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Ezekiel 5-7
Holman Christian Standard Bible
Ezekiel 5-7
Holman Christian Standard Bible
Ezekiel Dramatizes Jerusalem’s Fall
5 “Now you, son of man, take a sharp sword,(A) use it as you would a barber’s razor, and shave your head and beard. Then take a set of scales and divide the hair. 2 You are to burn up a third of it in the city when the days of the siege have ended;(B) you are to take a third and slash it with the sword all around the city; and you are to scatter a third to the wind, for I will draw a sword to chase after them. 3 But you are to take a few strands from the hair and secure them in the folds of your robe.(C) 4 Take some more of them, throw them into the fire, and burn them in it.(D) A fire will spread from it to the whole house of Israel.
5 “This is what the Lord God says: I have set this Jerusalem in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. 6 But she has rebelled against My ordinances with more wickedness than the nations, and against My statutes more than the countries that surround her. For her people have rejected My ordinances and have not walked in My statutes.
7 “Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: Because you have been more insubordinate than the nations around you(E)—you have not walked in My statutes or kept My ordinances; you have not even kept the ordinances of the nations around you— 8 therefore, this is what the Lord God says: See, I am against you, Jerusalem, and I will execute judgments within you in the sight of the nations. 9 Because of all your detestable practices, I will do to you what I have never done before and what I will never do again.(F) 10 As a result, fathers will eat their sons(G) within Jerusalem,[a] and sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments against you and scatter all your survivors to every direction of the wind.
11 “Therefore, as I live”—this is the declaration of the Lord God—“I am going to cut you off and show you no pity, because you have defiled My sanctuary(H) with all your detestable practices and abominations.(I) Yes, I will not spare you. 12 A third of your people will die by plague and be consumed by famine within you;(J) a third will fall by the sword all around you; and I will scatter a third to every direction of the wind, and I will draw a sword to chase after them.(K) 13 When My anger is spent and I have vented My wrath on them, I will be appeased.(L) Then after I have spent My wrath on them, they will know that I, Yahweh, have spoken in My jealousy.(M)
14 “I will make you a ruin and a disgrace among the nations around you, in the sight of everyone who passes by. 15 So you[b] will be a disgrace and a taunt, a warning and a horror, to the nations around you when I execute judgments against you in anger,(N) wrath, and furious rebukes. I, Yahweh, have spoken. 16 When I shoot deadly arrows of famine at them, arrows for destruction that I will send to destroy you, inhabitants of Jerusalem, I will intensify the famine against you and cut off your supply of bread. 17 I will send famine and dangerous animals against you. They will leave you childless, Jerusalem. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring a sword against you. I, Yahweh, have spoken.”(O)
Prophecy against Israel’s Idolatry
6 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, turn your face toward the mountains of Israel(P) 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.(Q) 4 Your altars will be desolated and your incense altars 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,[c] your idols smashed and obliterated, your incense altars cut down, and your works wiped out. 7 The slain will fall among you, and you will know that I am Yahweh.
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.(R) 9 Then your survivors will remember Me among the nations where they are taken captive,(S) how I was crushed by their promiscuous hearts that turned away from Me and by their eyes that lusted after their idols.(T) They will loathe themselves because of the evil things they did,(U) their detestable practices 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.
Lament over the Fall of Jerusalem
11 “This is what the Lord God says: Clap your hands, stamp your feet,(V) and cry out over all the evil and detestable practices of the house of Israel, who will fall by the sword, famine, and plague.(W) 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[d] will die of famine. In this way I will exhaust My wrath on them.(X) 13 You will all know that I am Yahweh when their slain lie among their idols around their altars,(Y) on every high hill,(Z) 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,(AA) and wherever they live I will make the land a desolate waste, from the wilderness to Diblah.[e] Then they will know that I am Yahweh.”
Announcement of the End
7 And 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 land.(AB)
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,(AC)
but I will punish you for your ways(AD)
and for your detestable practices within you.
Then you will know that I am Yahweh.”(AE)
5 This is what the Lord God says:
Look, one disaster after another is coming!(AF)
6 An end has come; the end has come!
It has awakened against you.
Look, it is coming!
7 Doom[f] has come on you,(AG)
inhabitants of the land.
The time has come; the day is near.
There will be panic on the mountains
and not celebration.(AH)
8 I will pour out My wrath on you very soon;(AI)
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, Yahweh, who strikes.
10 Look, the day is coming!
Doom has gone out.(AJ)
The rod has blossomed;(AK)
arrogance has bloomed.(AL)
11 Violence has grown into a rod of wickedness.(AM)
None of them will remain:
none of their multitude,
none of their wealth,
and none of the eminent[g] among them.
12 The time has come; the day has arrived.
Let the buyer not rejoice(AN)
and the seller not mourn,
for wrath is on all her masses.(AO)
13 The seller will certainly not return
to what was sold
as long as he and the buyer remain alive.[h]
For the vision concerning all its people
will not be revoked,
and none of them will preserve
his life because of his iniquity.
14 They have blown the trumpet(AP)
and prepared everything,
but no one goes to war,
for My wrath is on all her masses.
15 The sword is on the outside;(AQ)
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(AR)
and live on the mountains
like doves of the valley,
all of them moaning,
each over his own iniquity.
17 All their hands will become weak,(AS)
and all their knees will turn to water.
18 They will put on sackcloth,
and horror will overwhelm them.
Shame will cover all their faces,
and all their heads will be bald.(AT)
19 They will throw their silver into the streets,
and their gold will seem like something filthy.(AU)
Their silver and gold will be unable to save them
in the day of the Lord’s wrath.(AV)
They will not satisfy their appetites
or fill their stomachs,
for these were the stumbling blocks(AW)
that brought about their iniquity.
20 He appointed His beautiful ornaments for majesty,
but[i] they made their abhorrent images from them,
their detestable things.(AX)
Therefore, I have made these
into something filthy for them.
21 I will hand these things over
to foreigners as plunder(AY)
and to the wicked of the earth as spoil,
and they will profane them.
22 I will turn My face from the wicked
as they profane My treasured place.
Violent men will enter it and profane it.
23 Forge the chain,(AZ)
for the land is filled with crimes of bloodshed,
and the city is filled with violence.(BA)
24 So I will bring the most evil of nations(BB)
to take possession of their houses.
I will put an end to the pride of the strong,
and their sacred places will be profaned.(BC)
25 Anguish is coming!
They will seek peace, but there will be none.
26 Disaster after disaster will come,(BD)
and there will be rumor after rumor.(BE)
Then they will seek a vision from a prophet,(BF)
but instruction will perish from the priests
and counsel from the elders.(BG)
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.(BH)
Then they will know that I am Yahweh.
Footnotes
- Ezekiel 5:10 Lit you
- Ezekiel 5:15 DSS, LXX, Syr, Tg, Vg; MT reads she
- Ezekiel 6:6 Hb obscure
- Ezekiel 6:12 Or besieged
- Ezekiel 6:14 Some Hb mss, some LXX mss read Riblah; 2Kg 23:33; Jr 39:5
- Ezekiel 7:7 Hb obscure
- Ezekiel 7:11 Some Hb mss, Syr, Vg read and no rest
- Ezekiel 7:13 Lit sold, while still in life is their life
- Ezekiel 7:20 Or They turned their beautiful ornaments into objects of pride, and
Ezekiel 5-7
New International Version
Ezekiel 5-7
New International Version
God’s Razor of Judgment
5 “Now, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a barber’s razor(A) to shave(B) your head and your beard.(C) Then take a set of scales and divide up the hair. 2 When the days of your siege come to an end, burn(D) a third(E) of the hair inside the city. Take a third and strike it with the sword all around the city. And scatter a third to the wind.(F) For I will pursue them with drawn sword.(G) 3 But take a few hairs and tuck them away in the folds of your garment.(H) 4 Again, take a few of these and throw them into the fire(I) and burn them up. A fire will spread from there to all Israel.
5 “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: This is Jerusalem, which I have set in the center of the nations, with countries all around her.(J) 6 Yet in her wickedness she has rebelled against my laws and decrees more than the nations and countries around her. She has rejected my laws and has not followed my decrees.(K)
7 “Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: You have been more unruly than the nations around you and have not followed my decrees or kept my laws. You have not even[a] conformed to the standards of the nations around you.(L)
8 “Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will inflict punishment on you in the sight of the nations.(M) 9 Because of all your detestable idols, I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again.(N) 10 Therefore in your midst parents will eat their children, and children will eat their parents.(O) I will inflict punishment on you and will scatter all your survivors to the winds.(P) 11 Therefore as surely as I live,(Q) declares the Sovereign(R) Lord, because you have defiled my sanctuary(S) with all your vile images(T) and detestable practices,(U) I myself will shave you; I will not look on you with pity or spare you.(V) 12 A third of your people will die of the plague or perish by famine inside you; a third will fall by the sword outside your walls; and a third I will scatter to the winds(W) and pursue with drawn sword.(X)
13 “Then my anger will cease and my wrath(Y) against them will subside, and I will be avenged.(Z) And when I have spent my wrath on them, they will know that I the Lord have spoken in my zeal.(AA)
14 “I will make you a ruin and a reproach among the nations around you, in the sight of all who pass by.(AB) 15 You will be a reproach(AC) and a taunt, a warning(AD) and an object of horror to the nations around you when I inflict punishment on you in anger and in wrath and with stinging rebuke.(AE) I the Lord have spoken.(AF) 16 When I shoot at you with my deadly and destructive arrows of famine, I will shoot to destroy you. I will bring more and more famine upon you and cut off your supply of food.(AG) 17 I will send famine and wild beasts(AH) against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed(AI) will sweep through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I the Lord have spoken.(AJ)”
Doom for the Mountains of Israel
6 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, set your face(AK) against the mountains(AL) of Israel; prophesy against them(AM) 3 and say: ‘You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Sovereign Lord. This is what the Sovereign Lord says to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys:(AN) I am about to bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places.(AO) 4 Your altars will be demolished and your incense altars(AP) will be smashed; and I will slay your people in front of your idols.(AQ) 5 I will lay the dead bodies of the Israelites in front of their idols, and I will scatter your bones(AR) around your altars.(AS) 6 Wherever you live,(AT) the towns will be laid waste and the high places(AU) demolished, so that your altars will be laid waste and devastated, your idols(AV) smashed and ruined, your incense altars(AW) broken down, and what you have made wiped out.(AX) 7 Your people will fall slain(AY) among you, and you will know that I am the Lord.(AZ)
8 “‘But I will spare some, for some of you will escape(BA) the sword when you are scattered among the lands and nations.(BB) 9 Then in the nations where they have been carried captive, those who escape will remember(BC) me—how I have been grieved(BD) by their adulterous hearts, which have turned away from me, and by their eyes, which have lusted after their idols.(BE) They will loathe themselves for the evil(BF) they have done and for all their detestable practices.(BG) 10 And they will know that I am the Lord;(BH) I did not threaten in vain to bring this calamity on them.(BI)
11 “‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Strike your hands together and stamp your feet and cry out “Alas!” because of all the wicked and detestable practices of the people of Israel, for they will fall by the sword, famine and plague.(BJ) 12 One who is far away will die of the plague, and one who is near will fall by the sword, and anyone who survives and is spared will die of famine. So will I pour out my wrath(BK) on them.(BL) 13 And they will know that I am the Lord, when their people lie slain among their idols(BM) around their altars, on every high hill and on all the mountaintops, under every spreading tree and every leafy oak(BN)—places where they offered fragrant incense to all their idols.(BO) 14 And I will stretch out my hand(BP) against them and make the land a desolate waste from the desert to Diblah[b]—wherever they live. Then they will know that I am the Lord.(BQ)’”
The End Has Come
7 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, this is what the Sovereign Lord says to the land of Israel:
“‘The end!(BR) The end has come
upon the four corners(BS) of the land!
3 The end is now upon you,
and I will unleash my anger against you.
I will judge you according to your conduct(BT)
and repay you for all your detestable practices.(BU)
4 I will not look on you with pity;(BV)
I will not spare you.
I will surely repay you for your conduct
and for the detestable practices among you.
“‘Then you will know that I am the Lord.’(BW)
5 “This is what the Sovereign Lord says:
“‘Disaster!(BX) Unheard-of[c] disaster!
See, it comes!
6 The end(BY) has come!
The end has come!
It has roused itself against you.
See, it comes!
7 Doom has come upon you,
upon you who dwell in the land.
The time has come! The day(BZ) is near!(CA)
There is panic, not joy, on the mountains.
8 I am about to pour out my wrath(CB) on you
and spend my anger against you.
I will judge you according to your conduct
and repay you for all your detestable practices.(CC)
9 I will not look on you with pity;
I will not spare you.(CD)
I will repay you for your conduct
and for the detestable practices among you.(CE)
“‘Then you will know that it is I the Lord who strikes you.(CF)
10 “‘See, the day!
See, it comes!
Doom has burst forth,
the rod(CG) has budded,
arrogance has blossomed!
11 Violence(CH) has arisen,[d]
a rod to punish the wicked.
None of the people will be left,
none of that crowd—
none of their wealth,
nothing of value.(CI)
12 The time has come!
The day has arrived!
Let not the buyer(CJ) rejoice
nor the seller grieve,
for my wrath is on the whole crowd.(CK)
13 The seller will not recover
the property that was sold—
as long as both buyer and seller live.
For the vision concerning the whole crowd
will not be reversed.
Because of their sins, not one of them
will preserve their life.(CL)
14 “‘They have blown the trumpet,(CM)
they have made all things ready,
but no one will go into battle,
for my wrath(CN) is on the whole crowd.
15 Outside is the sword;
inside are plague and famine.
Those in the country
will die by the sword;
those in the city
will be devoured by famine and plague.(CO)
16 The fugitives(CP) who escape
will flee to the mountains.
Like doves(CQ) of the valleys,
they will all moan,
each for their own sins.(CR)
17 Every hand will go limp;(CS)
every leg will be wet with urine.(CT)
18 They will put on sackcloth(CU)
and be clothed with terror.(CV)
Every face will be covered with shame,
and every head will be shaved.(CW)
19 “‘They will throw their silver into the streets,(CX)
and their gold will be treated as a thing unclean.
Their silver and gold
will not be able to deliver them
in the day of the Lord’s wrath.(CY)
It will not satisfy(CZ) their hunger
or fill their stomachs,
for it has caused them to stumble(DA) into sin.(DB)
20 They took pride in their beautiful jewelry
and used it to make(DC) their detestable idols.
They made it into vile images;(DD)
therefore I will make it a thing unclean for them.(DE)
21 I will give their wealth as plunder(DF) to foreigners
and as loot to the wicked of the earth,
who will defile it.(DG)
22 I will turn my face(DH) away from the people,
and robbers will desecrate the place I treasure.
They will enter it
and will defile it.(DI)
23 “‘Prepare chains!
For the land is full of bloodshed,(DJ)
and the city is full of violence.(DK)
24 I will bring the most wicked of nations
to take possession of their houses.
I will put an end to the pride of the mighty,
and their sanctuaries(DL) will be desecrated.(DM)
25 When terror comes,
they will seek peace in vain.(DN)
26 Calamity upon calamity(DO) will come,
and rumor upon rumor.
They will go searching for a vision from the prophet,(DP)
priestly instruction in the law will cease,
the counsel of the elders will come to an end.(DQ)
27 The king will mourn,
the prince will be clothed with despair,(DR)
and the hands of the people of the land will tremble.
I will deal with them according to their conduct,(DS)
and by their own standards I will judge them.
“‘Then they will know that I am the Lord.(DT)’”
Footnotes
- Ezekiel 5:7 Most Hebrew manuscripts; some Hebrew manuscripts and Syriac You have
- Ezekiel 6:14 Most Hebrew manuscripts; a few Hebrew manuscripts Riblah
- Ezekiel 7:5 Most Hebrew manuscripts; some Hebrew manuscripts and Syriac Disaster after
- Ezekiel 7:11 Or The violent one has become
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