Bible in 90 Days

2 A cloud of anger from the Lord has overcast Jerusalem; the fairest city of Israel lies in the dust of the earth, cast from the heights of heaven at his command. In his day of awesome fury he has shown no mercy even to his Temple.^[a]

² The Lord without mercy has destroyed every home in Israel. In his wrath he has broken every fortress, every wall. He has brought the kingdom to dust, with all its rulers.

³ All the strength of Israel vanishes beneath his wrath. He has withdrawn his protection as the enemy attacks. God burns across the land of Israel like a raging fire.

⁴ He bends his bow against his people as though he were an enemy. His strength is used against them to kill their finest youth. His fury is poured out like fire upon them.

⁵ Yes, the Lord has vanquished Israel like an enemy. He has destroyed her forts and palaces. Sorrows and tears are his portion for Jerusalem.

⁶ He has violently broken down his Temple as though it were a booth of leaves and branches in a garden! No longer can the people celebrate their holy feasts and Sabbaths. Kings and priests together fall before his wrath.

⁷ The Lord has rejected his own altar, for he despises the false “worship” of his people; he has given their palaces to their enemies, who carouse in the Temple as Israel used to do on days of holy feasts!

⁸ The Lord determined to destroy Jerusalem. He laid out an unalterable line of destruction. Therefore the ramparts and walls fell down before him.

⁹ Jerusalem’s gates are useless. All their locks and bars are broken, for he has crushed them. Her kings and princes are enslaved in far-off lands, without a temple, without a divine law to govern them or prophetic vision to guide them.

¹⁰ The elders of Jerusalem sit upon the ground in silence, clothed in sackcloth; they throw dust upon their heads in sorrow and despair. The virgins of Jerusalem hang their heads in shame.

¹¹ I have cried until the tears no longer come; my heart is broken, my spirit poured out, as I see what has happened to my people; little children and tiny babies are fainting and dying in the streets.

¹² “Mama, Mama, we want food,” they cry, and then collapse upon their mothers’ shrunken breasts. Their lives ebb away like those wounded in battle.

¹³ In all the world has there ever been such sorrow? O Jerusalem, what can I compare your anguish to? How can I comfort you? For your wound is deep as the sea. Who can heal you?

¹⁴ Your “prophets” have said so many foolish things, false to the core. They have not tried to hold you back from slavery by pointing out your sins. They lied and said that all was well.

¹⁵ All who pass by scoff and shake their heads and say, “Is this the city called ‘Most Beautiful in All the World,’ and ‘Joy of All the Earth’?”

¹⁶ All your enemies deride you. They hiss and grind their teeth and say, “We have destroyed her at last! Long have we waited for this hour, and it is finally here! With our own eyes we’ve seen her fall.”

¹⁷ But it is the Lord who did it, just as he had warned. He has fulfilled the promises of doom he made so long ago. He has destroyed Jerusalem without mercy and caused her enemies to rejoice over her and boast of their power.

¹⁸ Then the people wept before the Lord. O walls of Jerusalem, let tears fall down upon you like a river; give yourselves no rest from weeping day or night.

¹⁹ Rise in the night and cry to your God. Pour out your hearts like water to the Lord; lift up your hands to him; plead for your children as they faint with hunger in the streets.

²⁰ O Lord, think! These are your own people to whom you are doing this. Shall mothers eat their little children, those they bounced upon their knees? Shall priests and prophets die within the Temple of the Lord?

²¹ See them lying in the streets—old and young, boys and girls, killed by the enemies’ swords. You have killed them, Lord, in your anger; you have killed them without mercy.

²² You have deliberately called for this destruction; in the day of your anger none escaped or remained. All my little children lie dead upon the streets before the enemy.

3 I am the man who has seen the afflictions that come from the rod of God’s wrath. ² He has brought me into deepest darkness, shutting out all light. ³ He has turned against me. Day and night his hand is heavy on me. ⁴ He has made me old and has broken my bones.

⁵ He has built forts against me and surrounded me with anguish and distress. ⁶ He buried me in dark places, like those long dead. ⁷ He has walled me in; I cannot escape; he has fastened me with heavy chains. ⁸ And though I cry and shout, he will not hear my prayers! ⁹ He has shut me into a place of high, smooth walls;^[b] he has filled my path with detours.

¹⁰ He lurks like a bear, like a lion, waiting to attack me. ¹¹ He has dragged me into the underbrush and torn me with his claws, leaving me bleeding and desolate.

¹² He has bent his bow and aimed it squarely at me, ¹³ and sent his arrows deep within my heart.

¹⁴ My own people laugh at me; all day long they sing their ribald songs.

¹⁵ He has filled me with bitterness and given me a cup of deepest sorrows to drink. ¹⁶ He has made me eat gravel and broken my teeth; he has rolled me in ashes and dirt. ¹⁷ O Lord, all peace and all prosperity have long since gone, for you have taken them away. I have forgotten what enjoyment is. ¹⁸ All hope is gone; my strength has turned to water, for the Lord has left me. ¹⁹ Oh, remember the bitterness and suffering you have dealt to me! ²⁰ For I can never forget these awful years; always my soul will live in utter shame.

²¹ Yet there is one ray of hope: ²² his compassion never ends. It is only the Lord’s mercies that have kept us from complete destruction. ²³ Great is his faithfulness; his loving-kindness begins afresh each day. ²⁴ My soul claims the Lord as my inheritance; therefore I will hope in him. ²⁵ The Lord is wonderfully good to those who wait for him, to those who seek for him. ²⁶ It is good both to hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

²⁷ It is good for a young man to be under discipline, ²⁸ for it causes him to sit apart in silence beneath the Lord’s demands, ²⁹ to lie face downward in the dust; then at last there is hope for him. ³⁰ Let him turn the other cheek to those who strike him and accept their awful insults, ³¹ for the Lord will not abandon him forever. ³² Although God gives him grief, yet he will show compassion too, according to the greatness of his loving-kindness. ³³ For he does not enjoy afflicting men and causing sorrow.

^34-36 But you have trampled and crushed beneath your feet the lowly of the world, and deprived men of their God-given rights, and refused them justice. No wonder the Lord has had to deal with you! ³⁷ For who can act against you without the Lord’s permission? ³⁸ It is the Lord who helps one and harms another.

³⁹ Why then should we, mere humans as we are, murmur and complain when punished for our sins? ⁴⁰ Let us examine ourselves instead, and let us repent and turn again to the Lord. ⁴¹ Let us lift our hearts and hands to him in heaven, ⁴² for we have sinned; we have rebelled against the Lord, and he has not forgotten it.

⁴³ You have engulfed us by your anger, Lord, and slain us without mercy. ⁴⁴ You have veiled yourself as with a cloud so that our prayers do not reach through. ⁴⁵ You have made us as refuse and garbage among the nations. ⁴⁶ All our enemies have spoken out against us. ⁴⁷ We are filled with fear, for we are trapped and desolate, destroyed.

^48-49 My eyes flow day and night with never-ending streams of tears because of the destruction of my people. ⁵⁰ Oh, that the Lord might look down from heaven and respond to my cry! ⁵¹ My heart is breaking over what is happening to the young girls of Jerusalem.

⁵² My enemies, whom I have never harmed, chased me as though I were a bird. ⁵³ They threw me in a well and capped it with a rock. ⁵⁴ The water flowed above my head. I thought, This is the end! ⁵⁵ But I called upon your name, O Lord, from deep within the well, ⁵⁶ and you heard me! You listened to my pleading; you heard my weeping! ⁵⁷ Yes, you came at my despairing cry and told me not to fear.

⁵⁸ O Lord, you are my lawyer! Plead my case! For you have redeemed my life. ⁵⁹ You have seen the wrong they did to me; be my Judge, to prove me right. ⁶⁰ You have seen the plots my foes have laid against me. ⁶¹ You have heard the vile names they have called me, ⁶² and all they say about me and their whispered plans. ⁶³ See how they laugh and sing with glee, preparing my doom.

⁶⁴ O Lord, repay them well for all the evil they have done. ⁶⁵ Harden their hearts and curse them, Lord. ⁶⁶ Go after them in fierce pursuit and wipe them off the earth, beneath the heavens of the Lord.

4 How the finest gold has lost its luster! For the inlaid^[c] Temple walls are scattered in the streets! ² The cream of our youth—the finest of the gold—are treated as earthenware pots. ^3-4 Even the jackals feed their young, but not my people, Israel. They are like cruel desert ostriches, heedless of their babies’ cries. The children’s tongues stick to the roofs of their mouths for thirst, for there is not a drop of water left. Babies cry for bread, but no one can give them any. ⁵ Those who used to eat fastidiously are begging in the streets for anything at all. Those brought up in palaces now scratch in garbage pits for food. ⁶ For the sin of my people is greater than that of Sodom, where utter disaster struck in a moment without the hand of man.

⁷ Our princes were lean and tanned,^[d] the finest specimens of men; ⁸ but now their faces are as black as soot. No one can recognize them. Their skin sticks to their bones; it is dry and hard and withered. ⁹ Those killed by the sword are far better off than those who die of slow starvation. ¹⁰ Tenderhearted women have cooked and eaten their own children; thus they survived the siege.

¹¹ But now at last the anger of the Lord is satisfied; his fiercest anger has been poured out. He started a fire in Jerusalem that burned it down to its foundations. ¹² Not a king in all the earth—no one in all the world—would have believed an enemy could enter through Jerusalem’s gates! ¹³ Yet God permitted it because of the sins of her prophets and priests, who defiled the city by shedding innocent blood. ¹⁴ Now these same men are blindly staggering through the streets, covered with blood, defiling everything they touch.

¹⁵ “Get away!” the people shout at them. “You are defiled!” They flee to distant lands and wander there among the foreigners; but none will let them stay. ¹⁶ The Lord himself has dealt with them; he no longer helps them, for they persecuted the priests and elders who stayed true to God.

¹⁷ We look for our allies^[e] to come and save us, but we look in vain. The nation we expected most to help us makes no move at all.

¹⁸ We can’t go into the streets without danger to our lives. Our end is near—our days are numbered. We are doomed. ¹⁹ Our enemies are swifter than the eagles; if we flee to the mountains, they find us. If we hide in the wilderness, they are waiting for us there. ²⁰ Our king—the life of our life, the Lord’s anointed—was captured in their snares. Yes, even our mighty king, about whom we had boasted that under his protection we could hold our own against any nation on earth!

²¹ Do you rejoice, O people of Edom, in the land of Uz? But you, too, will feel the awful anger of the Lord. ²² Israel’s exile for her sins will end at last, but Edom’s never.

5 O Lord, remember all that has befallen us; see what sorrows we must bear! ² Our homes, our nation, now are filled with foreigners. ³ We are orphans—our fathers dead, our mothers widowed. ⁴ We must even pay for water to drink; our fuel is sold to us at the highest of prices. ⁵ We bow our necks beneath the victors’ feet; unending work is now our lot. ⁶ We beg for bread from Egypt, and Assyria too.

⁷ Our fathers sinned but died before the hand of judgment fell. We have borne the blow that they deserved!

⁸ Our former servants have become our masters; there is no one left to save us. ⁹ We went into the wilderness to hunt for food, risking death from enemies. ¹⁰ Our skin was black from famine. ¹¹ They rape the women of Jerusalem and the girls in Judah’s cities. ¹² Our princes are hanged by their thumbs. Even aged men are treated with contempt. ¹³ They take away the young men to grind their grain, and the little children stagger beneath their heavy loads.

¹⁴ The old men sit no longer in the city gates; the young no longer dance and sing. ¹⁵ The joy of our hearts has ended; our dance has turned to death.^{[f] 16} Our glory is gone. The crown is fallen from our head. Woe upon us for our sins. ¹⁷ Our hearts are faint and weary; our eyes grow dim. ¹⁸ Jerusalem and the Temple of the Lord are desolate, deserted by all but wild animals lurking in the ruins.

¹⁹ O Lord, forever you remain the same! Your throne continues from generation to generation. ²⁰ Why do you forget us forever? Why do you forsake us for so long? ²¹ Turn us around and bring us back to you again! That is our only hope! Give us back the joys we used to have! ²² Or have you utterly rejected us? Are you angry with us still?

1 ^1-3 Ezekiel was a priest (the son of Buzi) who lived with the Jewish exiles beside the Chebar Canal in Babylon.

One day late in June, when I was thirty years old,^[g] the heavens were suddenly opened to me and I saw visions from God. ⁴ I saw, in this vision, a great storm coming toward me from the north, driving before it a huge cloud glowing with fire, with a mass of fire inside that flashed continually; and in the fire there was something that shone like polished brass.

⁵ Then from the center of the cloud, four strange forms appeared that looked like men, ⁶ except that each had four faces and two pairs of wings! ⁷ Their legs were like those of men, but their feet were cloven like calves’ feet, and shone like burnished brass. ⁸ And beneath each of their wings I could see human hands.

⁹ The four living beings were joined wing to wing, and they flew straight forward without turning. ¹⁰ Each had the face of a man in front,^[h] with a lion’s face on the right side of his head, and the face of an ox on the left side, and the face of an eagle at the back! ¹¹ Each had two pairs of wings spreading out from the middle of his back. One pair stretched out to attach to the wings of the living beings on each side, and the other pair covered his body. ¹² Wherever their spirit^[i] went they went, going straight forward without turning.

¹³ Going up and down among them were other forms that glowed like bright coals of fire or brilliant torches, and it was from these the lightning flashed. ¹⁴ The living beings darted to and fro, swift as lightning.

¹⁵ As I stared at all of this, I saw four wheels on the ground beneath them, one wheel belonging to each. ¹⁶ The wheels looked as if they were made of polished amber, and each wheel was constructed with a second wheel crosswise inside.^{[j] 17} They could go in any of the four directions without having to face around. ¹⁸ The four wheels had rims and spokes, and the rims were filled with eyes around their edges.

^19-21 When the four living beings flew forward, the wheels moved forward with them. When they flew upwards, the wheels went up too. When the living beings stopped, the wheels stopped. For the spirit of the four living beings was in the wheels; so wherever their spirit went, the wheels and the living beings went there too.

²² The sky spreading out above them looked as though it were made of crystal; it was inexpressibly beautiful.

²³ The wings of each stretched straight out to touch the others’ wings, and each had two wings covering his body. ²⁴ And as they flew, their wings roared like waves against the shore, or like the voice of God, or like the shouting of a mighty army. When they stopped, they let down their wings. ²⁵ And every time they stopped, there came a voice from the crystal sky above them.^[k]

²⁶ For high in the sky above them was what looked like a throne made of beautiful blue sapphire stones, and upon it sat someone who appeared to be a Man.

^27-28 From his waist up, he seemed to be all glowing bronze, dazzling like fire; and from his waist down he seemed to be entirely flame, and there was a glowing halo like a rainbow all around him. That was the way the glory of the Lord appeared to me. And when I saw it, I fell face downward on the ground and heard the voice of someone speaking to me:

2 And he said to me: “Stand up, son of dust,^[l] and I will talk to you.”

² And the Spirit entered into me as he spoke, and set me on my feet.

³ “Son of dust,” he said, “I am sending you to the nation of Israel, to a nation rebelling against me. They and their fathers have kept on sinning against me until this very hour. ⁴ For they are a hard-hearted, stiff-necked people. But I am sending you to give them my messages—the messages of the Lord God. ⁵ And whether they listen or not (for remember, they are rebels), they will at least know they have had a prophet among them.

⁶ “Son of dust, don’t be afraid of them; don’t be frightened even though their threats are sharp and barbed and sting like scorpions. Don’t be dismayed by their dark scowls. For remember, they are rebels! ⁷ You must give them my messages whether they listen or not (but they won’t,^[m] for they are utter rebels). ⁸ Listen, son of dust, to what I say to you. Don’t you be a rebel too! Open your mouth and eat what I give you.”

^9-10 Then I looked and saw a hand holding out to me a scroll, with writing on both sides. He unrolled it, and I saw that it was full of warnings and sorrows and pronouncements of doom.

3 And he said to me: “Son of dust, eat what I am giving you—eat this scroll! Then go and give its message to the people of Israel.”

² So I took the scroll.

³ “Eat it all,” he said. And when I ate it, it tasted sweet as honey.

⁴ Then he said: “Son of dust, I am sending you to the people of Israel with my messages. ⁵ I am not sending you to some far-off foreign land where you can’t understand the language— ⁶ no, not to tribes with strange, difficult tongues. (If I did, they would listen!) ⁷ I am sending you to the people of Israel, and they won’t listen to you any more than they listen to me! For the whole lot of them are hard, impudent, and stubborn. ⁸ But see, I have made you hard and stubborn too—as tough as they are. ⁹ I have made your forehead as hard as rock. So don’t be afraid of them, or fear their sullen, angry looks, even though they are such rebels.”

¹⁰ Then he added: “Son of dust, let all my words sink deep into your own heart first; listen to them carefully for yourself. ¹¹ Then, afterward, go to your people in exile, and whether or not they will listen, tell them: ‘This is what the Lord God says!’”

¹² Then the Spirit lifted me up, and the glory of the Lord began to move away, accompanied by the sound of a great earthquake.^{[n] 13} It was the noise of the wings of the living beings as they touched against each other, and the sound of their wheels beside them.

^14-15 The Spirit lifted me up, and took me away to Tel Abib, another colony of Jewish exiles beside the Chebar River. I went in bitterness and anger,^[o] but the hand of the Lord was strong upon me. And I sat among them, overwhelmed, for seven days.

¹⁶ At the end of the seven days, the Lord said to me:

¹⁷ “Son of dust, I have appointed you as a watchman for Israel; whenever I send my people a warning, pass it on to them at once. ¹⁸ If you refuse to warn the wicked when I want you to tell them, ‘You are under the penalty of death; therefore repent and save your life,’ they will die in their sins, but I will punish you. I will demand your blood for theirs. ¹⁹ But if you warn them, and they keep on sinning and refuse to repent, they will die in their sins, but you are blameless—you have done all you could. ²⁰ And if a good man becomes bad, and you refuse to warn him of the consequences, and the Lord destroys him, his previous good deeds won’t help him—he shall die in his sin. But I will hold you responsible for his death and punish you. ²¹ But if you warn him and he repents, he shall live, and you have saved your own life too.”

²² I was helpless in the hand of God, and when he said to me, “Go out into the valley and I will talk to you there”— ²³ I arose and went, and oh, I saw the glory of the Lord there, just as in my first vision! And I fell to the ground on my face.

²⁴ Then the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet. He talked to me and said: “Go, imprison yourself in your house, ²⁵ and I will paralyze you^[p] so you can’t leave; ²⁶ and I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you can’t reprove them; for they are rebels. ²⁷ But whenever I give you a message, then I will loosen your tongue and let you speak, and you shall say to them: ‘The Lord God says.’ Let anyone listen who wants to, and let anyone refuse who wants to, for they are rebels.

4 ^1-2 “And now, son of dust, take a large brick and lay it before you and draw a map of the city of Jerusalem on it. Draw a picture of siege mounds being built against the city, put enemy camps around it and battering rams surrounding the walls. ³ And put an iron plate between you and the city, like a wall of iron. Demonstrate how an enemy army will capture Jerusalem!

“There is special meaning in each detail of what I have told you to do. For it is a warning to the people of Israel.

^4-5 “Now lie on your left side for 390 days,^[q] to show that Israel will be punished for 390 years by captivity and doom. Each day you lie there represents a year of punishment ahead for Israel. ⁶ Afterwards, turn over and lie on your right side for forty days, to signify the years of Judah’s punishment. Each day will represent one year.

⁷ “Meanwhile continue your demonstration of the siege of Jerusalem; lie there with your arm bared to signify great strength and power in the attack against her.^[r] This will prophesy her doom. ⁸ And I will paralyze you^[s] so that you can’t turn over from one side to the other until you have completed all the days of your siege.

⁹ “During the first 390 days eat bread made of flour mixed from wheat, barley, beans, lentils, and spelt. Mix the various kinds of flour together in a jar. ¹⁰ You are to ration this out to yourself at the rate of eight ounces at a time, one meal a day. ¹¹ And use one quart of water a day; don’t use more than that. ¹² Each day take flour from the barrel and prepare it as you would barley cakes. While all the people are watching, bake it over a fire, using dried human dung as fuel, and eat it. ¹³ For the Lord declares, Israel shall eat defiled bread in the Gentile lands to which I exile them!”

¹⁴ Then I said, “O Lord God, must I be defiled by using dung? For I have never been defiled before in all my life. From the time I was a child until now I have never eaten any animal that died of sickness or that I found injured or dead; and I have never eaten any of the kinds of animals our law forbids.”^[t]

¹⁵ Then the Lord said, “All right, you may use cow dung instead of human dung.”

¹⁶ Then he told me, “Son of dust, bread will be tightly rationed in Jerusalem. It will be weighed out with great care and eaten fearfully. And the water will be portioned out in driblets, and the people will drink it with dismay. ¹⁷ I will cause the people to lack both bread and water; they will look at one another in frantic terror and waste away beneath their punishment.

5 “Son of dust, take a sharp sword and use it as a barber’s razor to shave your head and beard; use balances to weigh the hair into three equal parts. ² Place a third of it at the center of your map of Jerusalem. After your siege, burn it there. Scatter another third across your map and slash at it with a knife. Scatter the last third to the wind, for I will chase my people with the sword. ³ Keep just a bit of the hair and tie it up in your robe; ⁴ then take a few hairs out and throw them into the fire, for a fire shall come from this remnant and destroy all Israel.”

^5-7 The Lord God says, “This illustrates what will happen to Jerusalem, for she has turned away from my laws and has been even more wicked than the nations surrounding her.” ⁸ Therefore the Lord God says: “I, even I, am against you and will punish you publicly while all the nations watch. ⁹ Because of the terrible sins you have committed, I will punish you more terribly than I have ever done before or ever will again. ¹⁰ Fathers will eat their own sons, and sons will eat their fathers; and those who survive will be scattered into all the world.

¹¹ “For I promise you: Because you have defiled my Temple with idols and evil sacrifices, therefore I will not spare you nor pity you at all. ¹² One-third of you will die from famine and disease; one-third will be slaughtered by the enemy; and one-third I will scatter to the winds, sending the sword of the enemy chasing after you. ¹³ Then at last my anger will be appeased. And all Israel will know that what I threaten I do.

¹⁴ “So I will make a public example of you before all the surrounding nations and before everyone traveling past the ruins of your land. ¹⁵ You will become a laughingstock to the world and an awesome example to everyone, for all to see what happens when the Lord turns against an entire nation in furious rebuke. I, the Lord, have spoken it!

¹⁶ “I will shower you with deadly arrows of famine to destroy you. The famine will become more and more serious until every bit of bread is gone. ¹⁷ And not only famine will come, but wild animals will attack and kill you and your families; disease and war will stalk your land, and the sword of the enemy will slay you; I, the Lord, have spoken it!”

6 Again a message came from the Lord:

² “Son of dust, look over toward the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them. ³ Say to them, ‘O mountains of Israel, hear the message of the Lord God against you and against the rivers and valleys. I, even I the Lord, will bring war upon you to destroy your idols. ^4-7 All your cities will be smashed and burned, and the idol altars abandoned. Your gods will be shattered; the bones of their worshipers will lie scattered among the altars. Then at last you will know I am the Lord.

⁸ “‘But I will let a few of my people escape—to be scattered among the nations of the world. ⁹ Then when they are exiled among the nations, they will remember me, for I will take away their adulterous hearts—their love of idols—and I will blind their lecherous eyes that long for other gods. Then at last they will loathe themselves for all this wickedness. ¹⁰ They will realize that I alone am God and that I wasn’t fooling when I told them that all this would happen to them.’”

¹¹ The Lord God says: “Raise your hands in horror and shake your head^[u] with deep remorse and say, ‘Alas for all the evil we have done!’ For you are going to perish from war and famine and disease. ¹² Disease will strike down those in exile; war will destroy those in the land of Israel; and any who remain will die by famine and siege. So at last I will expend my fury on you. ¹³ When your slain lie scattered among your idols and altars on every hill and mountain and under every green tree and great oak where they offered incense to their gods—you will realize that I alone am God. ¹⁴ I will crush you and make your cities desolate from the wilderness in the south to Riblah in the north. Then you will know I am the Lord.”

7 This further message came to me from God:

² “Tell Israel, ‘Wherever you look—east, west, north, or south—your land is finished. ³ No hope remains, for I will loose my anger on you for your worshiping of idols. ⁴ I will turn my eyes away and show no pity; I will repay you in full, and you shall know I am the Lord.’”

^5-6 The Lord God says: “With one blow after another I will finish you. The end has come; your final doom is waiting. ⁷ O Israel, the day of your damnation dawns; the time has come; the day of trouble nears. It is a day of shouts of anguish, not shouts of joy! ^8-9 Soon I will pour out my fury and let it finish its work of punishing you for all your evil deeds. I will not spare nor pity you, and you will know that I, the Lord, am doing it. ^10-11 The day of judgment has come; the morning dawns, for your wickedness and pride have run their course and reached their climax—none of these rich and wicked men of pride shall live. All your boasting will die away, and no one will be left to bewail your fate.

¹² “Yes, the time has come; the day draws near. There will be nothing to buy or sell, for the wrath of God is on the land. ¹³ And even if a merchant lives, his business will be gone, for God has spoken against all the people of Israel; all will be destroyed. Not one of those whose lives are filled with sin will recover.

¹⁴ “The trumpets shout to Israel’s army, ‘Mobilize!’ but no one listens, for my wrath is on them all. ¹⁵ If you go outside the walls, there stands the enemy to kill you. If you stay inside, famine and disease will devour you. ¹⁶ Any who escape will be lonely as mourning doves hiding on the mountains, each weeping for his sins. ¹⁷ All hands shall be feeble, and all knees as weak as water. ¹⁸ You shall clothe yourselves with sackcloth, and horror and shame shall cover you; you shall shave your heads in sorrow and remorse.

¹⁹ “Throw away your money! Toss it out like worthless rubbish, for it will have no value in that day of wrath. It will neither satisfy nor feed you, for your love of money is the reason for your sin. ²⁰ I gave you gold to use in decorating the Temple, and you used it instead to make idols! Therefore, I will take it all away from you. ²¹ I will give it to foreigners and to wicked men as booty. They shall defile my Temple. ²² I will not look when they defile it, nor will I stop them. Like robbers, they will loot the treasures and leave the Temple in ruins.

²³ “Prepare chains for my people, for the land is full of bloody crimes. Jerusalem is filled with violence, so I will enslave her people. ²⁴ I will crush your pride by bringing to Jerusalem the worst of the nations to occupy your homes, break down your fortifications you are so proud of, and defile your Temple. ²⁵ For the time has come for the cutting off of Israel. You will sue for peace, but you won’t get it. ^26-27 Calamity upon calamity will befall you; woe upon woe, disaster upon disaster! You will long for a prophet to guide you, but the priests and elders and the kings and princes will stand helpless, weeping in despair. The people will tremble with fear, for I will do to them the evil they have done and give them all their just deserts. They shall learn that I am the Lord.”

8 Then, late in August of the sixth year of King Jehoiachin’s captivity,^[v] as I was talking with the elders of Judah in my home, the power of the Lord God fell upon me. ² I saw what appeared to be a Man; from his waist down, he was made of fire; from his waist up, he was all amber-colored brightness. ³ He put out what seemed to be a hand and took me by the hair. And the Spirit lifted me up into the sky and seemed to transport me to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate, where the large idol was that had made the Lord so angry. ⁴ Suddenly the glory of the God of Israel was there, just as I had seen it before in the valley.

⁵ He said to me, “Son of dust, look toward the north.” So I looked and, sure enough, north of the altar gate in the entrance stood the idol.

⁶ And he said: “Son of dust, do you see what they are doing? Do you see what great sins the people of Israel are doing here, to push me from my Temple? But come, and I will show you greater sins than these!”

⁷ Then he brought me to the door of the Temple court, where I could see an opening in the wall.

⁸ “Now dig into the wall,” he said. I did and uncovered a door to a hidden room.

⁹ “Go in,” he said, “and see the wickedness going on in there!”

¹⁰ So I went in. The walls were covered with pictures of all kinds of snakes, lizards, and hideous creatures, besides all the various idols worshiped by the people of Israel. ¹¹ Seventy elders of Israel were standing there along with Jaazaniah (son of Shaphan) worshiping the pictures. Each of them held a censer of burning incense, so there was a thick cloud of smoke above their heads.

¹² Then the Lord said to me: “Son of dust, have you seen what the elders of Israel are doing in their minds? For they say, ‘The Lord doesn’t see us; he has gone away!’” ¹³ Then he added, “Come, and I will show you greater sins than these!”

¹⁴ He brought me to the north gate of the Temple, and there sat women weeping for Tammuz,^[w] their god.

¹⁵ “Have you seen this?” he asked. “But I will show you greater evils than these!”

¹⁶ Then he brought me into the inner court of the Temple, and there at the door, between the porch and the bronze altar, were about twenty-five men standing with their backs to the Temple of the Lord, facing east, worshiping the sun!

¹⁷ “Have you seen this?” he asked. “Is it nothing to the people of Judah that they commit these terrible sins, leading the whole nation into idolatry, thumbing their noses at me and arousing my fury against them? ¹⁸ Therefore, I will deal with them in fury. I will neither pity nor spare. And though they scream for mercy, I will not listen.”

9 Then he thundered, “Call those to whom I have given the city! Tell them to bring their weapons with them!”

² Six men appeared at his call, coming from the upper north gate, each one with his sword. One of them wore linen clothing and carried a writer’s case strapped to his side. They all went into the Temple and stood beside the bronze altar. ³ And the glory of the God of Israel rose from between the Guardian Angels where it had rested and stood above the entrance to^[x] the Temple.

And the Lord called to the man with the writer’s case ⁴ and said to him, “Walk through the streets of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who weep and sigh because of all the sins they see around them.”

⁵ Then I heard the Lord tell the other men: “Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead isn’t marked. Spare not nor pity them— ⁶ kill them all—old and young, girls, women, and little children; but don’t touch anyone with the mark. And begin right here at the Temple.” And so they began by killing the seventy elders.

⁷ And he said, “Defile the Temple! Fill its courts with the bodies of those you kill! Go!” And they went out through the city and did as they were told.

⁸ While they were fulfilling their orders, I was alone. I fell to the ground on my face and cried out: “O Lord God! Will your fury against Jerusalem wipe out everyone left in Israel?”

⁹ But he said to me, “The sins of the people of Israel and Judah are very great and all the land is full of murder and injustice, for they say, ‘The Lord doesn’t see it! He has gone away!’ ¹⁰ And so I will not spare them nor have any pity on them, and I will fully repay them for all that they have done.”

¹¹ Just then the man in linen clothing, carrying the writer’s case, reported back and said, “I have finished the work you gave me to do.”

10 Suddenly a throne of beautiful blue sapphire^[y] appeared in the sky above the heads of the Guardian Angels.

² Then the Lord spoke to the man in linen clothing and said: “Go in between the whirling wheels beneath the Guardian Angels, and take a handful of glowing coals and scatter them over the city.”

He did so while I watched. ³ The Guardian Angels were standing at the south end of the Temple when the man went in. And the cloud of glory filled the inner court. ⁴ Then the glory of the Lord rose from above the Guardian Angels and went over to the door of the Temple. The Temple was filled with the cloud of glory, and the court of the Temple was filled with the brightness of the glory of the Lord. ⁵ And the sound of the wings of the Guardian Angels was as the voice of Almighty God when he speaks and could be heard clear out in the outer court.

⁶ When the Lord told the man in linen clothing to go between the Guardian Angels and take some burning coals from between the wheels, the man went in and stood beside one of the wheels, ^7-8 and one of the Guardian Angels reached out his hand (for each of the mighty Angels had, beneath his wings, what looked like human hands) and took some live coals from the flames between the Angels and put them into the hands of the man in linen clothes, who took them and went out.

^9-13 Each of the four Guardian Angels had a wheel beside him—“The Whirl-Wheels,” as I heard them called, for each one had a second wheel crosswise within—sparkling like chrysolite, giving off a greenish yellow glow. Because of the construction of these wheels,^[z] the Angels could go straight forward in each of four directions; they did not turn when they changed direction but could go in any of the four ways their faces looked. Each of the four wheels was covered with eyes, including the rims and spokes. ¹⁴ Each of the four Guardian Angels had four faces—the first was that of an ox;^[aa] the second, a man’s; the third, a lion’s; and the fourth, an eagle’s.

^15-16 These were the same beings I had seen beside the Chebar Canal, and when they rose into the air, the wheels rose with them and stayed beside them as they flew. ¹⁷ When the Guardian Angels stood still, so did the wheels, for the spirit of the Guardian Angels was in the wheels.^[ab]

¹⁸ Then the glory of the Lord moved from the door of the Temple and stood above the Guardian Angels. ¹⁹ And as I watched, the Guardian Angels flew with their wheels beside them to the east gate of the Temple. And the glory of the God of Israel was above them.

²⁰ These were the living beings I had seen beneath the God of Israel beside the Chebar Canal. I knew they were the same, ²¹ for each had four faces and four wings, with what looked like human hands under their wings. ²² Their faces too were identical to the faces of those I had seen at the canal, and they traveled straight ahead, just as the others did.

11 ^1-2 Then the Spirit lifted me and brought me over to the east gate of the Temple, where I saw twenty-five of the most prominent men of the city, including two officers, Jaazaniah (son of Azzur) and Pelatiah (son of Benaiah).

Then the Spirit said to me, “Son of dust, these are the men who are responsible for all of the wicked counsel being given out in this city. ³ For they say to the people, ‘It is time to rebuild Jerusalem, for our city is an iron shield and will protect us from all harm.’^{[ac] 4} Therefore, son of dust, prophesy against them loudly and clearly.”

⁵ Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon me and told me to say: “The Lord says to the people of Israel: Is that what you are saying? Yes, I know it is, for I know everything you think—every thought that comes into your minds. ⁶ You have murdered endlessly and filled your streets with the dead.”

⁷ Therefore the Lord God says: “You think this city is an iron shield? No, it isn’t! It will not protect you. Your slain will lie within it, but you will be dragged out and slaughtered.^{[ad] 8} I will expose you to the war you have so greatly feared, says the Lord God, ⁹ and I will take you from Jerusalem and hand you over to foreigners who will carry out my judgments against you. ¹⁰ You will be slaughtered all the way to the borders of Israel, and you will know I am the Lord. ¹¹ No, this city will not be an iron shield for you, and you safe within. I will chase you even to the borders of Israel, ¹² and you will know I am the Lord—you who have not obeyed me but rather have copied the nations all around you.”

¹³ While I was still speaking and telling them this, Pelatiah (son of Benaiah) suddenly died. Then I fell to the ground on my face and cried out: “O Lord God, are you going to kill everyone in all Israel?”

¹⁴ Again a message came from the Lord:

¹⁵ “Son of dust, the remnant left in Jerusalem are saying about your brother exiles: ‘It is because they were so wicked that the Lord has deported them. Now the Lord has given us their land!’

¹⁶ “But tell the exiles that the Lord God says: Although I have scattered you in the countries of the world, yet I will be a sanctuary to you for the time that you are there, ¹⁷ and I will gather you back from the nations where you are scattered and give you the land of Israel again. ¹⁸ And when you return, you will remove every trace of all this idol worship. ¹⁹ I will give you one heart and a new spirit; I will take from you your hearts of stone and give you tender hearts of love for God, ²⁰ so that you can obey my laws and be my people, and I will be your God. ²¹ But as for those now in Jerusalem^[ae] who long for idols, I will repay them fully for their sins,” the Lord God says.

²² Then the Guardian Angels lifted their wings and rose into the air with their wheels beside them, and the glory of the God of Israel stood above them. ²³ Then the glory of the Lord rose from over the city and stood above the mountain on the east side.

²⁴ Afterwards the Spirit of God carried me back again to Babylon, to the Jews in exile there. And so ended the vision of my visit to Jerusalem. ²⁵ And I told the exiles everything the Lord had shown me.

12 Again a message came to me from the Lord:

² “Son of dust,” he said, “you live among rebels who could know the truth if they wanted to, but they don’t want to; they could hear me if they would listen, but they won’t, ³ for they are rebels. So now put on a demonstration to show them what being exiled will be like. Pack whatever you can carry on your back and leave your home—go somewhere else. Go in the daylight so they can see, for perhaps even yet they will consider what this means, even though they are such rebels. ⁴ Bring your baggage outside your house during the daylight so they can watch. Then leave the house at night, just as captives do when they begin their long march to distant lands. ⁵ Dig a tunnel through the city wall while they are observing and carry your possessions out through the hole. ⁶ As they watch, lift your pack to your shoulders and walk away into the night; muffle your face and don’t gaze around. All this is a sign to the people of Israel of the evil that will come upon Jerusalem.”

⁷ So I did as I was told. I brought my pack outside in the daylight—all I could take into exile—and in the evening I dug through the wall with my hands. I went out into the darkness with my pack on my shoulder while the people looked on. ⁸ The next morning this message came to me from the Lord:

⁹ “Son of dust, these rebels, the people of Israel, have asked what all this means. ¹⁰ Tell them the Lord God says it is a message to King Zedekiah^[af] in Jerusalem and to all the people of Israel. ¹¹ Explain that what you did was a demonstration of what is going to happen to them, for they shall be driven out of their homes and sent away into exile.

¹² “Even King Zedekiah shall go out at night through a hole in the wall, taking only what he can carry with him, with muffled face, for he won’t be able to see.^{[ag] 13} I will capture him in my net and bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans; but he shall not see it, and he shall die there. ¹⁴ I will scatter his servants and guards to the four winds and send the sword after them. ¹⁵ And when I scatter them among the nations, then they shall know I am the Lord. ¹⁶ But I will spare a few of them from death by war and famine and disease. I will save them to confess to the nations how wicked they have been, and they shall know I am the Lord.”

¹⁷ Then this message came to me from the Lord:

¹⁸ “Son of dust, tremble as you eat your meals; ration out your water as though it were your last, ¹⁹ and say to the people, the Lord God says that the people of Israel and Jerusalem shall ration their food with utmost care and sip their tiny portions of water in utter despair because of all their sins. ²⁰ Your cities shall be destroyed and your farmlands deserted, and you shall know I am the Lord.”