Ezekiel 32:3

The Lord Yahweh has sworn by his holiness that behold, “The days shall come on you that they will take you away with hooks, and the last of you with fish hooks.

My skin grows black and peels from me. My bones are burned with heat.

Until an arrow strikes through his liver, as a bird hurries to the snare, and doesn’t know that it will cost his life.

An evil man is snared by his sin, but the righteous can sing and be glad.

For he doesn’t know that which will be; for who can tell him how it will be?

He put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison until the day of his death.

I will also spread my net on him, and he will be taken in my snare. I will bring him to Babylon to the land of the Chaldeans; yet he will not see it, though he will die there.

The godly man has perished out of the earth, and there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood; every man hunts his brother with a net.

He takes up all of them with the hook. He catches them in his net, and gathers them in his dragnet. Therefore he rejoices and is glad.

I heard, and my body trembled. My lips quivered at the voice. Rottenness enters into my bones, and I tremble in my place, because I must wait quietly for the day of trouble, for the coming up of the people who invade us.

Now therefore, don’t let my blood fall to the earth away from the presence of Yahweh; for the king of Israel has come out to seek a flea, as when one hunts a partridge in the mountains.”

Therefore snares are around you. Sudden fear troubles you,

The nations have sunk down in the pit that they made. In the net which they hid, their own foot is taken.

I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted within me.

For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler, and from the deadly pestilence.

For my days consume away like smoke. My bones are burned as a torch.

They shall come, and shall all rest in the desolate valleys, in the clefts of the rocks, on all thorn hedges, and on all pastures.

“Yet you said, ‘I am innocent. Surely his anger has turned away from me.’ “Behold, I will judge you, because you say, ‘I have not sinned.’

Moreover he put out Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon.

The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of Yahweh, was taken in their pits; of whom we said, under his shadow we will live among the nations.

When it is my desire, I will chastise them; and the nations will be gathered against them, when they are bound to their two transgressions.

Can a bird fall in a trap on the earth, where no snare is set for him? Does a snare spring up from the ground, when there is nothing to catch?

Though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out there; and though they be hidden from my sight in the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent, and it will bite them.

For without cause they have hidden their net in a pit for me. Without cause they have dug a pit for my soul.

Let destruction come on him unawares. Let his net that he has hidden catch himself. Let him fall into that destruction.

You brought us into prison. You laid a burden on our backs.

Yahweh of Armies says, “They will thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel like a vine. Turn again your hand as a grape gatherer into the baskets.”

He has turned away my ways, and pulled me in pieces. He has made me desolate.

They hunt our steps, so that we can’t go in our streets. Our end is near. Our days are fulfilled, for our end has come.

“ ‘As I live,’ says the Lord Yahweh, ‘surely in the place where the king dwells who made him king, whose oath he despised, and whose covenant he broke, even with him in the middle of Babylon he will die.

Then the nations attacked him on every side from the provinces. They spread their net over him. He was taken in their pit.

I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will enter into judgment with you face to face.

I will enter into judgment with him with pestilence and with blood. I will rain on him, and on his hordes, and on the many peoples who are with him, an overflowing shower, with great hailstones, fire, and sulfur.

For when they are saying, “Peace and safety,” then sudden destruction will come on them, like birth pains on a pregnant woman. Then they will in no way escape.

He was a mighty hunter before Yahweh. Therefore it is said, “like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before Yahweh”.

Among these nations you will find no ease, and there will be no rest for the sole of your foot; but Yahweh will give you there a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and pining of soul.

They will come out after us until we have drawn them away from the city; for they will say, ‘They flee before us, like the first time.’ So we will flee before them,

When the king of Ai saw it, they hurried and rose up early, and the men of the city went out against Israel to battle, he and all his people, at the time appointed, before the Arabah; but he didn’t know that there was an ambush against him behind the city.

Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!” He bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell on the lords, and on all the people who were in it. So the dead that he killed at his death were more than those who he killed in his life.

Moreover, my father, behold, yes, see the skirt of your robe in my hand; for in that I cut off the skirt of your robe, and didn’t kill you, know and see that there is neither evil nor disobedience in my hand, and I have not sinned against you, though you hunt for my life to take it.

For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he wanders into its mesh.

know now that God has subverted me, and has surrounded me with his net.

Beware lest you say, ‘We have found wisdom. God may refute him, not man;’

On the wicked he will rain blazing coals; fire, sulfur, and scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.

For my life is spent with sorrow, my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity. My bones are wasted away.

Let those who seek after my soul be disappointed and brought to dishonor. Let those who plot my ruin be turned back and confounded.

But man, despite his riches, doesn’t endure. He is like the animals that perish.

Let them be disappointed and turned backward, all those who hate Zion.

Therefore I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his works; for that is his portion: for who can bring him to see what will be after him?

For man also doesn’t know his time. As the fish that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, even so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly on them.

“Those who trust in engraved images, who tell molten images, ‘You are our gods,’ will be turned back. They will be utterly disappointed.

“Behold, I will send for many fishermen,” says Yahweh, “and they will fish them up. Afterward I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain, from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.

behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,” says Yahweh, “and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around. I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.

You won’t escape out of his hand, but will surely be taken and delivered into his hand. Your eyes will see the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he will speak with you mouth to mouth. You will go to Babylon.” ’

Therefore my wrath and my anger was poured out, and was kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and they are wasted and desolate, as it is today.’

I have laid a snare for you, and you are also taken, Babylon, and you weren’t aware. You are found, and also caught, because you have fought against Yahweh.

Judah has gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude. She dwells among the nations. She finds no rest. All her persecutors overtook her within the straits.

“From on high has he sent fire into my bones, and it prevails against them. He has spread a net for my feet. He has turned me back. He has made me desolate and I faint all day long.

“Let all their wickedness come before you. Do to them as you have done to me for all my transgressions. For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.

Terror and the pit have come on us, devastation and destruction.”

For this our heart is faint. For these things our eyes are dim.

I will spread my net on him, and he will be taken in my snare. I will bring him to Babylon, and will enter into judgment with him there for his trespass that he has trespassed against me.

I will make the land a desolation and an astonishment. The pride of her power will cease. The mountains of Israel will be desolate, so that no one will pass through.

When they go, I will spread my net on them. I will bring them down like the birds of the sky. I will chastise them, as their congregation has heard.

As if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him; Or he went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall, and a snake bit him.

They will lick the dust like a serpent. Like crawling things of the earth they shall come trembling out of their dens. They will come with fear to Yahweh our God, and will be afraid because of you.

Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the fierceness of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken apart by him.

For it will come like a snare on all those who dwell on the surface of all the earth.

punishing those who don’t know God, and to those who don’t obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus,

for our God is a consuming fire.