Ezekiel 11

¹²Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard a great rumbling sound behind me: “Blessed be the glory of the Lord in His dwelling place!”

¹⁴So the Spirit lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness and in the anger of my spirit, with the strong hand of the Lord upon me.

³He stretched out what looked like a hand and took me by the hair of my head. Then the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and carried me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the inner court, where the idol that provokes jealousy was seated.

¹⁶So He brought me to the inner court of the house of the Lord, and there at the entrance to the temple of the Lord, between the portico and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east; and they were bowing to the east in worship of the sun.

²⁴And the Spirit lifted me up and carried me back to Chaldea, to the exiles in the vision given by the Spirit of God. After the vision had gone up from me,

¹³Now as I was prophesying, Pelatiah son of Benaiah died. Then I fell facedown and cried out in a loud voice, “Oh, Lord God, will You bring the remnant of Israel to a complete end?”

¹“Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the Lord, “to those who carry out a plan that is not Mine, who form an alliance, but against My will, heaping up sin upon sin.

⁵I will go to the powerful and speak to them. Surely they know the way of the Lord, the justice of their God.” But they too, with one accord, had broken the yoke and torn off the chains.

¹Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?

²The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together, against the Lord and against His Anointed One:

²Your tongue devises destruction like a sharpened razor, O worker of deceit.

⁴No one calls for justice; no one pleads his case honestly. They rely on empty pleas; they tell lies; they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity.

¹Woe to those who devise iniquity and plot evil on their beds! At morning’s light they accomplish it because the power is in their hands.

²They covet fields and seize them; they take away houses. They deprive a man of his home, a fellow man of his inheritance.

²²“Son of man, what is this proverb that you have in the land of Israel: ‘The days go by, and every vision fails’?

²⁷“Son of man, take note that the house of Israel is saying, ‘The vision that he sees is for many years from now; he prophesies about the distant future.’

³Now speak a parable to this rebellious house and tell them that this is what the Lord God says: ‘Put the pot on the fire; put it on and pour in the water.

⁴Put in the pieces of meat, every good piece—thigh and shoulder—fill it with choice bones.

⁵You improvise songs on the harp like David and invent your own musical instruments.

⁴“Where is the promise of His coming?” they will ask. “Ever since our fathers fell asleep, everything continues as it has from the beginning of creation.”

¹⁹to those who say, “Let Him hurry and hasten His work so that we may see it! Let the plan of the Holy One of Israel come so that we may know it!”

¹“Cry aloud, do not hold back! Raise your voice like a ram’s horn. Declare to My people their transgression and to the house of Jacob their sins.

⁴⁶“Son of man, set your face toward the south, preach against it, and prophesy against the forest of the Negev.

⁴⁷Say to the forest of the Negev: Hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Lord God says: I am about to ignite in you a fire, and it will devour all your trees, both green and dry. The blazing flame will not be quenched, and by it every face from south to north will be scorched.

⁵Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of My mouth, and My judgments go forth like lightning.

¹⁷“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from My mouth, give them a warning from Me.

¹⁸If I say to the wicked man, ‘You will surely die,’ but you do not warn him or speak out to warn him from his wicked way to save his life, that wicked man will die in his iniquity, and I will hold you responsible for his blood.

²“Son of man, set your face against the Ammonites and prophesy against them.

²So I opened my mouth, and He fed me the scroll.

³“Son of man,” He said to me, “eat and fill your stomach with this scroll I am giving you.” So I ate, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth.

¹⁰I, the Lord, search the heart; I examine the mind to reward a man according to his way, by what his deeds deserve.

²³Then I will strike her children dead, and all the churches will know that I am the One who searches minds and hearts, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.

²And as He spoke to me, the Spirit entered me and set me on my feet, and I heard Him speaking to me.

¹⁷For My eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from My face, and their guilt is not concealed from My eyes.

¹In the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth month, I was sitting in my house, and the elders of Judah were sitting before me; and there the hand of the Lord God fell upon me.

⁴They are obstinate and stubborn children. I am sending you to them, and you are to say to them, ‘This is what the Lord God says.’

⁵And whether they listen or refuse to listen—for they are a rebellious house—they will know that a prophet has been among them.

²³Forge the chain, for the land is full of crimes of bloodshed, and the city is full of violence.

¹⁵When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you multiply your prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood.

¹²In you they take bribes to shed blood. You engage in usury, take excess interest, and extort your neighbors. But Me you have forgotten, declares the Lord God.

²⁷Her officials within her are like wolves tearing their prey, shedding blood, and destroying lives for dishonest gain.

²“As for you, son of man, will you judge her? Will you pass judgment on the city of bloodshed? Then confront her with all her abominations

³and tell her that this is what the Lord God says: ‘O city who brings her own doom by shedding blood within her walls and making idols to defile herself,

²Cursing and lying, murder and stealing, and adultery are rampant; one act of bloodshed follows another.

³Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it will waste away with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air; even the fish of the sea disappear.

²You hate good and love evil. You tear the skin from my people and strip the flesh from their bones.

³You eat the flesh of my people after stripping off their skin and breaking their bones. You chop them up like flesh for the cooking pot, like meat in a cauldron.”

³Now speak a parable to this rebellious house and tell them that this is what the Lord God says: ‘Put the pot on the fire; put it on and pour in the water.

⁴Put in the pieces of meat, every good piece—thigh and shoulder—fill it with choice bones.

¹⁸The captain of the guard also took away Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest of second rank, and the three doorkeepers.

¹⁹Of those still in the city, he took a court official who had been appointed over the men of war, as well as five royal advisors. He also took the scribe of the captain of the army, who had enlisted the people of the land, and sixty men who were found in the city.

²⁴The captain of the guard also took away Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest of second rank, and the three doorkeepers.

²⁵Of those still in the city, he took a court official who had been appointed over the men of war, as well as seven trusted royal advisers. He also took the scribe of the captain of the army, who had enlisted the people of the land, and sixty men who were found in the city.

⁹I will make your forehead like a diamond, harder than flint. Do not be afraid of them or dismayed at their presence, even though they are a rebellious house.”

¹⁰“Son of man,” He added, “listen carefully to all the words I speak to you, and take them to heart.

²⁴What the wicked man dreads will overtake him, but the desire of the righteous will be granted.

⁴So I will choose their punishment and I will bring terror upon them, because I called and no one answered, I spoke and no one listened. But they did evil in My sight and chose that in which I did not delight.”

²⁵For the thing I feared has overtaken me, and what I dreaded has befallen me.

¹⁷Terror and pit and snare await you, O dweller of the earth.

¹⁸Whoever flees the sound of panic will fall into the pit, and whoever climbs from the pit will be caught in the snare. For the windows of heaven are open, and the foundations of the earth are shaken.

¹⁹But King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “I am afraid of the Jews who have deserted to the Chaldeans, for the Chaldeans may deliver me into their hands to abuse me.”

²⁰“They will not hand you over,” Jeremiah replied. “Obey the voice of the Lord in what I am telling you, that it may go well with you and you may live.

¹⁴and if you say, ‘No, but we will go to the land of Egypt and live there, where we will not see war or hear the sound of the ram’s horn or hunger for bread,’

¹⁵then hear the word of the Lord, O remnant of Judah! This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you are determined to go to Egypt and reside there,

⁸Therefore this is what the Lord God says: ‘Behold, I Myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will execute judgments among you in the sight of the nations.

⁴¹He delivered them into the hand of the nations, and those who hated them ruled over them.

³⁶The Lord will bring you and the king you appoint to a nation neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone.

⁴¹Then they will burn down your houses and execute judgment against you in the sight of many women. I will put an end to your prostitution, and you will never again pay your lovers.

⁴⁹The Lord will bring a nation from afar, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down upon you like an eagle—a nation whose language you will not understand,

⁵⁰a ruthless nation with no respect for the old and no pity for the young.

¹¹When the sentence for a crime is not speedily executed, the hearts of men become fully set on doing evil.

²⁵This Jeroboam restored the boundary of Israel from Lebo-hamath to the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word that the Lord, the God of Israel, had spoken through His servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath-hepher.

⁹The Chaldeans seized the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he pronounced judgment on Zedekiah.

¹⁰There at Riblah the king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and he also killed all the officials of Judah.

⁶There at Riblah the king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and he also killed all the nobles of Judah.

⁷The slain will fall among you, and you will know that I am the Lord.

¹⁹Of those still in the city, he took a court official who had been appointed over the men of war, as well as five royal advisors. He also took the scribe of the captain of the army, who had enlisted the people of the land, and sixty men who were found in the city.

²⁰Nebuzaradan captain of the guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah.

¹⁶The Lord is known by the justice He brings; the wicked are ensnared by the work of their hands. Higgaion Selah

³They are saying, ‘Is not the time near to build houses? The city is the cooking pot, and we are the meat.’

⁷Therefore this is what the Lord God says: The slain you have laid within this city are the meat, and the city is the pot; but I will remove you from it.

⁸You fear the sword, so I will bring the sword against you, declares the Lord God.

¹⁰So I went in and looked, and engraved all around the wall was every kind of crawling creature and detestable beast, along with all the idols of the house of Israel.

¹⁴Then He brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the Lord, and I saw women sitting there, weeping for Tammuz.

¹⁶So He brought me to the inner court of the house of the Lord, and there at the entrance to the temple of the Lord, between the portico and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east; and they were bowing to the east in worship of the sun.

³⁵but they mingled with the nations and adopted their customs.

³⁶They worshiped their idols, which became a snare to them.

¹⁴Furthermore, all the leaders of the priests and the people multiplied their unfaithful deeds, following all the abominations of the nations, and they defiled the house of the Lord, which He had consecrated in Jerusalem.

¹¹They burned incense on all the high places like the nations that the Lord had driven out before them. They did wicked things, provoking the Lord to anger.

¹²They served idols, although the Lord had told them, “You shall not do this thing.”

¹Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the gate of the house of the Lord that faces east. And there at the entrance of the gate were twenty-five men. Among them I saw Jaazaniah son of Azzur and Pelatiah son of Benaiah, who were leaders of the people.

⁸While they were killing, I was left alone. And I fell facedown and cried out, “Oh, Lord God, when You pour out Your wrath on Jerusalem, will You destroy the entire remnant of Israel?”

⁵On hearing these words, Ananias fell down and died. And great fear came over all who heard what had happened.

¹⁵Then the prophet Jeremiah said to the prophet Hananiah, “Listen, Hananiah! The Lord did not send you, but you have persuaded this people to trust in a lie.

¹⁶Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘I am about to remove you from the face of the earth. You will die this year because you have preached rebellion against the Lord.’”

⁶Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell facedown before the ark of the Lord until evening, as did the elders of Israel; and they all sprinkled dust on their heads.

⁷“O, Lord God,” Joshua said, “why did You ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to be destroyed? If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan!

²³So He said He would destroy them—had not Moses His chosen one stood before Him in the breach to divert His wrath from destroying them.

²⁴“Son of man, those living in the ruins in the land of Israel are saying, ‘Abraham was only one man, yet he possessed the land. But we are many; surely the land has been given to us as a possession.’

⁵You who tremble at His word, hear the word of the Lord: “Your brothers who hate you and exclude you because of My name have said, ‘Let the Lord be glorified that we may see your joy!’ But they will be put to shame.”

¹After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, as well as the officials of Judah and the craftsmen and metalsmiths from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon, the Lord showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the temple of the Lord.

²One basket had very good figs, like those that ripen early, but the other basket contained very poor figs, so bad they could not be eaten.

⁵They say, ‘Keep to yourself; do not come near me, for I am holier than you!’ Such people are smoke in My nostrils, a fire that burns all day long.

²They will put you out of the synagogues. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God.

¹⁴And He will be a sanctuary—but to both houses of Israel a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, to the dwellers of Jerusalem a trap and a snare.

¹He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.

¹A prayer of Moses the man of God. Lord, You have been our dwelling place through all generations.

³then He will restore you from captivity and have compassion on you and gather you from all the nations to which the Lord your God has scattered you.

⁴Even if you have been banished to the farthest horizon, He will gather you and return you from there.

²⁰You hide them in the secret place of Your presence from the schemes of men. You conceal them in Your shelter from accusing tongues.

¹¹For I am with you to save you, declares the Lord. Though I will completely destroy all the nations to which I have scattered you, I will not completely destroy you. Yet I will discipline you justly, and will by no means leave you unpunished.”

²⁵This is what the Lord God says: ‘When I gather the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they have been scattered, I will show Myself holy among them in the sight of the nations. Then they will dwell in their own land, which I have given to My servant Jacob.

¹³I will bring them out from the peoples, gather them from the countries, and bring them into their own land. I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines, and in all the settlements of the land.

¹⁸In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together from the land of the north to the land that I gave to your fathers as an inheritance.

²⁴For I will take you from among the nations and gather you out of all the countries, and I will bring you back into your own land.

⁵“This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Like these good figs, so I regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans.

¹¹On that day the Lord will extend His hand a second time to recover the remnant of His people from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.

¹²He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; He will collect the scattered of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

²³They will no longer defile themselves with their idols or detestable images, or with any of their transgressions. I will save them from all their apostasies by which they sinned, and I will cleanse them. Then they will be My people, and I will be their God.

¹¹Therefore as surely as I live, declares the Lord God, because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable idols and abominations, I Myself will withdraw My favor; I will not look upon you with pity, nor will I spare you.

⁷An outer wall in front of the chambers was fifty cubits long and ran parallel to the chambers and the outer court.

⁸For the chambers on the outer court were fifty cubits long, while those facing the temple were a hundred cubits long.

²⁰His beautiful ornaments they transformed into pride and used them to fashion their vile images and detestable idols. Therefore I will make these into something unclean for them.

²⁵I will turn My hand against you; I will thoroughly purge your dross; I will remove all your impurities.

²⁶I will restore your judges as at first, and your counselors as at the beginning. After that you will be called the City of Righteousness, the Faithful City.”

²¹But as for those whose hearts pursue detestable things and abominations, I will bring their conduct down upon their own heads, declares the Lord God.”

²⁶I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

²⁷And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and to carefully observe My ordinances.

³³“But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.

¹⁰Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

³⁹I will give them one heart and one way, so that they will always fear Me for their own good and for the good of their children after them.

⁴⁰I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never turn away from doing good to them, and I will put My fear in their hearts, so that they will never turn away from Me.

⁷I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord. They will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with all their heart.

⁶The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, and you will love Him with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.

¹¹in order that the house of Israel may no longer stray from Me and no longer defile themselves with all their transgressions. Then they will be My people and I will be their God, declares the Lord God.’”

⁴⁵that they might keep His statutes and obey His laws. Hallelujah!

¹¹For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to everyone.

¹²It instructs us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live sensible, upright, and godly lives in the present age,

²²“And you will be My people, and I will be your God.”

⁶Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and decrees of the Lord.

³³“But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.

¹⁰But as for Me, I will not look on them with pity, nor will I spare them. I will bring their deeds down upon their own heads.”

⁹Rejoice, O young man, while you are young, and let your heart be glad in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and in the sight of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you to judgment.

¹⁸When they return to it, they will remove all its detestable things and all its abominations.

³¹So I have poured out My indignation upon them and consumed them with the fire of My fury. I have brought their ways down upon their own heads, declares the Lord God.”

¹⁴But each one is tempted when by his own evil desires he is lured away and enticed.

¹⁵Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

¹⁶I will pronounce My judgments against them for all their wickedness, because they have forsaken Me, and they have burned incense to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands.

¹⁹As I watched, the cherubim lifted their wings and rose up from the ground, with the wheels beside them as they went. And they stopped at the entrance of the east gate of the house of the Lord, with the glory of the God of Israel above them.

¹⁹So as the living creatures moved, the wheels moved beside them, and when the creatures rose from the ground, the wheels also rose.

²⁰Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, and the wheels would rise alongside them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.

⁴On that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half the mountain moving to the north and half to the south.

⁴And there I saw the glory of the God of Israel, like the vision I had seen in the plain.

²and I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east. His voice was like the roar of many waters, and the earth shone with His glory.

⁴Then the glory of the Lord rose from above the cherubim and stood over the threshold of the temple. The temple was filled with the cloud, and the court was filled with the brightness of the glory of the Lord.

³⁷O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling!

¹⁸Then the glory of the Lord moved away from the threshold of the temple and stood above the cherubim.

³He stretched out what looked like a hand and took me by the hair of my head. Then the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and carried me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the inner court, where the idol that provokes jealousy was seated.

¹²Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard a great rumbling sound behind me: “Blessed be the glory of the Lord in His dwelling place!”

¹Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the gate of the house of the Lord that faces east. And there at the entrance of the gate were twenty-five men. Among them I saw Jaazaniah son of Azzur and Pelatiah son of Benaiah, who were leaders of the people.

¹⁶This happened three times, and all at once the sheet was taken back up into heaven.

³the word of the Lord came directly to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the River Kebar. And there the Lord’s hand was upon him.

¹⁵I came to the exiles at Tel-abib who dwelt by the River Kebar. And for seven days I sat where they sat and remained there among them, overwhelmed.

⁴Then He said to me, “Son of man, go now to the house of Israel and speak My words to them.

¹⁷“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from My mouth, give them a warning from Me.

²⁷But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth, and you are to tell them, ‘This is what the Lord God says.’ Whoever listens, let him listen; and whoever refuses, let him refuse, for they are a rebellious house.

⁷But speak My words to them, whether they listen or refuse to listen, for they are rebellious.