September 7
Ezekiel 4:1 — 7:27

4 “And you, O son of man, take for yourself a brick, and you must put it before you and engrave upon it a city, even Jerusalem. 2 And you must lay siege against it and build a siege wall against it and throw up a siege rampart against it and set encampments against it and put battering rams all around against it. 3 And as for you, take to yourself an iron griddle, and you must put it as an iron wall between you and the city, and you must fix your face against it, and it must get to be in a siege, and you must besiege it. It is a sign to the house of Israel.

4 “And as for you, lie upon your left side, and you must lay the error of the house of Israel upon it. For the number of the days that you will lie upon it you will carry their error. 5 And I myself must give to you the years of their error to the number of three hundred and ninety days, and you must carry the error of the house of Israel. 6 And you must complete them.

“And you must lie upon your right side in the second case, and you must carry the error of the house of Judah forty days. A day for a year, a day for a year, is what I have given you. 7 And to the siege of Jerusalem you will fix your face, with your arm bared, and you must prophesy against it.

8 “And, look! I will put cords upon you that you may not turn yourself from your one side to your other side, until you will have completed the days of your siege.

9 “And as for you, take for yourself wheat and barley and broad beans and lentils and millet and spelt, and you must put them in one utensil and make them into bread for you, for the number of the days that you are lying upon your side; three hundred and ninety days you will eat it. 10 And your food that you will eat will be by weight—twenty shekels a day. From time to time you will eat it.

11 “And water you will drink merely by measure, the sixth part of a hin. From time to time you will drink.

12 “And as a round cake of barley you will eat it; and as for it, upon dung cakes of the excrement of mankind you will bake it before their eyes.” 13 And Jehovah went on to say: “Just like this the sons of Israel will eat their bread unclean among the nations to which I shall disperse them.”

14 And I proceeded to say: “Alas, O Sovereign Lord Jehovah! Look! My soul is not a defiled one; neither a body [already] dead nor a torn animal have I eaten from my youth up, even until now, and into my mouth there has come no foul flesh.”

15 Accordingly he said to me: “See, I have given you cattle manure instead of the dung cakes of mankind, and you must make your bread upon it.” 16 And he continued saying to me: “Son of man, here I am breaking the rods around which ring-shaped loaves are suspended, in Jerusalem, and they will have to eat bread by weight and in anxious care, and it will be by measure and in horror that they will drink water itself, 17 to the intent that they may be lacking bread and water and they may look astonished at one another and rot away in their error.

5 “And as for you, O son of man, take for yourself a sharp sword. As a barbers’ razor you will take it for yourself, and you must make it pass along upon your head and upon your beard, and you must take for yourself weighing scales and divide [the hair] in portions. 2 A third you will burn in the very fire in the midst of the city as soon as the days of the siege have come to the full. And you must take another third. You will strike [it] with the sword all around her, and the [last] third you will scatter to the wind, and I shall draw out a sword itself after them.

3 “And you must take therefrom a few in number and wrap them up in your skirts. 4 And others of them you will take and you must pitch them into the midst of the fire and incinerate them in the fire. From one a fire will go forth to all the house of Israel.

5 “This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said, ‘This is Jerusalem. In the midst of the nations I have set her, with lands all around her. 6 And she proceeded to behave rebelliously against my judicial decisions in wickedness more than the nations, and against my statutes more than the lands that are all around her, for my judicial decisions they rejected and, as for my statutes, they did not walk in them.’

7 “Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said, ‘For the reason that YOU people were more turbulent than the nations that are all around YOU, in my statutes YOU did not walk and my judicial decisions YOU did not perform; but according to the judicial decisions of the nations that are all around YOU, YOU performed, did YOU not? 8 therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said: “Here I am against you, [O city,] even I, and I will execute in the midst of you judicial decisions in the eyes of the nations. 9 And I will do in you that which I have not done and the like of which I shall not do anymore by reason of all your detestable things.

10 “‘“Therefore fathers themselves will eat sons in the midst of you, and sons themselves will eat their fathers, and I will execute in you acts of judgment and scatter all the remainder of you to every wind.”’

11 “‘Therefore as I am alive,’ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah, ‘surely for the reason that it was my sanctuary that you defiled with all your disgusting things and with all your detestable things, I myself also am the One that will diminish [you] and my eye will not feel sorry and I myself also will not show compassion. 12 A third of you—by the pestilence they will die, and by famine they will come to their end in the midst of you. And another third—by the sword they will fall all around you. And the [last] third I shall scatter even to every wind, and a sword is what I shall draw out after them. 13 And my anger will certainly come to its finish and I will appease my rage on them and comfort myself; and they will have to know that I myself, Jehovah, have spoken in my insistence on exclusive devotion, when I bring my rage to its finish upon them.

14 “‘And I shall make you a devastated place and a reproach among the nations that are all around you before the eyes of every passerby. 15 And you must become a reproach and an object of reviling words, a warning example and a horror to the nations that are all around you, when I do in you acts of judgment in anger and in rage and in raging reproofs. I myself, Jehovah, have spoken.

16 “‘When I send the injurious arrows of the famine upon them, which must prove to be for ruination, which [arrows] I shall send to bring YOU people to ruin, even famine I shall increase upon YOU people and I will break YOUR rods around which ring-shaped loaves are suspended. 17 And I will send upon YOU people famine and injurious wild beasts, and they must bereave you of children, and pestilence and blood themselves will pass along through you, and a sword I shall bring in upon you. I myself, Jehovah, have spoken.’”


6 And the word of Jehovah continued to occur to me, saying: 2 “Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel and prophesy to them. 3 And you must say, ‘O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah: This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said to the mountains and to the hills, to the streambeds and to the valleys: “Here I am! I am bringing upon YOU a sword, and I shall certainly destroy YOUR high places. 4 And YOUR altars must be made desolate and YOUR incense stands must be broken, and I will cause YOUR slain ones to fall before YOUR dungy idols. 5 And I will put the carcasses of the sons of Israel before their dungy idols, and I will scatter YOUR bones all around YOUR altars. 6 In all YOUR dwelling places the very cities will become devastated and the high places themselves will become desolated, in order that they may lie devastated and YOUR altars may lie desolated and be actually broken and YOUR dungy idols may be actually made to cease and YOUR incense stands cut down and YOUR works wiped out. 7 And the slain one will certainly fall in the midst of YOU, and YOU will have to know that I am Jehovah.

8 “‘“And when it occurs I will let YOU have as a remnant the ones escaping from the sword among the nations, when YOU get scattered among the lands. 9 And YOUR escaped ones will certainly remember me among the nations to which they will have been taken captive, because I have been broken up at their fornicating heart that has turned aside from me and at their eyes that are going in fornication after their dungy idols; and they will certainly feel a loathing in their faces at the bad things that they have done in all their detestable things. 10 And they will have to know that I am Jehovah; not in vain did I speak about doing to them this calamitous thing.”’

11 “This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said, ‘Clap your hands and stamp with your foot, and say: “Alas!” on account of all the bad detestable things of the house of Israel, because by the sword, by the famine and by the pestilence they will fall. 12 As for the one far away, by the pestilence he will die; and as for the one that is nearby, by the sword he will fall; and as for the one that has been left remaining and that has been safeguarded, by the famine he will die, and I will bring to its finish my rage against them. 13 And YOU people will have to know that I am Jehovah, when their slain ones come to be in the midst of their dungy idols, all around their altars, upon every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains and under every luxuriant tree and under every branchy big tree, the place where they have offered a restful odor to all their dungy idols. 14 And I will stretch out my hand against them and make the land a desolate waste, even a desolation worse than the wilderness toward Diblah, in all their dwelling places. And they will have to know that I am Jehovah.’”

7 And the word of Jehovah continued to occur to me, saying: 2 “And as for you, O son of man, this is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said to the soil of Israel, ‘An end, the end, has come upon the four extremities of the land. 3 Now the end is upon you, and I must send my anger against you, and I will judge you according to your ways and bring upon you all your detestable things. 4 And my eye will not feel sorry for you, neither will I feel compassion, for upon you I shall bring your own ways, and in the midst of you your own detestable things will come to be; and YOU people will have to know that I am Jehovah.’

5 “This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said, ‘A calamity, a unique calamity, look! it is coming. 6 An end itself must come. The end must come; it must awaken for you. Look! It is coming. 7 The garland must come to you, O inhabiter of the land, the time must come, the day is near. There is confusion, and not the shouting of the mountains.

8 “‘Now shortly I shall pour out my rage upon you, and I will bring my anger against you to its finish, and I will judge you according to your ways and bring upon you all your detestable things. 9 Neither will my eye feel sorry nor shall I feel compassion. According to your ways shall I do the bringing upon you yourself, and your own detestable things will come to be right in the midst of you; and YOU people will have to know that I am Jehovah doing the smiting.

10 “‘Look! The day! Look! It is coming. The garland has gone forth. The rod has blossomed. Presumptuousness has sprouted. 11 Violence itself has risen up into a rod of wickedness. It is not from them, nor is it from their wealth; and it is not from their own selves, nor is there any eminency in them. 12 The time must come, the day must arrive. As regards the buyer, let him not rejoice; and as regards the seller, let him not go into mourning, for there is hot feeling against all its crowd. 13 For to what was sold the seller himself will not return, while their life is yet among the living ones; for the vision is for all its crowd. No one will return, and they will not possess themselves each one of his own life by his own error.

14 “‘They have blown the trumpet and there has been a preparing of everybody, but there is no one going to the battle, because my hot feeling is against all its crowd. 15 The sword is outside, and the pestilence and the famine are inside. Whoever is in the field, by the sword he will die, and whoever are in the city, famine and pestilence themselves will devour them. 16 And their escapees will certainly make their escape and become on the mountains like the doves of the valleys, all of which are moaning, each one in his own error. 17 As for all the hands, they keep dropping down; and as for all knees, they keep dripping with water. 18 And they have girded on sackcloth, and shuddering has covered them; and on all faces there is shame and on all their heads there is baldness.

19 “‘Into the streets they will throw their very silver, and an abhorrent thing their own gold will become. Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them in the day of Jehovah’s fury. Their souls they will not satisfy, and their intestines they will not fill, for it has become a stumbling block causing their error. 20 And the decoration of one’s ornament—one has set it as reason for pride; and their detestable images, their disgusting things, they have made with it. That is why I will make it to them an abhorrent thing. 21 And I will give it into the hand of the strangers for plunder and to the wicked ones of the earth for spoil, and they will certainly profane it.

22 “‘And I shall have to turn away my face from them, and they will actually profane my concealed place, and into it robbers will really come and profane it.

23 “‘Make the chain, for the land itself has become full of bloodstained judgment and the city itself has become full of violence. 24 And I will bring in the worst ones of the nations, and they will certainly take possession of their houses, and I will cause the pride of the strong ones to cease, and their sanctuaries must be profaned. 25 There will come anguish, and they will certainly seek peace but there will be none. 26 There will come adversity upon adversity, and there will occur report upon report, and people will actually seek a vision from a prophet, and the law itself will perish from a priest and counsel from elderly men. 27 The king himself will go into mourning; even a chieftain will clothe himself with desolation, and the very hands of the people of the land will get disturbed. According to their way I shall act toward them, and with their judgments I shall judge them; and they will have to know that I am Jehovah.’”