only painful. Later, though, it yields the peaceful fruit called righteousness to everyone who has been trained by it. 12 So lift up your hands that are dangling and brace your weakened knees. 13 Make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame in you won’t be put out of joint, but will heal.
14 Pursue peace with everyone, and holiness, since no one will see God without it. 15 Watch carefully that no one falls short of God’s favor, that no well of bitterness springs up to trouble you and throw many others off the path. 16 Watch that no one becomes wicked and vile like Esau, the son of Isaac, who for a single meal sold his invaluable birthright. 17 You know from the stories of the patriarchs that later, when he wished to claim his blessing, he was turned away. He could not reverse his action even though he shed bitter tears over it.
The Bible is a brutally honest book. It contains stories of liars, murderers, and adulterers; and these are the good guys. If we read the Bible looking only for positive role models, we’ll be quickly disappointed. But if we are honest with ourselves and confess our own faults, we will find in Scripture, particularly in the First Testament, that we have much in common with many broken saints of the past. But we must not stay broken. We must follow their path to transformation through repentance and faith. Repentance means a change of heart, a change of mind, and ultimately a change of how we live. God’s grace comes to us and enables us to turn away from sin and to turn back to Him.
18 You have not come to the place that can be touched (as Israel did at Mount Sinai)—to a mountain crowned with blazing fire, darkness, gloom, and a windstorm— 19 or to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of a voice—a voice and message so harsh that the people begged not to hear another word. 20 (They could not bear the command that was given: that if even a beast touches the mountain, it must be stoned. 21 The sight was so terrible that even Moses said, “I am trembling with fear.”)[b]
22 No, instead you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to heavenly messengers unnumbered, to a joyful feast, 23 to the assembly of the firstborn registered as heaven’s citizens, to God the righteous Judge of all, and to the spirits of all the righteous who have been perfected. 24 You have come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant between God and humanity, and to His sprinkled blood, which speaks a greater word than the blood of Abel crying out from the earth.
25 See that you don’t turn away from the One who is speaking; for if the ones who heard and refused the One who spoke on earth faced punishment, then how much more will we suffer if we turn away from the One speaking from heaven— 26 the One whose voice in earlier times shook the earth now makes another promise: “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens”?[c] 27 The phrase, “Yet once more,” means that those things that can be shaken will be removed and taken away, namely, the first creation. As a result, those things that remain cannot be shaken. 28 Therefore, let us all be thankful that we are a part of an unshakable Kingdom and offer to God worship that pleases Him and reflects the awe and reverence we have toward Him, 29 for He is like a fierce fire that consumes everything.[d]
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.