Ezekiel 5:7-17; Ezekiel 6; Ezekiel 7:1-9

Ezekiel 5:7-17

7 “Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: You have been more unruly than the nations around you and have not followed my decrees or kept my laws. You have not even conformed to the standards of the nations around you.

8 “Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will inflict punishment on you in the sight of the nations.

9 Because of all your detestable idols, I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again.

10 Therefore in your midst parents will eat their children, and children will eat their parents. I will inflict punishment on you and will scatter all your survivors to the winds.

11 Therefore as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your vile images and detestable practices, I myself will shave you; I will not look on you with pity or spare you.

12 A third of your people will die of the plague or perish by famine inside you; a third will fall by the sword outside your walls; and a third I will scatter to the winds and pursue with drawn sword.

13 “Then my anger will cease and my wrath against them will subside, and I will be avenged. And when I have spent my wrath on them, they will know that I the LORD have spoken in my zeal.

14 “I will make you a ruin and a reproach among the nations around you, in the sight of all who pass by.

15 You will be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and an object of horror to the nations around you when I inflict punishment on you in anger and in wrath and with stinging rebuke. I the LORD have spoken.

16 When I shoot at you with my deadly and destructive arrows of famine, I will shoot to destroy you. I will bring more and more famine upon you and cut off your supply of food.

17 I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I the LORD have spoken.”

Ezekiel 6

1 The word of the LORD came to me:

2 “Son of man, set your face against the mountains of Israel; prophesy against them

3 and say: ‘You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Sovereign LORD. This is what the Sovereign LORD says to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys: I am about to bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places.

4 Your altars will be demolished and your incense altars will be smashed; and I will slay your people 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 Wherever you live, the towns will be laid waste and the high places demolished, so that your altars will be laid waste and devastated, your idols smashed and ruined, your incense altars broken down, and what you have made wiped out.

7 Your people will fall slain among you, and you will know that I am the LORD.

8 “ ‘But I will spare some, for some of you will escape the sword when you are scattered among the lands and nations.

9 Then in the nations where they have been carried captive, those who escape will remember me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts, which have turned away from me, and by their eyes, which have lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their detestable practices.

10 And they will know that I am the LORD; I did not threaten in vain to bring this calamity on them.

11 “ ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Strike your hands together and stamp your feet and cry out “Alas!” because of all the wicked and detestable practices of the people of Israel, for they will fall by the sword, famine and plague.

12 One who is far away will die of the plague, and one who is near will fall by the sword, and anyone who survives and is spared will die of famine. So will I pour out my wrath on them.

13 And they will know that I am the LORD, when their people lie slain among their idols around their altars, on every high hill and on all the mountaintops, under every spreading tree and every leafy oak—places where they offered fragrant incense to all their idols.

14 And I will stretch out my hand against them and make the land a desolate waste from the desert to Diblah —wherever they live. Then they will know that I am the LORD.’ ”

Ezekiel 7:1-9

1 The word of the LORD came to me:

2 “Son of man, this is what the Sovereign LORD says to the land of Israel: “ ‘The end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land!

3 The end is now upon you, and I will unleash my anger against you. I will judge you according to your conduct and repay you for all your detestable practices.

4 I will not look on you with pity; I will not spare you. I will surely repay you for your conduct and for the detestable practices among you. “ ‘Then you will know that I am the LORD.’

5 “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: “ ‘Disaster! Unheard-of disaster! See, it comes!

6 The end has come! The end has come! It has roused itself against you. See, it comes!

7 Doom has come upon you, upon you who dwell in the land. The time has come! The day is near! There is panic, not joy, on the mountains.

8 I am about to pour out my wrath on you and spend my anger against you. I will judge you according to your conduct and repay you for all your detestable practices.

9 I will not look on you with pity; I will not spare you. I will repay you for your conduct and for the detestable practices among you. “ ‘Then you will know that it is I the LORD who strikes you.