Ezekiel 5; Ezekiel 6; Ezekiel 7; Ezekiel 8

Ezekiel 5

1 "Now, human, take a sharp sword, and use it like a barber's razor to shave your head and beard. Then take scales and weigh and divide the hair.

2 Burn one-third with fire in the middle of the city when the days of the attack on Jerusalem are over. Then take one-third and cut it up with the knife all around the city. And scatter one-third to the wind. This is how I will chase them with a sword.

3 Also take a few of these hairs and tie them in the folds of your clothes.

4 Take a few more and throw them into the fire and burn them up. From there a fire will spread to all the people of Israel.

5 "This is what the Lord God says: This is Jerusalem. I have put her at the center of the nations with countries all around her.

6 But she has refused to obey my laws and has been more evil than the nations. She has refused to obey my rules, even more than nations around her. The people of Jerusalem have rejected my laws and have not lived by my rules.

7 "So this is what the Lord God says: You have caused more trouble than the nations around you. You have not followed my rules or obeyed my laws. You have not even obeyed the laws of the nations around you.

8 "So this is what the Lord God says: I myself am against you, and I will punish you as the nations watch.

9 I will do things among you that I have not done before and that I will never do anything like again, because you do the things I hate.

10 So parents among you will eat their children, and children will eat their parents. I will punish you and will scatter to the winds all who are left alive.

11 So the Lord God says: You have made my Temple unclean with all your evil idols and the hateful things you do. Because of this, as surely as I live, I will cut you off. I will have no pity, and I will show no mercy.

12 A third of you will die by disease or be destroyed by hunger inside your walls. A third will fall dead by the sword outside your walls. And a third I will scatter in every direction as I chase them with a sword.

13 Then my anger will come to an end. I will use it up against them, and then I will be satisfied. Then they will know that I, the Lord, have spoken. After I have carried out my anger against them, they will know how strongly I felt.

14 "I will make you a ruin and a shame among the nations around you, to be seen by all who pass by.

15 Then the nations around you will shame you and make fun of you. You will be a warning and a terror to them. This will happen when I punish you in my great anger. I, the Lord, have spoken.

16 I will send a time of hunger to destroy you, and then I will make your hunger get even worse, and I will cut off your supply of food.

17 I will send a time of hunger and wild animals against you, and they will kill your children. Disease and death will sweep through your people, and I will bring the sword against you to kill you. I, the Lord, have spoken."

Ezekiel 6

1 Again the Lord spoke his word to me, saying:

2 "Human, look toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them.

3 Say, 'Mountains of Israel, listen to the word of the Lord God. The Lord God says this to the mountains, the hills, the ravines, and the valleys: I will bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your places of idol worship.

4 Your altars will be destroyed and your incense altars broken down. Your people will be killed in front of your idols.

5 I will lay the dead bodies of the Israelites in front of their idols, and I will scatter your bones around your altars.

6 In all the places you live, cities will become empty. The places of idol worship will be ruined; your altars will become lonely ruins. Your idols will be broken and brought to an end. Your incense altars will be cut down, and the things you made will be wiped out.

7 Your people will be killed and fall among you. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

8 "'But I will leave some people alive; some will not be killed by the nations when you are scattered among the foreign lands.

9 Then those who have escaped will remember me, as they live among the nations where they have been taken as captives. They will remember how I was hurt because they were unfaithful to me and turned away from me and desired to worship their idols. They will hate themselves because of the evil things they did that I hate.

10 Then they will know that I am the Lord. I did not bring this terrible thing on them for no reason.

11 "'This is what the Lord God says: Clap your hands, stamp your feet, and groan because of all the hateful, evil things the people of Israel have done. They will die by war, hunger, and disease.

12 The person who is far away will die by disease. The one who is nearby will die in war. The person who is still alive and has escaped these will die from hunger. So I will carry out my anger on them.

13 Their people will lie dead among their idols around the altars, on every high hill, on all the mountain tops, and under every green tree and leafy oak -- all the places where they offered sweet-smelling incense to their idols. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

14 I will use my power against them to make the land empty and wasted from the desert to Diblah, wherever they live. Then they will know that I am the Lord.'"

Ezekiel 7

1 Again the Lord spoke his word to me, saying:

2 "Human, the Lord God says this to the land of Israel: An end! The end has come on the four corners of the land.

3 Now the end has come for you, and I will send my anger against you. I will judge you for the way you have lived, and I will make you pay for all your actions that I hate.

4 I will have no pity on you; I will not hold back punishment from you. Instead, I will make you pay for the way you have lived and for your actions that I hate. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

5 "This is what the Lord God says: Disaster on top of disaster is coming.

6 The end has come! The end has come! It has stirred itself up against you! Look! It has come!

7 Disaster has come for you who live in the land! The time has come; the day of confusion is near. There will be no happy shouting on the mountains.

8 Soon I will pour out my anger against you; I will carry out my anger against you. I will judge you for the way you have lived and will make you pay for everything you have done that I hate.

9 I will show no pity, and I will not hold back punishment. I will pay you back for the way you have lived and the things you have done that I hate. Then you will know that I am the Lord who punishes.

10 "Look, the day is here. It has come. Disaster has come, violence has grown, and there is more pride than ever.

11 Violence has grown into a weapon for punishing wickedness. None of the people will be left -- none of that crowd, none of their wealth, and nothing of value.

12 The time has come; the day has arrived. Don't let the buyer be happy or the seller be sad, because my burning anger is against the whole crowd.

13 Sellers will not return to the land they have sold as long as they live, because the vision against all that crowd will not be changed. Because of their sins, they will not save their lives.

14 They have blown the trumpet, and everything is ready. But no one is going to the battle, because my anger is against all that crowd.

15 "The sword is outside, and disease and hunger are inside. Whoever is in the field will die by the sword. Hunger and disease will destroy those in the city.

16 Those who are left alive and who escape will be on the mountains, moaning like doves of the valleys about their own sin.

17 All hands will hang weakly with fear, and all knees will become weak as water.

18 They will put on rough cloth to show how sad they are. They will tremble all over with fear. Their faces will show their shame, and all their heads will be shaved.

19 The people will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will be like trash. Their silver and gold will not save them from the Lord's anger. It will not satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs, because it caused them to fall into sin.

20 They were proud of their beautiful jewelry and used it to make their idols and their evil statues, which I hate. So I will turn their wealth into trash.

21 I will give it to foreigners as loot from war and to the most evil people in the world as treasure, and they will dishonor it.

22 I will also turn away from the people of Israel, and they will dishonor my treasured place. Then robbers will enter and dishonor it.

23 "Make chains for captives, because the land is full of bloody crimes and the city is full of violence.

24 So I will bring the worst of the nations to take over the people's houses. I will also end the pride of the strong, and their holy places will be dishonored.

25 When the people are suffering greatly, they will look for peace, but there will be none.

26 Disaster will come on top of disaster, and rumor will be added to rumor. Then they will try to get a vision from a prophet; the teachings of God from the priest and the advice from the older leaders will be lost.

27 The king will cry greatly, the prince will give up hope, and the hands of the people who own land will shake with fear. I will punish them for the way they have lived. The way they have judged others is the way I will judge them. Then they will know that I am the Lord."

Ezekiel 8

1 It was the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth month of our captivity. I was sitting in my house with the older leaders of Judah in front of me. There I felt the power of the Lord God.

2 I looked and saw something that looked like a human. From the waist down it looked like fire, and from the waist up it looked like bright glowing metal.

3 It stretched out the shape of a hand and caught me by the hair on my head. The Spirit lifted me up between the earth and the sky. He took me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance to the north gate of the inner courtyard of the Temple. In the courtyard was the idol that caused God to be jealous.

4 I saw the glory of the God of Israel there, as I had seen on the plain.

5 Then he said to me, "Human, now look toward the north." So I looked up toward the north, and in the entrance north of the gate of the altar was the idol that caused God to be jealous.

6 He said to me, "Human, do you see what they are doing? Do you see how many hateful things the people of Israel are doing here that drive me far away from my Temple? But you will see things more hateful than these."

7 Then he brought me to the entry of the courtyard. When I looked, I saw a hole in the wall.

8 He said to me, "Human, dig through the wall." So I dug through the wall and saw an entrance.

9 Then he said to me, "Go in and see the hateful, evil things they are doing here."

10 So I entered and looked, and I saw every kind of crawling thing and hateful beast and all the idols of the people of Israel, carved on the wall all around.

11 Standing in front of these carvings and idols were seventy of the older leaders of Israel and Jaazaniah son of Shaphan. Each man had his pan for burning incense in his hand, and a sweet-smelling cloud of incense was rising.

12 Then he said to me, "Human, have you seen what the older leaders of Israel are doing in the dark? Have you seen each man in the room of his own idol? They say, 'The Lord doesn't see us. The Lord has left the land.'"

13 He also said to me, "You will see even more hateful things that they are doing."

14 Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the Temple of the Lord, where I saw women sitting and crying for Tammuz.

15 He said to me, "Do you see, human? You will see things even more hateful than these."

16 Then he brought me into the inner courtyard of the Temple. There I saw about twenty-five men at the entrance to the Temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar. With their backs turned to the Temple of the Lord, they faced east and were worshiping the sun in the east.

17 He said to me, "Do you see, human? Is it unimportant that the people of Judah are doing the hateful things they have done here? They have filled the land with violence and made me continually angry. Look, they are insulting me every way they can.

18 So I will act in anger. I will have no pity, nor will I show mercy. Even if they shout in my ears, I won't listen to them."