Ezekiel 12

²¹“Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear.

¹²so that, ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven.’”

³⁹Then Jesus declared, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind may see and those who see may become blind.”

⁴⁰Some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard this, and they asked Him, “Are we blind too?”

⁴⁰How often they disobeyed Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert!

¹Oh, that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night over the slain daughter of my people.

²If only I had a traveler’s lodge in the wilderness, I would abandon my people and depart from them, for they are all adulterers, a crowd of faithless people.

¹⁸They are darkened in their understanding and alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts.

³Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about all the calamity I plan to bring upon them, each of them will turn from his wicked way. Then I will forgive their iniquity and their sin.”

³Perhaps they will listen and turn—each from his evil way of life—so that I may relent of the disaster I am planning to bring upon them because of the evil of their deeds.

²⁵He must gently reprove those who oppose him, in the hope that God may grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth.

⁷Perhaps they will bring their petition before the Lord, and each one will turn from his wicked way; for great are the anger and fury that the Lord has pronounced against this people.”

¹³‘What shall I do?’ asked the owner of the vineyard. ‘I will send my beloved son. Perhaps they will respect him.’

¹This is what the Lord said to me: “Go and buy yourself a linen loincloth and put it around your waist, but do not let it touch water.”

²So I bought a loincloth in accordance with the word of the Lord, and I put it around my waist.

⁴When Zedekiah king of Judah and all the soldiers saw them, they fled. They left the city at night by way of the king’s garden, through the gate between the two walls, and they went out along the route to the Arabah.

⁴Then the city was breached; and though the Chaldeans had surrounded the city, all the men of war fled by night by way of the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden. They headed toward the Arabah,

¹²And at dusk the prince among them will lift his bags to his shoulder and go out. They will dig through the wall to bring him out. He will cover his face so he cannot see the land.

⁷Then the city was breached; and though the Chaldeans had surrounded the city, all the men of war fled the city by night by way of the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden. They headed toward the Arabah,

²And on the ninth day of the fourth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year, the city was breached.

³Then all the officials of the king of Babylon entered and sat in the Middle Gate: Nergal-sharezer of Samgar, Nebo-sarsekim the Rabsaris, Nergal-sharezer the Rabmag, and all the rest of the officials of the king of Babylon.

⁴Then the city was breached; and though the Chaldeans had surrounded the city, all the men of war fled by night by way of the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden. They headed toward the Arabah,

³Then take an iron plate and set it up as an iron wall between yourself and the city. Turn your face toward it so that it is under siege, and besiege it. This will be a sign to the house of Israel.

²⁴‘Thus Ezekiel will be a sign for you; you will do everything that he has done. When this happens, you will know that I am the Lord God.’

¹⁸Here am I, and the children the Lord has given me as signs and symbols in Israel from the Lord of Hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion.

¹¹You are to say, ‘I am a sign to you.’ Just as it happened here, so will it be done to them; they will go into exile as captives.

¹²And at dusk the prince among them will lift his bags to his shoulder and go out. They will dig through the wall to bring him out. He will cover his face so he cannot see the land.

⁸So Saul disguised himself by putting on different clothes, and he set out with two of his men. They came to the woman at night, and Saul said, “Consult a spirit for me. Bring up for me the one I name.”

³⁰But David continued up the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went up. His head was covered, and he was walking barefoot. And all the people with him covered their heads and went up, weeping as they went.

¹⁸So I spoke to the people in the morning, and in the evening my wife died. And the next morning I did as I had been commanded.

¹⁰So I prophesied as He had commanded me, and the breath entered them, and they came to life and stood on their feet—a vast army.

⁷So I prophesied as I had been commanded. And as I prophesied, there was suddenly a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to bone.

³Therefore, son of man, pack your bags for exile. In broad daylight, set out from your place and go to another as they watch. Perhaps they will understand, though they are a rebellious house.

¹⁹So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.

¹⁶So the disciples left and went into the city, where they found everything as Jesus had described. And they prepared the Passover.

¹⁹Then the people asked me, “Won’t you tell us what these things you are doing mean to us?”

¹²“Now say to this rebellious house: ‘Do you not know what these things mean?’ Tell them, ‘Behold, the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem, carried off its king and officials, and brought them back with him to Babylon.

⁴⁹Then I said, “Ah, Lord God, they are saying of me, ‘Is he not just telling parables?’”

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

⁶But you, son of man, do not be afraid of them or their words. Do not be afraid, though briers and thorns surround you, and you dwell among scorpions. Do not be afraid of their words or dismayed by their presence, though they are a rebellious house.

¹Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²“Son of man, you are living in a rebellious house. They have eyes to see but do not see, and ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious house.

²⁵And Jehu said to Bidkar his officer, “Pick him up and throw him into the field of Naboth the Jezreelite. For remember that when you and I were riding together behind his father Ahab, the Lord lifted up this burden against him:

¹This is the burden against Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz received:

¹³He took a member of the royal family and made a covenant with him, putting him under oath. Then he carried away the leading men of the land,

¹⁴so that the kingdom would be brought low, unable to lift itself up, surviving only by keeping his covenant.

¹⁸But if you do not surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, then this city will be delivered into the hands of the Chaldeans. They will burn it down, and you yourself will not escape their grasp.’”

²⁷The 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 I will judge them by their own standards. Then they will know that I am the Lord.’”

²⁸In the year that King Ahaz died, this burden was received:

²If they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ you are to tell them that this is what the Lord says: ‘Those destined for death, to death; those destined for the sword, to the sword; those destined for famine, to famine; and those destined for captivity, to captivity.’

¹⁵Then Nebuzaradan captain of the guard carried into exile some of the poorest people and those who remained in the city, along with the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon and the rest of the craftsmen.

²⁸These are the people Nebuchadnezzar carried away: in the seventh year, 3,023 Jews;

²⁹in Nebuchadnezzar’s eighteenth year, 832 people from Jerusalem;

⁶And as they watch, lift your bags to your shoulder and take them out at dusk; cover your face so that you cannot see the land. For I have made you a sign to the house of Israel.”

⁴When Zedekiah king of Judah and all the soldiers saw them, they fled. They left the city at night by way of the king’s garden, through the gate between the two walls, and they went out along the route to the Arabah.

⁴Then the city was breached; and though the Chaldeans had surrounded the city, all the men of war fled by night by way of the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden. They headed toward the Arabah,

⁶And as they watch, lift your bags to your shoulder and take them out at dusk; cover your face so that you cannot see the land. For I have made you a sign to the house of Israel.”

⁷After ten days the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah,

⁷Then the city was breached; and though the Chaldeans had surrounded the city, all the men of war fled the city by night by way of the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden. They headed toward the Arabah,

⁷Then he put out Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him with bronze chains to take him to Babylon.

²⁰I will spread My net over him and catch him in My snare. I will bring him to Babylon and execute judgment upon him there for the treason he committed against Me.

¹²As they go, I will spread My net over them; I will bring them down like birds of the air. I will chastise them when I hear them flocking together.

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.

¹⁶‘As surely as I live,’ declares the Lord God, ‘he will die in Babylon, in the land of the king who enthroned him, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he broke.

⁵but the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho, and his whole army deserted him.

⁶The Chaldeans seized the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, where they pronounced judgment on him.

²When the days of the siege have ended, you are to burn up a third of the hair inside the city; you are also to take a third and slash it with the sword all around the city; and you are to scatter a third to the wind. For I will unleash a sword behind them.

²¹All his choice troops will fall by the sword, and those who survive will be scattered to every wind. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken.’

⁴Then the city was breached; and though the Chaldeans had surrounded the city, all the men of war fled by night by way of the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden. They headed toward the Arabah,

⁵but the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho, and his whole army deserted him.

¹⁶then the sword you fear will overtake you there, and the famine you dread will follow on your heels into Egypt, and you will die there.

¹⁰As a result, fathers among you will eat their sons, and sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments against you and scatter all your remnant to every wind.’

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.

²²Now therefore, know for sure that by sword and famine and plague you will die in the place where you desire to go to reside.”

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

²⁰The inhabited cities will be laid waste, and the land will become desolate. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

¹⁶But I will spare a few of them from sword and famine and plague, so that in the nations to which they go, they can recount all their abominations. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

¹⁴I will stretch out My hand against them, and wherever they live I will make the land a desolate waste, from the wilderness to Diblah. Then they will know that I am the Lord.’”

¹¹So I will execute judgments on Moab, and they will know that I am the Lord.’

¹⁸then as surely as I live, declares the Lord God, even if these three men were in it, they could not deliver their own sons or daughters. They alone would be delivered.

⁸And many nations will pass by this city and ask one another, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this great city?’

⁹Then people will reply, ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God and have worshiped and served other gods.’”

²²Yet, behold, some survivors will be left in it—sons and daughters who will be brought out. They will come out to you, and when you see their conduct and actions, you will be comforted regarding the disaster I have brought upon Jerusalem—all that I have brought upon it.

²³They will bring you consolation when you see their conduct and actions, and you will know that it was not without cause that I have done all these things within it,’ declares the Lord God.”

⁸Yet I will leave a remnant, for some of you will escape the sword when you are scattered among the nations and throughout the lands.

⁹Then in the nations to which they have been carried captive, your survivors will remember Me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts that turned away from Me, and by their eyes that lusted after idols. So they will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their abominations.

²⁷For this is what the Lord says: “The whole land will be desolate, but I will not finish its destruction.

⁹Unless the Lord of Hosts had left us a few survivors, we would have become like Sodom, we would have resembled Gomorrah.

²²Though your people, O Israel, be like the sand of the sea, only a remnant will return. Destruction has been decreed, overflowing with righteousness.

⁹We get our bread at the risk of our lives because of the sword in the wilderness.

²⁶When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in a single oven and dole out your bread by weight, so that you will eat but not be satisfied.

²⁴I sigh when food is put before me, and my groans pour out like water.

²You have shaken the land and torn it open. Heal its fractures, for it is quaking.

³You have shown Your people hardship; we are staggered from the wine You made us drink.

⁴My heart is afflicted, and withered like grass; I even forget to eat my bread.

⁵Through my loud groaning my skin hangs on my bones.

¹⁶Then He told me, “Son of man, I am going to cut off the supply of food in Jerusalem. They will anxiously eat bread rationed by weight, and in despair they will drink water by measure.

¹⁷So they will lack food and water; they will be appalled at the sight of one another wasting away in their iniquity.

¹⁴But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known, and the land was left desolate behind them so that no one could come or go. Thus they turned the pleasant land into a desolation.”

¹⁴I will stretch out My hand against them, and wherever they live I will make the land a desolate waste, from the wilderness to Diblah. Then they will know that I am the Lord.’”

⁶Wherever you live, the cities will be laid waste and the high places will be demolished, so that your altars will be laid waste and desecrated, your idols smashed and obliterated, your incense altars cut down, and your works blotted out.

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

¹³Then the earth will become desolate because of its inhabitants, as the fruit of their deeds.

²²Listen! The sound of a report is coming—a great commotion from the land to the north. It will make the cities of Judah a desolation, a haunt for jackals.

²⁸But if someone tells you, “This food was offered to idols,” then do not eat it, for the sake of the one who told you and for the sake of conscience—

⁷A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations has set out. He has left his lair to lay waste your land. Your cities will be reduced to ruins and lie uninhabited.

²³And on that day, in every place that had a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels of silver, only briers and thorns will be found.

²⁴Men will go there with bow and arrow, for the land will be covered with briers and thorns.

⁹behold, I will summon all the families of the north, declares the Lord, and I will send for My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, whom I will bring against this land, against its residents, and against all the surrounding nations. So I will devote them to destruction and make them an object of horror and contempt, an everlasting desolation.

²⁶And the gates of Zion will lament and mourn; destitute, she will sit on the ground.

¹⁰Your holy cities have become a wilderness. Zion has become a wasteland and Jerusalem a desolation.

¹¹Our holy and beautiful temple, where our fathers praised You, has been burned with fire, and all that was dear to us lies in ruins.

¹²The city is left in ruins; its gate is reduced to rubble.

²“What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel: ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge’?

³As surely as I live, declares the Lord God, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel.

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

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.’

³You dismiss the day of calamity and bring near a reign of violence.

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!”

³³“Now when this people or a prophet or priest asks you, ‘What is the burden of the Lord?’ you are to say to them, ‘What burden? I will forsake you, declares the Lord.’

³⁴As for the prophet or priest or anyone who claims, ‘This is the burden of the Lord,’ I will punish that man and his household.

¹Blow the ram’s horn in Zion; sound the alarm on My holy mountain! Let all who dwell in the land tremble, for the Day of the Lord is coming; indeed, it is near—

³⁴Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have happened.

⁵This is what the Lord God says: ‘Disaster! An unprecedented disaster—behold, it is coming!

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

³As surely as I live, declares the Lord God, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel.

¹⁴The great Day of the Lord is near—near and coming quickly. Listen, the Day of the Lord! Then the cry of the mighty will be bitter.

⁸You, too, be patient and strengthen your hearts, because the Lord’s coming is near.

⁹Do not complain about one another, brothers, so that you will not be judged. Look, the Judge is standing at the door!

¹³“Ah, Lord God!” I replied, “Look, the prophets are telling them, ‘You will not see the sword or suffer famine, but I will give you lasting peace in this place.’”

¹⁴“The prophets are prophesying lies in My name,” replied the Lord. “I did not send them or appoint them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a false vision, a worthless divination, the futility and delusion of their own minds.

²And on that day, declares the Lord of Hosts, I will erase the names of the idols from the land, and they will no longer be remembered. I will also remove the prophets and the spirit of impurity from the land.

³And if anyone still prophesies, his father and mother who bore him will say to him, ‘You shall not remain alive, because you have spoken falsely in the name of the Lord.’ When he prophesies, his father and mother who bore him will pierce him through.

²³therefore you will no longer see false visions or practice divination. I will deliver My people from your hands. Then you will know that I am the Lord.”

¹⁴The visions of your prophets were empty and deceptive; they did not expose your guilt to ward off your captivity. The burdens they envisioned for you were empty and misleading.

¹⁴And among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: They commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns his back on wickedness. They are all like Sodom to Me; the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah.”

¹⁵Therefore this is what the Lord of Hosts says concerning the prophets: “I will feed them wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink, for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has spread throughout the land.”

²Many will follow in their depravity, and because of them the way of truth will be defamed.

³In their greed, these false teachers will exploit you with deceptive words. The longstanding verdict against them remains in force, and their destruction does not sleep.

¹¹so My word that proceeds from My mouth will not return to Me empty, but it will accomplish what I please, and it will prosper where I send it.

²⁴The Lord of Hosts has sworn: “Surely, as I have planned, so will it be; as I have purposed, so will it stand.

⁵“Look at the nations and observe—be utterly astounded! For I am doing a work in your days that you would never believe even if someone told you.

²⁸Therefore tell them that this is what the Lord God says: ‘None of My words will be delayed any longer. The message I speak will be fulfilled, declares the Lord God.’”

³⁵Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away.

¹Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²“Son of man, you are living in a rebellious house. They have eyes to see but do not see, and ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious house.

¹⁴Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the latter days, for the vision concerns those days.”

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.”

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

¹⁴Therefore hear the word of the Lord, O scoffers who rule this people in Jerusalem.

¹⁵For you said, “We have made a covenant with death; we have fashioned an agreement with Sheol. When the overwhelming scourge passes through it will not touch us, because we have made lies our refuge and falsehood our hiding place.”

²³Therefore tell them that this is what the Lord God says: ‘I will put an end to this proverb, and in Israel they will no longer recite it.’ But say to them: ‘The days are at hand when every vision will be fulfilled.

²⁴For there will be no more false visions or flattering divinations within the house of Israel,

³²No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

³³Be on your guard and stay alert! For you do not know when the appointed time will come.

⁴⁸But suppose that servant is wicked and says in his heart, ‘My master will be away a long time.’

⁴⁹And he begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards.

²For you are fully aware that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

³While people are saying, “Peace and security,” destruction will come upon them suddenly, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.