Ezekiel 21-22

Ezekiel 21

¹And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

²Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop thy word toward the sanctuaries, and prophesy against the land of Israel;

³and say to the land of Israel, Thus saith the LORD: Behold, I am against thee, and will draw forth my sword out of its sheath, and will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked.

⁴Seeing then that I will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked, therefore shall my sword go forth out of its sheath against all flesh from the south to the north:

⁵and all flesh shall know that I the LORD have drawn forth my sword out of its sheath; it shall not return any more.

⁶Sigh therefore, thou son of man; with the breaking of thy loins and with bitterness shalt thou sigh before their eyes.

⁷And it shall be, when they say unto thee, Wherefore sighest thou? that thou shalt say, Because of the tidings, for it cometh: and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and all knees shall be weak as water: behold, it cometh, and it shall be done, saith the Lord GOD.

⁸And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

⁹Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith the LORD: Say, A sword, a sword, it is sharpened, and also furbished:

¹⁰it is sharpened that it may make a slaughter; it is furbished that it may be as lightning: shall we then make mirth? the rod of my son, it contemneth every tree.

¹¹And it is given to be furbished, that it may be handled: the sword, it is sharpened, yea, it is furbished, to give it into the hand of the slayer.

¹²Cry and howl, son of man: for it is upon my people, it is upon all the princes of Israel: they are delivered over to the sword with my people: smite therefore upon thy thigh.

¹³For there is a trial; and what if even the rod that contemneth shall be no more? saith the Lord GOD.

¹⁴Thou therefore, son of man, prophesy, and smite thine hands together; and let the sword be doubled the third time, the sword of the deadly wounded: it is the sword of the great one that is deadly wounded, which entereth into their chambers.

¹⁵I have set the point of the sword against all their gates, that their heart may melt, and their stumblings be multiplied: ah! it is made as lightning, it is pointed for slaughter.

¹⁶Gather thee together, go to the right; set thyself in array, go to the left; whithersoever thy face is set.

¹⁷I will also smite mine hands together, and I will satisfy my fury: I the LORD have spoken it.

¹⁸The word of the LORD came unto me again, saying,

¹⁹Also, thou son of man, appoint thee two ways, that the sword of the king of Babylon may come; they twain shall come forth out of one land: and mark out a place, mark it out at the head of the way to the city.

²⁰Thou shalt appoint a way, for the sword to come to Rabbah of the children of Ammon, and to Judah in Jerusalem the defenced.

²¹For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination: he shook the arrows to and fro, he consulted the teraphim, he looked in the liver.

²²In his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem, to set battering rams, to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to set battering rams against the gates, to cast up mounts, to build forts.

²³And it shall be unto them as a vain divination in their sight, which have sworn oaths unto them: but he bringeth iniquity to remembrance, that they may be taken.

²⁴Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD: Because ye have made your iniquity to be remembered, in that your transgressions are discovered, so that in all your doings your sins do appear; because that ye are come to remembrance, ye shall be taken with the hand.

²⁵And thou, O deadly wounded wicked one, the prince of Israel, whose day is come, in the time of the iniquity of the end;

²⁶thus saith the Lord GOD: Remove the mitre, and take off the crown: this shall be no more the same: exalt that which is low, and abase that which is high.

²⁷I will overturn, overturn, overturn it: this also shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him.

²⁸And thou, son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD concerning the children of Ammon, and concerning their reproach; and say thou, A sword, a sword is drawn, for the slaughter it is furbished, to cause it to devour, that it may be as lightning:

²⁹whiles they see vanity unto thee, whiles they divine lies unto thee, to lay thee upon the necks of the wicked that are deadly wounded, whose day is come, in the time of the iniquity of the end.

³⁰Cause it to return into its sheath. In the place where thou wast created, in the land of thy birth, will I judge thee.

³¹And I will pour out mine indignation upon thee; I will blow upon thee with the fire of my wrath: and I will deliver thee into the hand of brutish men, skilful to destroy.

³²Thou shalt be for fuel to the fire; thy blood shall be in the midst of the land; thou shalt be no more remembered: for I the LORD have spoken it.

Ezekiel 22

¹Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

²And thou, son of man, wilt thou judge, wilt thou judge the bloody city? then cause her to know all her abominations.

³And thou shalt say, Thus saith the Lord GOD: A city that sheddeth blood in the midst of her, that her time may come, and that maketh idols against herself to defile her!

⁴Thou art become guilty in thy blood that thou hast shed, and art defiled in thine idols which thou hast made; and thou hast caused thy days to draw near, and art come even unto thy years: therefore have I made thee a reproach unto the nations, and a mocking to all the countries.

⁵Those that be near, and those that be far from thee, shall mock thee, thou infamous one and full of tumult.

⁶Behold, the princes of Israel, every one according to his power, have been in thee to shed blood.

⁷In thee have they set light by father and mother; in the midst of thee, have they dealt by oppression with the stranger: in thee have they wronged the fatherless and the widow.

⁸Thou hast despised mine holy things, and hast profaned my sabbaths.

⁹Slanderous men have been in thee to shed blood: and in thee they have eaten upon the mountains: in the midst of thee they have committed lewdness.

¹⁰In thee have they discovered their fathers’ nakedness: in thee have they humbled her that was unclean in her separation.

¹¹And one hath committed abomination with his neighbour’s wife; and another hath lewdly defiled his daughter in law; and another in thee hath humbled his sister, his father’s daughter.

¹²In thee have they taken bribes to shed blood; thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbours by oppression, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord GOD.

¹³Behold, therefore, I have smitten mine hand at thy dishonest gain which thou hast made, and at thy blood which hath been in the midst of thee.

¹⁴Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee? I the LORD have spoken it, and will do it.

¹⁵And I will scatter thee among the nations, and disperse thee through the countries; and I will consume thy filthiness out of thee.

¹⁶And thou shalt be profaned in thyself, in the sight of the nations; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD.

¹⁷And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

¹⁸Son of man, the house of Israel is become dross unto me: all of them are brass and tin and iron and lead, in the midst of the furnace; they are the dross of silver.

¹⁹Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD: Because ye are all become dross, therefore behold, I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem.

²⁰As they gather silver and brass and iron and lead and tin into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it; so will I gather you in mine anger and in my fury, and I will lay you there, and melt you.

²¹Yea, I will gather you, and blow upon you with the fire of my wrath, and ye shalt be melted in the midst thereof.

²²As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof; and ye shall know that I the LORD have poured out my fury upon you.

²³And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

²⁴Son of man, say unto her, thou art a land that is not cleansed, nor rained upon in the day of indignation.

²⁵There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey: they have devoured souls; they take treasure and precious things; they have made her widows many in the midst thereof.

²⁶Her priests have done violence to my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and the common, neither have they caused men to discern between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.

²⁷Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey; to shed blood, and to destroy souls, that they may get dishonest gain.

²⁸And her prophets have daubed for them with untempered mortar, seeing vanity, and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord GOD, when the LORD hath not spoken.

²⁹The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery; yea, they have vexed the poor and needy, and have oppressed the stranger wrongfully.

³⁰And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the fence, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.

³¹Therefore have I poured out mine indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath: their own way have I brought upon their heads, saith the Lord GOD.