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Ezekiel 6, 7, 8, 9
Ezekiel 6
Eze 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: 'O 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 house of Israel, for they will fall by the sword, famine and plague.
12 He that is far away will die of the plague, and he that is near will fall by the sword, and he that survives and is spared will die of famine. So will I spend my wrath upon 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.'" (NIV)
Ezekiel 7
Eze 7:1 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 or spare you; I will surely repay you for your conduct and the detestable practices among you. Then you will know that I am the LORD.
5 "This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Disaster! An unheard-of disaster is coming.
6 The end has come! The end has come! It has roused itself against you. It has come!
7 Doom has come upon you-- you who dwell in the land. The time has come, the day is near; there is panic, not joy, upon 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 or spare you; I will repay you in accordance with your conduct and the detestable practices among you. Then you will know that it is I the LORD who strikes the blow.
10 "The day is here! It has come! Doom has burst forth, the rod has budded, arrogance has blossomed!
11 Violence has grown into a rod to punish wickedness; none of the people will be left, none of that crowd-- no wealth, nothing of value.
12 The time has come, the day has arrived. Let not the buyer rejoice nor the seller grieve, for wrath is upon the whole crowd.
13 The seller will not recover the land he has sold as long as both of them live, for the vision concerning the whole crowd will not be reversed. Because of their sins, not one of them will preserve his life.
14 Though they blow the trumpet and get everything ready, no one will go into battle, for my wrath is upon the whole crowd.
15 "Outside is the sword, inside are plague and famine; those in the country will die by the sword, and those in the city will be devoured by famine and plague.
16 All who survive and escape will be in the mountains, moaning like doves of the valleys, each because of his sins.
17 Every hand will go limp, and every knee will become as weak as water.
18 They will put on sackcloth and be clothed with terror. Their faces will be covered with shame and their heads will be shaved.
19 They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will be an unclean thing. Their silver and gold will not be able to save them in the day of the LORD's wrath. They will not satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs with it, for it has made them stumble into sin.
20 They were proud of their beautiful jewelry and used it to make their detestable idols and vile images. Therefore I will turn these into an unclean thing for them.
21 I will hand it all over as plunder to foreigners and as loot to the wicked of the earth, and they will defile it.
22 I will turn my face away from them, and they will desecrate my treasured place; robbers will enter it and desecrate it.
23 "Prepare chains, because the land is full of bloodshed and the city is full of violence.
24 I will bring the most wicked of the nations to take possession of their houses; I will put an end to the pride of the mighty, and their sanctuaries will be desecrated.
25 When terror comes, they will seek peace, but there will be none.
26 Calamity upon calamity will come, and rumor upon rumor. They will try to get a vision from the prophet; the teaching of the law by the priest will be lost, as will the counsel of the elders.
27 The king will mourn, the prince will be clothed with despair, and the hands of the people of the land will tremble. I will deal with them according to their conduct, and by their own standards I will judge them. Then they will know that I am the LORD." (NIV)
Ezekiel 8
Eze 8:1 In the sixth year, in the sixth month on the fifth day, while I was sitting in my house and the elders of Judah were sitting before me, the hand of the Sovereign LORD came upon me there.
2 I looked, and I saw a figure like that of a man. From what appeared to be his waist down he was like fire, and from there up his appearance was as bright as glowing metal.
3 He stretched out what looked like a hand and took me by the hair of my head. The Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and in visions of God he took me to Jerusalem, to the entrance to the north gate of the inner court, where the idol that provokes to jealousy stood.
4 And there before me was the glory of the God of Israel, as in the vision I had seen in the plain.
5 Then he said to me, "Son of man, look toward the north." So I looked, and in the entrance north of the gate of the altar I saw this idol of jealousy.
6 And he said to me, "Son of man, do you see what they are doing-- the utterly detestable things the house of Israel is doing here, things that will drive me far from my sanctuary? But you will see things that are even more detestable."
7 Then he brought me to the entrance to the court. I looked, and I saw a hole in the wall.
8 He said to me, "Son of man, now dig into the wall." So I dug into the wall and saw a doorway there.
9 And he said to me, "Go in and see the wicked and detestable things they are doing here."
10 So I went in and looked, and I saw portrayed all over the walls all kinds of crawling things and detestable animals and all the idols of the house of Israel.
11 In front of them stood seventy elders of the house of Israel, and Jaazaniah son of Shaphan was standing among them. Each had a censer in his hand, and a fragrant cloud of incense was rising.
12 He said to me, "Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the darkness, each at the shrine of his own idol? They say, 'The LORD does not see us; the LORD has forsaken the land.'"
13 Again, he said, "You will see them doing things that are even more detestable."
14 Then he brought me to the entrance to the north gate of the house of the LORD, and I saw women sitting there, mourning for Tammuz.
15 He said to me, "Do you see this, son of man? You will see things that are even more detestable than this."
16 He then brought me into the inner court of the house of the LORD, and there at the entrance to the temple, between the portico and the altar, were about twenty-five men. With their backs toward the temple of the LORD and their faces toward the east, they were bowing down to the sun in the east.
17 He said to me, "Have you seen this, son of man? Is it a trivial matter for the house of Judah to do the detestable things they are doing here? Must they also fill the land with violence and continually provoke me to anger? Look at them putting the branch to their nose!
18 Therefore I will deal with them in anger; I will not look on them with pity or spare them. Although they shout in my ears, I will not listen to them." NIV)
Ezekiel 9
Eze 9:1 Then I heard him call out in a loud voice, "Bring the guards of the city here, each with a weapon in his hand."
2 And I saw six men coming from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with a deadly weapon in his hand. With them was a man clothed in linen who had a writing kit at his side. They came in and stood beside the bronze altar.
3 Now the glory of the God of Israel went up from above the cherubim, where it had been, and moved to the threshold of the temple. Then the LORD called to the man clothed in linen who had the writing kit at his side
4 and said to him, "Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it."
5 As I listened, he said to the others, "Follow him through the city and kill, without showing pity or compassion.
6 Slaughter old men, young men and maidens, women and children, but do not touch anyone who has the mark. Begin at my sanctuary." So they began with the elders who were in front of the temple.
7 Then he said to them, "Defile the temple and fill the courts with the slain. Go!" So they went out and began killing throughout the city.
8 While they were killing and I was left alone, I fell facedown, crying out, "Ah, Sovereign LORD! Are you going to destroy the entire remnant of Israel in this outpouring of your wrath on Jerusalem?"
9 He answered me, "The sin of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great; the land is full of bloodshed and the city is full of injustice. They say, 'The LORD has forsaken the land; the LORD does not see.'
10 So I will not look on them with pity or spare them, but I will bring down on their own heads what they have done."
11 Then the man in linen with the writing kit at his side brought back word, saying, "I have done as you commanded." (NIV)
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