Ezekiel 4:1

For you are a holy people to Yahweh your God. Yahweh your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth.

Yet Yahweh testified to Israel, and to Judah, by every prophet, and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”

Yahweh said, “I will also remove Judah out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and I will cast off this city which I have chosen, even Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, ‘My name shall be there.’ ”

He said to me, “Daniel, you greatly beloved man, understand the words that I speak to you, and stand upright; for I have been sent to you, now.” When he had spoken this word to me, I stood trembling.

Woe to her who is rebellious and polluted, the oppressing city!

“The Lord Yahweh says: ‘This is Jerusalem. I have set her in the middle of the nations, and countries are around her.

Then I said, “Ah Lord Yahweh! They say of me, ‘Isn’t he a speaker of parables?’ ”

I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from me; for now, Ephraim, you have played the prostitute. Israel is defiled.

For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God. If it begins first with us, what will happen to those who don’t obey the Good News of God?

Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who shall hear all these statutes and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.”

Only Yahweh had a delight in your fathers to love them, and he chose their offspring after them, even you above all peoples, as it is today.

Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, until he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; in addition to his sin with which he made Judah to sin, in doing that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight.

for they prophesy a lie to you, to remove you far from your land, so that I would drive you out, and you would perish.

He said to me, “Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you.”

He said to me, “Son of man, eat what you find. Eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.”

He said to me, “Son of man, go to the house of Israel, and speak my words to them.

“Son of man, I have made you a watchman to the house of Israel. Therefore hear the word from my mouth, and warn them from me.

“You, son of man, take a sharp sword. You shall take it as a barber’s razor to yourself, and shall cause it to pass over your head and over your beard. Then take balances to weigh and divide the hair.

I will do in you that which I have not done, and which I will not do anything like it any more, because of all your abominations.

Kill utterly the old man, the young man, the virgin, little children and women; but don’t come near any man on whom is the mark. Begin at my sanctuary.” Then they began at the old men who were before the house.

Your renown went out among the nations for your beauty; for it was perfect, through my majesty which I had put on you,” says the Lord Yahweh.

He will kill your daughters in the field with the sword. He will make forts against you, cast up a mound against you, and raise up the buckler against you.

“Son of man, set your face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him,

So the king of the north will come and cast up a mound, and take a well-fortified city. The forces of the south won’t stand, neither will his chosen people, neither will there be any strength to stand.

“It will happen afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will see visions.

Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of Judah, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have rejected Yahweh’s law, and have not kept his statutes, and their lies have led them astray, after which their fathers walked;

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!

But rise up and enter into the city, then you will be told what you must do.”

But arise, and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose: to appoint you a servant and a witness both of the things which you have seen, and of the things which I will reveal to you;

oppression, and anguish on every soul of man who does evil, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

These are the families of the sons of Noah, by their generations, according to their nations. The nations divided from these in the earth after the flood.

For I have known him, to the end that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of Yahweh, to do righteousness and justice; to the end that Yahweh may bring on Abraham that which he has spoken of him.”

He said, “Now hear my words. If there is a prophet among you, I, Yahweh, will make myself known to him in a vision. I will speak with him in a dream.

for Yahweh your God among you is a jealous God, lest the anger of Yahweh your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.

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.

Only the trees that you know are not trees for food, you shall destroy and cut them down. You shall build bulwarks against the city that makes war with you, until it falls.

However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to Yahweh’s enemies to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you will surely die.”

They came and besieged him in Abel of Beth Maacah, and they cast up a mound against the city, and it stood against the rampart; and all the people who were with Joab battered the wall, to throw it down.

A chariot came up and went out of Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for one hundred fifty shekels; and so they exported them to all the kings of the Hittites, and to the kings of Syria.

Behold, a man of God came out of Judah by Yahweh’s word to Bethel; and Jeroboam was standing by the altar to burn incense.

Elijah the Tishbite, who was one of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As Yahweh, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.”

He said, “I have been very jealous for Yahweh, the God of Armies; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”

therefore Yahweh the God of Israel says, ‘Behold, I bring such evil on Jerusalem and Judah that whoever hears of it, both his ears will tingle.

Yet many years you put up with them, and testified against them by your Spirit through your prophets. Yet they would not listen. Therefore you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands.

For all day long I have been plagued, and punished every morning.

then I will punish their sin with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.

He who disciplines the nations, won’t he punish? He who teaches man knows.

He shows his word to Jacob, his statutes and his ordinances to Israel.

We have become like those over whom you never ruled, like those who were not called by your name.

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.

For Yahweh of Armies said, “Cut down trees, and cast up a mound against Jerusalem. This is the city to be visited. She is wholly oppression within herself.

Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them.

“Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will punish all those who are circumcised only in their flesh:

therefore Yahweh of Armies says, ‘Behold, I will punish them. The young men will die by the sword. Their sons and their daughters will die by famine.

What will you say, when he sets over you as head those whom you have yourself taught to be friends to you? Won’t sorrows take hold of you, as of a woman in travail?

Thus said Yahweh, “Go, and buy a potter’s earthen container, and take some of the elders of the people, and of the elders of the priests;

“Then you shall break the container in the sight of the men who go with you,

Yahweh has sent to you all his servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them (but you have not listened or inclined your ear to hear),

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;

“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.

For this city has been to me a provocation of my anger and of my wrath from the day that they built it even to this day, so that I should remove it from before my face,

But neither he, nor his servants, nor the people of the land, listened to Yahweh’s words, which he spoke by the prophet Jeremiah.

“Take great stones in your hand, and hide them in mortar in the brick work, which is at the entry of Pharaoh’s house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah;

Now in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.

Lay siege against it, build forts against it, and cast up a mound against it. Also set camps against it and plant battering rams against it all around.

“You, son of man, the Lord Yahweh says to the land of Israel, ‘An end! The end has come on the four corners of the land.

“The Lord Yahweh says: ‘An evil! A unique evil! Behold, it comes.

“Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their heart, and put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face. Should I be inquired of at all by them?

“Son of man, tell a riddle, and speak a parable to the house of Israel;

“I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant.

The sticks on which you write will be in your hand before their eyes.” ’

The man said to me, “Son of man, see with your eyes, and hear with your ears, and set your heart on all that I will show you; for you have been brought here so that I may show them to you. Declare all that you see to the house of Israel.”

He said to me, “Son of man, the Lord Yahweh says: ‘These are the ordinances of the altar in the day when they make it, to offer burnt offerings on it, and to sprinkle blood on it.

He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us, and against our judges who judged us, by bringing on us a great evil; for under the whole sky, such has not been done as has been done to Jerusalem.

Yahweh said to me, “Go again, love a woman loved by another, and an adulteress, even as Yahweh loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods, and love cakes of raisins.”

Don’t rejoice, Israel, to jubilation like the nations; for you were unfaithful to your God. You love the wages of a prostitute at every grain threshing floor.

I have also spoken to the prophets, and I have multiplied visions; and by the ministry of the prophets I have used parables.

“I have only chosen you of all the families of the earth. Therefore I will punish you for all of your sins.”

Listen to this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who tell their husbands, “Bring us drinks!”

Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was a herdsman, and a farmer of sycamore figs;

The remnant of Jacob will be among many peoples, like dew from Yahweh, like showers on the grass, that don’t wait for man, nor wait for the sons of men.

It will be, that whoever of all the families of the earth doesn’t go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, Yahweh of Armies, on them there will be no rain.

You are the light of the world. A city located on a hill can’t be hidden.

Jesus came and touched them and said, “Get up, and don’t be afraid.”

But it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the judgment than for you.

‘It will be in the last days, says God, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams.

Coming to us and taking Paul’s belt, he bound his own feet and hands, and said, “The Holy Spirit says: ‘So the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt, and will deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.’ ”

and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.

For this cause many among you are weak and sickly, and not a few sleep.

It is doubtless not profitable for me to boast. For I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.

By reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations, that I should not be exalted excessively, a thorn in the flesh was given to me: a messenger of Satan to torment me, that I should not be exalted excessively.

but I must die in this land. I must not go over the Jordan, but you shall go over and possess that good land.