The Living Bible (259 page)

Ezekiel
6

Again a message came from the Lord:

    
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 “Son of dust, look over toward the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them.
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 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.
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 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.

    
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 “‘But I will let a few of my people escape—to be scattered among the nations of the world.
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 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.
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 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.’”

    
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 The Lord God says: “Raise your hands in horror and shake your head
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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.
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 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.
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 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.
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 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.”

Ezekiel
7

This further message came to me from God:

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

    
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 The Lord God says: “With one blow after another I will finish you. The end has come; your final doom is waiting.
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 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!
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 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.
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 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.

    
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 “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.
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 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.

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

    
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 “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.
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 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.
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 I will give it to foreigners and to wicked men as booty. They shall defile my Temple.
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 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.

    
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 “Prepare chains for my people, for the land is full of bloody crimes. Jerusalem is filled with violence, so I will enslave her people.
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 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.
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 For the time has come for the cutting off of Israel. You will sue for peace, but you won’t get it.
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 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.”

Ezekiel
8

Then, late in August of the sixth year of King Jehoiachin’s captivity,
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as I was talking with the elders of Judah in my home, the power of the Lord God fell upon me.
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 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.
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 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.
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 Suddenly the glory of the God of Israel was there, just as I had seen it before in the valley.

    
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 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.

    
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 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!”

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

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

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

    
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 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.
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 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.

    
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 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!’”
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 Then he added, “Come, and I will show you greater sins than these!”

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

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

    
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 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!

    
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 “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?
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 Therefore, I will deal with them in fury. I will neither pity nor spare. And though they scream for mercy, I will not listen.”

Ezekiel
9

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

    
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 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.
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 And the glory of the God of Israel rose from between the Guardian Angels where it had rested and stood above the entrance to
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the Temple.

    
And the Lord called to the man with the writer’s case
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 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.”

    
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 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—
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 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.

    
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 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.

    
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 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?”

    
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 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!’
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 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.”

    
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 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.”