Ezekiel 6-7 | The Drama of Judgment II | March 19, 2023
Ezekiel 6:1-14 CSB
(1) The word of the LORD came to me: (2) "Son of man, face the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them. (3) "You are to say: Mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD! This is what the Lord GOD says to the mountains and the hills, to the ravines and the valleys: I am about to bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places. (4) "Your altars will be desolated and your shrines smashed. I will throw down your slain in front of your idols. (5) "I will lay the corpses of the Israelites in front of their idols and scatter your bones around your altars. (6) "Wherever you live the cities will be in ruins and the high places will be desolate, so that your altars will lie in ruins and be desecrated, your idols smashed and obliterated, your shrines cut down, and what you have made wiped out. (7) "The slain will fall among you, and you will know that I am the LORD. (8) "Yet I will leave a remnant when you are scattered among the nations, for throughout the countries there will be some of you who will escape the sword. (9) "Then your survivors will remember me among the nations where they are taken captive, how I was crushed by their promiscuous hearts that turned away from me and by their eyes that lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves because of the evil things they did, their detestable actions of every kind. (10) "And they will know that I am the LORD; I did not threaten to bring this disaster on them without a reason. (11) "This is what the Lord GOD says: Clap your hands, stamp your feet, and cry out over all the evil and detestable practices of the house of Israel, who will fall by the sword, famine, and plague. (12) "The one who is far off will die by plague; the one who is near will fall by the sword; and the one who remains and is spared will die of famine. In this way I will exhaust my wrath on them. (13) "You will all know that I am the LORD when their slain lie among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the mountaintops, and under every green tree and every leafy oak -- the places where they offered pleasing aromas to all their idols. (14) "I will stretch out my hand against them, and wherever they live I will make the land a desolate waste, from the wilderness to Diblah. Then they will know that I am the LORD."
Ezekiel 7:1-27 CSB
(1) The word of the LORD came to me: (2) "Son of man, this is what the Lord GOD says to the land of Israel: An end! The end has come on the four corners of the earth. (3) "The end is now upon you; I will send my anger against you and judge you according to your ways. I will punish you for all your detestable practices. (4) "I will not look on you with pity or spare you, but I will punish you for your ways and for your detestable practices within you. Then you will know that I am the LORD." (5) This is what the Lord GOD says: Look, one disaster after another is coming! (6) An end has come; the end has come! It has awakened against you. Look, it is coming! (7) Doom has come on you, inhabitants of the land. The time has come; the day is near. There will be panic on the mountains and not celebration. (8) I will pour out my wrath on you very soon; I will exhaust my anger against you and judge you according to your ways. I will punish you for all your detestable practices. (9) I will not look on you with pity or spare you. I will punish you for your ways and for your detestable practices within you. Then you will know that it is I, the LORD, who strikes. (10) Here is the day! Here it comes! Doom is on its way. The rod has blossomed; arrogance has bloomed. (11) Violence has grown into a rod of wickedness. None of them will remain: none of that crowd, none of their wealth, and none of the eminent among them. (12) The time has come; the day has arrived. Let the buyer not rejoice and the seller not mourn, for wrath is on her whole crowd. (13) The seller will certainly not return to what was sold as long as he and the buyer remain alive. For the vision concerning her whole crowd will not be revoked, and because of the iniquity of each one, none will preserve his life. (14) They have blown the trumpet and prepared everything, but no one goes to war, for my wrath is on her whole crowd. (15) The sword is on the outside; plague and famine are on the inside. Whoever is in the field will die by the sword, and famine and plague will devour whoever is in the city. (16) The survivors among them will escape and live on the mountains. Like doves of the valley, all of them will moan, each over his own iniquity. (17) All their hands will become weak, and all their knees will run with urine. (18) They will put on sackcloth, and horror will overwhelm them. Shame will cover all their faces, and all their heads will be bald. (19) They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will seem like something filthy. Their silver and gold will be unable to save them in the day of the LORD's wrath. They will not satisfy their appetites or fill their stomachs, for these were the stumbling blocks that brought about their iniquity. (20) He appointed his beautiful ornaments for majesty, but they made their detestable images from them, their abhorrent things. Therefore, I have made these into something filthy to them. (21) I will hand these things over to foreigners as plunder and to the wicked of the earth as spoil, and they will profane them. (22) I will turn my face from them as they profane my treasured place. Violent men will enter it and profane it. (23) Forge the chain, for the land is filled with crimes of bloodshed, and the city is filled with violence. (24) So I will bring the most evil of nations to take possession of their houses. I will put an end to the pride of the strong, and their sacred places will be profaned. (25) Anguish is coming! They will look for peace, but there will be none. (26) Disaster after disaster will come, and there will be rumor after rumor. Then they will look for a vision from a prophet, but instruction will perish from the priests and counsel from the elders. (27) The king will mourn; the prince will be clothed in grief; and the hands of the people of the land will tremble. I will deal with them according to their own conduct, and I will judge them by their own standards. Then they will know that I am the LORD.