Through My Bible Yr 2 – May 21

Ezekiel 6

A Prophecy Against the Mountains of Israel

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. ⁷Your 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. ¹⁰And 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 ^[a]—wherever they live. Then they will know that I am the LORD.’ ”

Ezekiel 7

The End Has Come

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. ⁴I 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 ^[b] 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. ⁹I 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 ^[c] 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. ¹⁴Though 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. ²²I 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.”

Footnotes:

1. Ezekiel 6:14 Most Hebrew manuscripts; a few Hebrew manuscripts Riblah
2. Ezekiel 7:5 Most Hebrew manuscripts; some Hebrew manuscripts and Syriac Disaster after
3. Ezekiel 7:11 Or The violent one has become

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright©1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.