The Cost of Ignoring the Warning: Judgment, Accountability, and the Collapse of Complacency
Ezekiel 4
1 You also, son of man, take a tile, and lay it before you, and portray on it a city, even Jerusalem.
2 Lay siege against it, and build forts against it, and cast up a mound against it. Set camps against it, and plant battering rams against it all around.
3 Take for yourself an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between you and the city. Set your face toward it, and it shall be besieged, and you shall lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.
4 Moreover lie on your left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it. According to the number of the days that you shall lie on it, you shall bear their iniquity.
5 For I have appointed the years of their iniquity to be to you a number of days, even three hundred ninety days. So you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.
6 Again, when you have accomplished these, you shall lie on your right side, and shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah: forty days, each day for a year, have I appointed it to you.
7 You shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, with your arm uncovered; and you shall prophesy against it.
8 Behold, I put ropes on you, and you shall not turn yourself from one side to the other, until you have accomplished the days of your siege.
9 Take for yourself also wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make bread for yourself from them. According to the number of the days that you lie on your side, even three hundred ninety days, you shall eat it.
10 Your food which you shall eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day. From time to time you shall eat it.
11 You shall drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin. From time to time you shall drink.
12 You shall eat it as barley cakes, and you shall bake it in their sight with human dung.
13 Yahweh said, “Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations where I will drive them.”
14 Then I said, “Ah Lord Yahweh! Behold, my soul has not been polluted; for from my youth up even until now I have not eaten of that which dies of itself, or is torn of animals. Neither came abominable meat into my mouth.”
15 Then he said to me, “Behold, I have given you cow’s dung for human dung, and you shall prepare your bread on it.”
16 Moreover he said to me, “Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem. They shall eat bread by weight, and with fearfulness; and they shall drink water by measure, and in dismay;
17 that they may want bread and water, and be dismayed one with another, and pine away in their iniquity.
Ezekiel 5
1 You, son of man, take a sharp sword. You shall take it as a barber’s razor to yourself, and shall cause it to pass over your head and over your beard. Then take balances to weigh, and divide the hair.
2 A third part you shall burn in the fire in the middle of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled. You shall take a third part, and strike with the sword around it; and a third part you shall scatter to the wind, and I will draw out a sword after them.
3 You shall take from there a few in number, and bind them in your skirts.
4 Of these again you shall take some, and cast them into the middle of the fire, and burn them in the fire. From there a fire shall come out into all the house of Israel.
5 The Lord Yahweh says: “This is Jerusalem. I have set her in the middle of the nations, and countries are around her.
6 She has rebelled against my ordinances in doing wickedness more than the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries that are around her; for they have rejected my ordinances, and as for my statutes, they have not walked in them.”
7 Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: “Because you are turbulent more than the nations that are around you, and have not walked in my statutes, neither have kept my ordinances, neither have done after the ordinances of the nations that are around you;
8 therefore the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Behold, I, even I, am against you; and I will execute judgments among you in the sight of the nations.
9 I will do in you that which I have not done, and the like of which I will not do any more, because of all your abominations.
10 Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the middle of you, and the sons shall eat their fathers. I will execute judgments on you; and the whole remnant of you I will scatter to all the winds.
11 Therefore, as I live,’ says the Lord Yahweh, ‘surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things, and with all your abominations, therefore I will also diminish you; neither shall my eye spare, and I will have no pity.
12 A third part of you shall die with the pestilence, and they shall be consumed with famine in the middle of you; and a third part shall fall by the sword around you; and I will scatter a third part to all the winds, and will draw out a sword after them.
13 Thus my anger shall be accomplished, and I will cause my wrath toward them to rest, and I shall be comforted. They shall know that I, Yahweh, have spoken in my zeal, when I have accomplished my wrath on them.
14 Moreover I will make you a desolation and a reproach among the nations that are around you, in the sight of all that pass by.
15 So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment to the nations that are around you, when I shall execute judgments on you in anger and in wrath, and in furious rebukes. I, Yahweh, have spoken it.
16 When I shall send on them the evil arrows of famine, which are for destruction, which I will send to destroy you; and I will increase the famine on you, and will break your staff of bread;
17 and I will send on you famine and evil animals, and they shall bereave you. Pestilence and blood shall pass through you. I will bring the sword on you. I, Yahweh, have spoken it.”
Ezekiel 6
1 Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,
2 “Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy to them,
3 and say, ‘You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Yahweh! The Lord Yahweh says to the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys: Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword on you, and I will destroy your high places.
4 Your altars shall become desolate, and your incense altars shall be broken. I will cast down your slain men before your idols.
5 I will lay the dead bodies of the children of Israel before their idols. I will scatter your bones around your altars.
6 In all your dwelling places, the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate, so that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your incense altars may be cut down, and your works may be abolished.
7 The slain shall fall in the middle of you, and you shall know that I am Yahweh.
8 Yet I will leave a remnant, in that you shall have some who escape the sword among the nations, when you are scattered through the countries.
9 Those of you who escape shall remember me among the nations where they are carried captive, how that I have been broken with their whoring heart, which has departed from me, and with their eyes, which play the prostitute after their idols. They shall loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.
10 They shall know that I am Yahweh. I have not said in vain that I would do this evil to them.’”
11 The Lord Yahweh says: “Strike with your hand, and stamp with your foot, and say, ‘Alas!’ because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel; for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.
12 He who is far off shall die of the pestilence; and he who is near shall fall by the sword; and he who remains and is besieged shall die by the famine. Thus I will accomplish my wrath on them.
13 You shall know that I am Yahweh, when their slain men are among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the places where they offered pleasant fragrance to all their idols.
14 I will stretch out my hand on them, and make the land desolate and waste, from the wilderness toward Diblah, in all their habitations. Then they shall know that I am Yahweh.’”
Ezekiel 7
1 Moreover Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,
2 “You, son of man, the Lord Yahweh says to the land of Israel: ‘An end! The end has come on the four corners of the land.
3 Now the end is on you, and I will send my anger on you, and will judge you according to your ways. I will bring on you all your abominations.
4 My eye will not spare you, neither will I have pity; but I will bring your ways on you, and your abominations will be in the middle of you. Then you shall know that I am Yahweh.’
5 The Lord Yahweh says: ‘An evil! An only evil! Behold, it comes.
6 An end has come. The end has come! It awakes against you. Behold, it comes.
7 Your doom has come to you, inhabitant of the land. The time has come. The day is near, a day of tumult, and not of joyful shouting, on the mountains.
8 Now I will shortly pour out my wrath on you, and accomplish my anger against you; and I will judge you according to your ways. I will bring on you all your abominations.
9 My eye will not spare, neither will I have pity. I will bring on you according to your ways; and your abominations will be in the middle of you. Then you will know that I, Yahweh, strike.
10 Behold, the day! Behold, it comes! Your doom has gone out. The rod has blossomed. Pride has budded.
11 Violence has risen up into a rod of wickedness. None of them shall remain, nor of their multitude, nor of their wealth. There shall be no preeminence among them.
12 The time has come. The day draws near. Don’t let the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn; for wrath is on all its multitude.
13 For the seller shall not return to that which is sold, although they are still alive; for the vision concerns all its multitude. None shall return; neither shall any strengthen himself in the iniquity of his life.
14 They have blown the trumpet, and have made all ready; but none goes to the battle; for my wrath is on all its multitude.
15 The sword is outside, and the pestilence and the famine within. He who is in the field shall die with the sword; and he who is in the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him.
16 But those of them who escape shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them moaning, everyone in his iniquity.
17 All hands shall be feeble, and all knees shall be weak as water.
18 They shall also clothe themselves with sackcloth, and horror shall cover them. Shame shall be on all faces, and baldness on all their heads.
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be as an unclean thing. Their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of Yahweh’s wrath. They shall not satisfy their souls or fill their bellies, because it has been the stumbling block of their iniquity.
20 As for the beauty of his ornament, he set it in majesty; but they made the images of their abominations and their detestable things in it. Therefore I have made it to them as an unclean thing.
21 I will give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a plunder; and they shall profane it.
22 I will also turn my face from them, and they shall profane my secret place; and robbers shall enter into it and profane it.
23 Make the chain; for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence.
24 Therefore I will bring the worst of the nations, and they shall possess their houses. I will also make the pride of the strong to cease; and their holy places shall be profaned.
25 Destruction comes! They shall seek peace, and there shall be none.
26 Disaster shall come on disaster, and rumor shall be on rumor; and they shall seek a vision from the prophet; but the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the elders.
27 The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled. I will do to them after their way, and according to their deserts will I judge them. They shall know that I am Yahweh.’”
Scripture: World English Bible Classic (WEB), a public-domain translation. Available for free copying and sharing at eBible.org.
