Ezekiel 33:28

Hear, you mountains, Yahweh’s controversy, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for Yahweh has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel.

Assemble to me all the elders of your tribes and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to witness against them.

Give ear, you heavens, and I will speak. Let the earth hear the words of my mouth.

Hear, heavens, and listen, earth; for Yahweh has spoken: “I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me.

How long will the land mourn, and the herbs of the whole country wither? Because of the wickedness of those who dwell therein, the animals and birds are consumed; because they said, “He won’t see our latter end.”

Yahweh, I cry to you, For the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame has burned all the trees of the field.

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.

that the land not vomit you out also, when you defile it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.

I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies that dwell in it will be astonished at it.

Then the land will enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land. Even then the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths.

It shall be, if you shall forget Yahweh your God, and walk after other gods, and serve them and worship them, I testify against you today that you shall surely perish.

and Yahweh’s anger be kindled against you, and he shut up the sky so that there is no rain, and the land doesn’t yield its fruit; and you perish quickly from off the good land which Yahweh gives you.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore choose life, that you may live, you and your descendants,

then I will cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and I will cast this house, which I have made holy for my name, out of my sight; and Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

Therefore Yahweh’s anger burns against his people, and he has stretched out his hand against them and has struck them. The mountains tremble, and their dead bodies are as refuse in the middle of the streets. For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is still stretched out.

For you have made a city into a heap, a fortified city into a ruin, a palace of strangers to be no city. It will never be built.

“Be astonished, you heavens, at this and be horribly afraid. Be very desolate,” says Yahweh.

Hear, earth! Behold, I will bring evil on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it.

The voice of news, behold, it comes, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a dwelling place of jackals.

For Yahweh says concerning the house of the king of Judah: “You are Gilead to me, the head of Lebanon. Yet surely I will make you a wilderness, cities which are not inhabited.

For the land is full of adulterers; for because of the curse the land mourns. The pastures of the wilderness have dried up. Their course is evil, and their might is not right;

For Yahweh says, “After seventy years are accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.

As for the beauty of his ornament, he set it in majesty; but they made the images of their abominations and their detestable things therein. Therefore I have made it to them as an unclean thing.

The company will stone them with stones, and dispatch them with their swords. They will kill their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses with fire.

“Son of man, set your face toward Sidon, and prophesy against it,

in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years about which Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah the prophet, for the accomplishing of the desolations of Jerusalem, even seventy years.

Therefore the land will mourn, and everyone who dwells in it will waste away, with all living things in her, even the animals of the field and the birds of the sky, yes, the fish of the sea also die.

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 call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from off the land which you go over the Jordan to possess it. You will not prolong your days on it, but will utterly be destroyed.

but the land that you go over to possess is a land of hills and valleys which drinks water from the rain of the sky,

Yahweh will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you put your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the evil of your doings, by which you have forsaken me.

Yahweh rooted them out of their land in anger, in wrath, and in great indignation, and thrust them into another land, as it is today.”

when you disobey the covenant of Yahweh your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods, and bow down yourselves to them. Then Yahweh’s anger will be kindled against you, and you will perish quickly from off the good land which he has given to you.”

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.”

because your heart was tender, and you humbled yourself before Yahweh, when you heard what I spoke against this place, and against its inhabitants, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and have torn your clothes, and wept before me; I also have heard you,’ says Yahweh.

One thing I have asked of Yahweh, that I will seek after: that I may dwell in Yahweh’s house all the days of my life, to see Yahweh’s beauty, and to inquire in his temple.

Your country is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire. Strangers devour your land in your presence and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

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.

Thorns will come up in its palaces, nettles and thistles in its fortresses; and it will be a habitation of jackals, a court for ostriches.

For, behold, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north,” says Yahweh. “They will come, and they will each set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all its walls all around, and against all the cities of Judah.

A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations. He is on his way. He has gone out from his place, to make your land desolate, that your cities be laid waste, without inhabitant.

My anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart! My heart trembles within me. I can’t hold my peace, because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.

therefore I will do to the house which is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh.

The cities of the South are shut up, and there is no one to open them. Judah is carried away captive: all of them. They are wholly carried away captive.

O earth, earth, earth, hear Yahweh’s word!

Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, with its kings and its princes, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse, as it is today;

“Micah the Morashtite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah; and he spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, ‘Yahweh of Armies says: “ ‘Zion will be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.’

“Behold, siege ramps have come to the city to take it. The city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans who fight against it, because of the sword, of the famine, and of the pestilence. What you have spoken has happened. Behold, you see it.

Behold, I will command,” says Yahweh, “and cause them to return to this city. They will fight against it, take it, and burn it with fire. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

Hazor will be a dwelling place of jackals, a desolation forever. No man will dwell there, neither will any son of man live therein.”

Babylon will become heaps, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment, and a hissing, without inhabitant.

The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to the solemn assembly. All her gates are desolate. Her priests sigh. Her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness.

In all your dwelling places, the cities will be laid waste and the high places will be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your incense altars may be cut down, and your works may be abolished.

Therefore I will bring the worst of the nations, and they will possess their houses. I will also make the pride of the strong to cease. Their holy places will be profaned.

Tell the people of the land, ‘The Lord Yahweh says concerning the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the land of Israel: “They will eat their bread with fearfulness, and drink their water in dismay, that her land may be desolate, and all that is therein, because of the violence of all those who dwell therein.

I will set my jealousy against you, and they will deal with you in fury. They will take away your nose and your ears. Your remnant will fall by the sword. They will take your sons and your daughters; and the rest of you will be devoured by the fire.

“You, son of man, shouldn’t it be in the day when I take from them their strength, the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that whereupon they set their heart, their sons and their daughters,

therefore, behold, I will bring strangers on you, the terrible of the nations. They will draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom. They will defile your brightness.

“Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt.

“Son of man, those who inhabit the waste places in the land of Israel speak, saying, ‘Abraham was one, and he inherited the land; but we are many. The land is given us for inheritance.’

They will no more be a prey to the nations, neither will the animals of the earth devour them; but they will dwell securely, and no one will make them afraid.

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.

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.

Hear, you peoples, all of you. Listen, O earth, and all that is therein: and let the Lord Yahweh be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.

Then Yahweh’s angel replied, “O Yahweh of Armies, how long will you not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which you have had indignation these seventy years?”

“Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh month for these seventy years, did you at all fast to me, really to me?

They will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

Now when some days had passed, King Agrippa and Bernice arrived at Caesarea, and greeted Festus.

The king rose up with the governor, and Bernice, and those who sat with them.

“Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a Sabbath to Yahweh.

but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to Yahweh. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard.

Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that Yahweh’s word by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying,

Her gates shall lament and mourn. She shall be desolate and sit on the ground.

Cut off your hair, and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.

I will weep and wail for the mountains, and lament for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are burned up, so that no one passes through; Men can’t hear the voice of the livestock. Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled. They are gone.

“Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘You have seen all the evil that I have brought on Jerusalem, and on all the cities of Judah. Behold, today they are a desolation, and no man dwells in them,

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.’

Thus Yahweh could no longer bear it, because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which you have committed. Therefore your land has become a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without inhabitant, as it is today.

The king of Babylon struck them, and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was carried away captive out of his land.

“Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy to them,

I will stretch out my hand on them, and make the land desolate and waste, from the wilderness toward Diblah, throughout all their habitations. Then they will know that I am Yahweh.’ ”

‘Speak to the house of Israel, “The Lord Yahweh says: ‘Behold, I will profane my sanctuary, the pride of your power, the desire of your eyes, and that which your soul pities; and your sons and your daughters whom you have left behind will fall by the sword.

Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.

Yet the land will be desolate because of those who dwell therein, for the fruit of their doings.

I will send the wild animals among you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number. Your roads will become desolate.

to fulfill Yahweh’s word by Jeremiah’s mouth, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. As long as it lay desolate, it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.

Then I said, “Lord, how long?” He answered, “Until cities are waste without inhabitant, houses without man, the land becomes utterly waste,

For Yahweh says, “The whole land will be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end.

“I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

“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.

This whole land will be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

The cities that are inhabited will be laid waste, and the land will be a desolation. Then you will know that I am Yahweh.” ’ ”

I will make the land desolate, because they have committed a trespass,” says the Lord Yahweh.

No foot of man will pass through it, nor will any animal foot pass through it. It won’t be inhabited for forty years.

They were scattered, because there was no shepherd. They became food to all the animals of the field, and were scattered.

Thus I will make Mount Seir an astonishment and a desolation. I will cut off from it him who passes through and him who returns.

You, son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel, and say, “You mountains of Israel, hear Yahweh’s word.

therefore, you mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Yahweh: The Lord Yahweh says to the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes and to the cities that are forsaken, which have become a prey and derision to the residue of the nations that are all around;

So on the next day, when Agrippa and Bernice had come with great pomp, and they had entered into the place of hearing with the commanding officers and the principal men of the city, at the command of Festus, Paul was brought in.