Bible in 90 Days Plan

¹I am one who has seen affliction under the rod of God’s wrath;

²he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light;

³against me alone he turns his hand, again and again, all day long.

⁴He has made my flesh and my skin waste away, and broken my bones;

⁵he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation;

⁶he has made me sit in darkness like the dead of long ago.

⁷He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has put heavy chains on me;

⁸though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer;

⁹he has blocked my ways with hewn stones, he has made my paths crooked.

¹⁰He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding;

¹¹he led me off my way and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate;

¹²he bent his bow and set me as a mark for his arrow.

¹³He shot into my vitals the arrows of his quiver;

¹⁴I have become the laughingstock of all my people, the object of their taunt-songs all day long.

¹⁵He has filled me with bitterness, he has sated me with wormwood.

¹⁶He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes;

¹⁷my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is;

¹⁸so I say, “Gone is my glory, and all that I had hoped for from the LORD.”

¹⁹The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall!

²⁰My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me.

²¹But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:

²²The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end;

²³they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

²⁴“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”

²⁵The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.

²⁶It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.

²⁷It is good for one to bear the yoke in youth,

²⁸to sit alone in silence when the Lord has imposed it,

²⁹to put one’s mouth to the dust (there may yet be hope),

³⁰to give one’s cheek to the smiter, and be filled with insults.

³¹For the Lord will not reject forever.

³²Although he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love;

³³for he does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone.

³⁴When all the prisoners of the land are crushed under foot,

³⁵when human rights are perverted in the presence of the Most High,

³⁶when one’s case is subverted — does the Lord not see it?

³⁷Who can command and have it done, if the Lord has not ordained it?

³⁸Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?

³⁹Why should any who draw breath complain about the punishment of their sins?

⁴⁰Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the LORD.

⁴¹Let us lift up our hearts as well as our hands to God in heaven.

⁴²We have transgressed and rebelled, and you have not forgiven.

⁴³You have wrapped yourself with anger and pursued us, killing without pity;

⁴⁴you have wrapped yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through.

⁴⁵You have made us filth and rubbish among the peoples.

⁴⁶All our enemies have opened their mouths against us;

⁴⁷panic and pitfall have come upon us, devastation and destruction.

⁴⁸My eyes flow with rivers of tears because of the destruction of my people.

⁴⁹My eyes will flow without ceasing, without respite,

⁵⁰until the LORD from heaven looks down and sees.

⁵¹My eyes cause me grief at the fate of all the young women in my city.

⁵²Those who were my enemies without cause have hunted me like a bird;

⁵³they flung me alive into a pit and hurled stones on me;

⁵⁴water closed over my head; I said, “I am lost.”

⁵⁵I called on your name, O LORD, from the depths of the pit;

⁵⁶you heard my plea, “Do not close your ear to my cry for help, but give me relief!”

⁵⁷You came near when I called on you; you said, “Do not fear!”

⁵⁸You have taken up my cause, O Lord, you have redeemed my life.

⁵⁹You have seen the wrong done to me, O LORD; judge my cause.

⁶⁰You have seen all their malice, all their plots against me.

⁶¹You have heard their taunts, O LORD, all their plots against me.

⁶²The whispers and murmurs of my assailants are against me all day long.

⁶³Whether they sit or rise — see, I am the object of their taunt-songs.

⁶⁴Pay them back for their deeds, O LORD, according to the work of their hands!

⁶⁵Give them anguish of heart; your curse be on them!

⁶⁶Pursue them in anger and destroy them from under the LORD’s heavens.

¹How the gold has grown dim, how the pure gold is changed! The sacred stones lie scattered at the head of every street.

²The precious children of Zion, worth their weight in fine gold — how they are reckoned as earthen pots, the work of a potter’s hands!

³Even the jackals offer the breast and nurse their young, but my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

⁴The tongue of the infant sticks to the roof of its mouth for thirst; the children beg for food, but no one gives them anything.

⁵Those who feasted on delicacies perish in the streets; those who were brought up in purple cling to ash heaps.

⁶For the chastisement of my people has been greater than the punishment of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment, though no hand was laid on it.

⁷Her princes were purer than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies were more ruddy than coral, their hair like sapphire.

⁸Now their visage is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as wood.

⁹Happier were those pierced by the sword than those pierced by hunger, whose life drains away, deprived of the produce of the field.

¹⁰The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food in the destruction of my people.

¹¹The LORD gave full vent to his wrath; he poured out his hot anger, and kindled a fire in Zion that consumed its foundations.

¹²The kings of the earth did not believe, nor did any of the inhabitants of the world, that foe or enemy could enter the gates of Jerusalem.

¹³It was for the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who shed the blood of the righteous in the midst of her.

¹⁴Blindly they wandered through the streets, so defiled with blood that no one was able to touch their garments.

¹⁵“Away! Unclean!” people shouted at them; “Away! Away! Do not touch!” So they became fugitives and wanderers; it was said among the nations, “They shall stay here no longer.”

¹⁶The LORD himself has scattered them, he will regard them no more; no honor was shown to the priests, no favor to the elders.

¹⁷Our eyes failed, ever watching vainly for help; we were watching eagerly for a nation that could not save.

¹⁸They dogged our steps so that we could not walk in our streets; our end drew near; our days were numbered; for our end had come.

¹⁹Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles in the heavens; they chased us on the mountains, they lay in wait for us in the wilderness.

²⁰The LORD’s anointed, the breath of our life, was taken in their pits — the one of whom we said, “Under his shadow we shall live among the nations.”

²¹Rejoice and be glad, O daughter Edom, you that live in the land of Uz; but to you also the cup shall pass; you shall become drunk and strip yourself bare.

²²The punishment of your iniquity, O daughter Zion, is accomplished, he will keep you in exile no longer; but your iniquity, O daughter Edom, he will punish, he will uncover your sins.

¹Remember, O LORD, what has befallen us; look, and see our disgrace!

²Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to aliens.

³We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows.

⁴We must pay for the water we drink; the wood we get must be bought.

⁵With a yoke on our necks we are hard driven; we are weary, we are given no rest.

⁶We have made a pact with Egypt and Assyria, to get enough bread.

⁷Our ancestors sinned; they are no more, and we bear their iniquities.

⁸Slaves rule over us; there is no one to deliver us from their hand.

⁹We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the wilderness.

¹⁰Our skin is black as an oven from the scorching heat of famine.

¹¹Women are raped in Zion, virgins in the towns of Judah.

¹²Princes are hung up by their hands; no respect is shown to the elders.

¹³Young men are compelled to grind, and boys stagger under loads of wood.

¹⁴The old men have left the city gate, the young men their music.

¹⁵The joy of our hearts has ceased; our dancing has been turned to mourning.

¹⁶The crown has fallen from our head; woe to us, for we have sinned!

¹⁷Because of this our hearts are sick, because of these things our eyes have grown dim:

¹⁸because of Mount Zion, which lies desolate; jackals prowl over it.

¹⁹But you, O LORD, reign forever; your throne endures to all generations.

²⁰Why have you forgotten us completely? Why have you forsaken us these many days?

²¹Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may be restored; renew our days as of old —

²²unless you have utterly rejected us, and are angry with us beyond measure.

¹In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.

²On the fifth day of the month (it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin),

³the word of the LORD came to the priest Ezekiel son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the LORD was on him there.

⁴As I looked, a stormy wind came out of the north: a great cloud with brightness around it and fire flashing forth continually, and in the middle of the fire, something like gleaming amber.

⁵In the middle of it was something like four living creatures. This was their appearance: they were of human form.

⁶Each had four faces, and each of them had four wings.

⁷Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the sole of a calf’s foot; and they sparkled like burnished bronze.

⁸Under their wings on their four sides they had human hands. And the four had their faces and their wings thus:

⁹their wings touched one another; each of them moved straight ahead, without turning as they moved.

¹⁰As for the appearance of their faces: the four had the face of a human being, the face of a lion on the right side, the face of an ox on the left side, and the face of an eagle;

¹¹such were their faces. Their wings were spread out above; each creature had two wings, each of which touched the wing of another, while two covered their bodies.

¹²Each moved straight ahead; wherever the spirit would go, they went, without turning as they went.

¹³In the middle of the living creatures there was something that looked like burning coals of fire, like torches moving to and fro among the living creatures; the fire was bright, and lightning issued from the fire.

¹⁴The living creatures darted to and fro, like a flash of lightning.

¹⁵As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the earth beside the living creatures, one for each of the four of them.

¹⁶As for the appearance of the wheels and their construction: their appearance was like the gleaming of beryl; and the four had the same form, their construction being something like a wheel within a wheel.

¹⁷When they moved, they moved in any of the four directions without veering as they moved.

¹⁸Their rims were tall and awesome, for the rims of all four were full of eyes all around.

¹⁹When the living creatures moved, the wheels moved beside them; and when the living creatures rose from the earth, the wheels rose.

²⁰Wherever the spirit would go, they went, and the wheels rose along with them; for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.

²¹When they moved, the others moved; when they stopped, the others stopped; and when they rose from the earth, the wheels rose along with them; for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.

²²Over the heads of the living creatures there was something like a dome, shining like crystal, spread out above their heads.

²³Under the dome their wings were stretched out straight, one toward another; and each of the creatures had two wings covering its body.

²⁴When they moved, I heard the sound of their wings like the sound of mighty waters, like the thunder of the Almighty, a sound of tumult like the sound of an army; when they stopped, they let down their wings.

²⁵And there came a voice from above the dome over their heads; when they stopped, they let down their wings.

²⁶And above the dome over their heads there was something like a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was something that seemed like a human form.

²⁷Upward from what appeared like the loins I saw something like gleaming amber, something that looked like fire enclosed all around; and downward from what looked like the loins I saw something that looked like fire, and there was a splendor all around.

²⁸Like the bow in a cloud on a rainy day, such was the appearance of the splendor all around. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. When I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of someone speaking.

¹He said to me: O mortal, stand up on your feet, and I will speak with you.

²And when he spoke to me, a spirit entered into me and set me on my feet; and I heard him speaking to me.

³He said to me, Mortal, I am sending you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have transgressed against me to this very day.

⁴The descendants are impudent and stubborn. I am sending you to them, and you shall say to them, “Thus says the Lord GOD.”

⁵Whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house), they shall know that there has been a prophet among them.

⁶And you, O mortal, do not be afraid of them, and do not be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns surround you and you live among scorpions; do not be afraid of their words, and do not be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house.

⁷You shall speak my words to them, whether they hear or refuse to hear; for they are a rebellious house.

⁸But you, mortal, hear what I say to you; do not be rebellious like that rebellious house; open your mouth and eat what I give you.

⁹I looked, and a hand was stretched out to me, and a written scroll was in it.

¹⁰He spread it before me; it had writing on the front and on the back, and written on it were words of lamentation and mourning and woe.

¹He said to me, O mortal, eat what is offered to you; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.

²So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat.

³He said to me, Mortal, eat this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it. Then I ate it; and in my mouth it was as sweet as honey.

⁴He said to me: Mortal, go to the house of Israel and speak my very words to them.

⁵For you are not sent to a people of obscure speech and difficult language, but to the house of Israel —

⁶not to many peoples of obscure speech and difficult language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely, if I sent you to them, they would listen to you.

⁷But the house of Israel will not listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me; because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart.

⁸See, I have made your face hard against their faces, and your forehead hard against their foreheads.

⁹Like the hardest stone, harder than flint, I have made your forehead; do not fear them or be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house.

¹⁰He said to me: Mortal, all my words that I shall speak to you receive in your heart and hear with your ears;

¹¹then go to the exiles, to your people, and speak to them. Say to them, “Thus says the Lord GOD”; whether they hear or refuse to hear.

¹²Then the spirit lifted me up, and as the glory of the LORD rose from its place, I heard behind me the sound of loud rumbling;

¹³it was the sound of the wings of the living creatures brushing against one another, and the sound of the wheels beside them, that sounded like a loud rumbling.

¹⁴The spirit lifted me up and bore me away; I went in bitterness in the heat of my spirit, the hand of the LORD being strong upon me.

¹⁵I came to the exiles at Tel-abib, who lived by the river Chebar. And I sat there among them, stunned, for seven days.

¹⁶At the end of seven days, the word of the LORD came to me:

¹⁷Mortal, I have made you a sentinel for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me.

¹⁸If I say to the wicked, “You shall surely die,” and you give them no warning, or speak to warn the wicked from their wicked way, in order to save their life, those wicked persons shall die for their iniquity; but their blood I will require at your hand.

¹⁹But if you warn the wicked, and they do not turn from their wickedness, or from their wicked way, they shall die for their iniquity; but you will have saved your life.

²⁰Again, if the righteous turn from their righteousness and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before them, they shall die; because you have not warned them, they shall die for their sin, and their righteous deeds that they have done shall not be remembered; but their blood I will require at your hand.

²¹If, however, you warn the righteous not to sin, and they do not sin, they shall surely live, because they took warning; and you will have saved your life.

²²Then the hand of the LORD was upon me there; and he said to me, Rise up, go out into the valley, and there I will speak with you.

²³So I rose up and went out into the valley; and the glory of the LORD stood there, like the glory that I had seen by the river Chebar; and I fell on my face.

²⁴The spirit entered into me, and set me on my feet; and he spoke with me and said to me: Go, shut yourself inside your house.

²⁵As for you, mortal, cords shall be placed on you, and you shall be bound with them, so that you cannot go out among the people;

²⁶and I will make your tongue cling to the roof of your mouth, so that you shall be speechless and unable to reprove them; for they are a rebellious house.

²⁷But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth, and you shall say to them, “Thus says the Lord GOD”; let those who will hear, hear; and let those who refuse to hear, refuse; for they are a rebellious house.

¹And you, O mortal, take a brick and set it before you. On it portray a city, Jerusalem;

²and put siegeworks against it, and build a siege wall against it, and cast up a ramp against it; set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it all around.

³Then take an iron plate and place it as an iron wall between you and the city; set your face toward it, and let it be in a state of siege, and press the siege against it. This is a sign for the house of Israel.

⁴Then lie on your left side, and place the punishment of the house of Israel upon it; you shall bear their punishment for the number of the days that you lie there.

⁵For I assign to you a number of days, three hundred ninety days, equal to the number of the years of their punishment; and so you shall bear the punishment of the house of Israel.

⁶When you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side, and bear the punishment of the house of Judah; forty days I assign you, one day for each year.

⁷You shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and with your arm bared you shall prophesy against it.

⁸See, I am putting cords on you so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have completed the days of your siege.

⁹And you, take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them into one vessel, and make bread for yourself. During the number of days that you lie on your side, three hundred ninety days, you shall eat it.

¹⁰The food that you eat shall be twenty shekels a day by weight; at fixed times you shall eat it.

¹¹And you shall drink water by measure, one-sixth of a hin; at fixed times you shall drink.

¹²You shall eat it as a barley-cake, baking it in their sight on human dung.

¹³The LORD said, “Thus shall the people of Israel eat their bread, unclean, among the nations to which I will drive them.”

¹⁴Then I said, “Ah Lord GOD! I have never defiled myself; from my youth up until now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by animals, nor has carrion flesh come into my mouth.”

¹⁵Then he said to me, “See, I will let you have cow’s dung instead of human dung, on which you may prepare your bread.”

¹⁶Then he said to me, Mortal, I am going to break the staff of bread in Jerusalem; they shall eat bread by weight and with fearfulness; and they shall drink water by measure and in dismay.

¹⁷Lacking bread and water, they will look at one another in dismay, and waste away under their punishment.

¹And you, O mortal, take a sharp sword; use it as a barber’s razor and run it over your head and your beard; then take balances for weighing, and divide the hair.

²One third of the hair you shall burn in the fire inside the city, when the days of the siege are completed; one third you shall take and strike with the sword all around the city; and one third you shall scatter to the wind, and I will unsheathe the sword after them.

³Then you shall take from these a small number, and bind them in the skirts of your robe.

⁴From these, again, you shall take some, throw them into the fire and burn them up; from there a fire will come out against all the house of Israel.

⁵Thus says the Lord GOD: This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the center of the nations, with countries all around her.

⁶But she has rebelled against my ordinances and my statutes, becoming more wicked than the nations and the countries all around her, rejecting my ordinances and not following my statutes.

⁷Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Because you are more turbulent than the nations that are all around you, and have not followed my statutes or kept my ordinances, but have acted according to the ordinances of the nations that are all around you;

⁸therefore thus says the Lord GOD: I, I myself, am coming against you; I will execute judgments among you in the sight of the nations.

⁹And because of all your abominations, I will do to you what I have never yet done, and the like of which I will never do again.

¹⁰Surely, parents shall eat their children in your midst, and children shall eat their parents; I will execute judgments on you, and any of you who survive I will scatter to every wind.

¹¹Therefore, as I live, says the Lord GOD, surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations — therefore I will cut you down; my eye will not spare, and I will have no pity.

¹²One third of you shall die of pestilence or be consumed by famine among you; one third shall fall by the sword around you; and one third I will scatter to every wind and will unsheathe the sword after them.

¹³My anger shall spend itself, and I will vent my fury on them and satisfy myself; and they shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken in my jealousy, when I spend my fury on them.

¹⁴Moreover I will make you a desolation and an object of mocking among the nations around you, in the sight of all that pass by.

¹⁵You shall be a mockery and a taunt, a warning and a horror, to the nations around you, when I execute judgments on you in anger and fury, and with furious punishments — I, the LORD, have spoken —

¹⁶when I loose against you my deadly arrows of famine, arrows for destruction, which I will let loose to destroy you, and when I bring more and more famine upon you, and break your staff of bread.

¹⁷I will send famine and wild animals against you, and they will rob you of your children; pestilence and bloodshed shall pass through you; and I will bring the sword upon you. I, the LORD, have spoken.

¹The word of the LORD came to me:

²O mortal, set your face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them,

³and say, You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD! Thus says the Lord GOD to the mountains and the hills, to the ravines and the valleys: I, I myself will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places.

⁴Your altars shall become desolate, and your incense stands shall be broken; and I will throw down your slain in front of your idols.

⁵I will lay the corpses of the people of Israel in front of their idols; and I will scatter your bones around your altars.

⁶Wherever you live, your towns shall be waste and your high places ruined, so that your altars will be waste and ruined, your idols broken and destroyed, your incense stands cut down, and your works wiped out.

⁷The slain shall fall in your midst; then you shall know that I am the LORD.

⁸But I will spare some. Some of you shall escape the sword among the nations and be scattered through the countries.

⁹Those of you who escape shall remember me among the nations where they are carried captive, how I was crushed by their wanton heart that turned away from me, and their wanton eyes that turned after their idols. Then they will be loathsome in their own sight for the evils that they have committed, for all their abominations.

¹⁰And they shall know that I am the LORD; I did not threaten in vain to bring this disaster upon them.

¹¹Thus says the Lord GOD: Clap your hands and stamp your foot, and say, Alas for all the vile abominations of the house of Israel! For they shall fall by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.

¹²Those far off shall die of pestilence; those nearby shall fall by the sword; and any who are left and are spared shall die of famine. Thus I will spend my fury upon them.

¹³And you shall know that I am the LORD, when their slain lie among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the mountain tops, under every green tree, and under every leafy oak, wherever they offered pleasing odor to all their idols.

¹⁴I will stretch out my hand against them, and make the land desolate and waste, throughout all their settlements, from the wilderness to Riblah. Then they shall know that I am the LORD.

¹The word of the LORD came to me:

²You, O mortal, thus says the Lord GOD to the land of Israel: An end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land.

³Now the end is upon you, I will let loose my anger upon you; I will judge you according to your ways, I will punish you for all your abominations.

⁴My eye will not spare you, I will have no pity. I will punish you for your ways, while your abominations are among you. Then you shall know that I am the LORD.

⁵Thus says the Lord GOD: Disaster after disaster! See, it comes.

⁶An end has come, the end has come. It has awakened against you; see, it comes!

⁷Your doom has come to you, O inhabitant of the land. The time has come, the day is near — of tumult, not of reveling on the mountains.

⁸Soon now I will pour out my wrath upon you; I will spend my anger against you. I will judge you according to your ways, and punish you for all your abominations.

⁹My eye will not spare; I will have no pity. I will punish you according to your ways, while your abominations are among you. Then you shall know that it is I the LORD who strike.

¹⁰See, the day! See, it comes! Your doom has gone out. The rod has blossomed, pride has budded.

¹¹Violence has grown into a rod of wickedness. None of them shall remain, not their abundance, not their wealth; no pre-eminence among them.

¹²The time has come, the day draws near; let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn, for wrath is upon all their multitude.

¹³For the sellers shall not return to what has been sold as long as they remain alive. For the vision concerns all their multitude; it shall not be revoked. Because of their iniquity, they cannot maintain their lives.

¹⁴They have blown the horn and made everything ready; but no one goes to battle, for my wrath is upon all their multitude.

¹⁵The sword is outside, pestilence and famine are inside; those in the field die by the sword; those in the city — famine and pestilence devour them.

¹⁶If any survivors escape, they shall be found on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them moaning over their iniquity.

¹⁷All hands shall grow feeble, all knees turn to water.

¹⁸They shall put on sackcloth, horror shall cover them. Shame shall be on all faces, baldness on all their heads.

¹⁹They shall fling their silver into the streets, their gold shall be treated as unclean. Their silver and gold cannot save them on the day of the wrath of the LORD. They shall not satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs with it. For it was the stumbling block of their iniquity.

²⁰From their beautiful ornament, in which they took pride, they made their abominable images, their detestable things; therefore I will make of it an unclean thing to them.

²¹I will hand it over to strangers as booty, to the wicked of the earth as plunder; they shall profane it.

²²I will avert my face from them, so that they may profane my treasured place; the violent shall enter it, they shall profane it.

²³Make a chain! For the land is full of bloody crimes; the city is full of violence.

²⁴I will bring the worst of the nations to take possession of their houses. I will put an end to the arrogance of the strong, and their holy places shall be profaned.

²⁵When anguish comes, they will seek peace, but there shall be none.

²⁶Disaster comes upon disaster, rumor follows rumor; they shall keep seeking a vision from the prophet; instruction shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the elders.

²⁷The king shall mourn, the prince shall be wrapped in despair, and the hands of the people of the land shall tremble. According to their way I will deal with them; according to their own judgments I will judge them. And they shall know that I am the LORD.

¹In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house, with the elders of Judah sitting before me, the hand of the Lord GOD fell upon me there.

²I looked, and there was a figure that looked like a human being; below what appeared to be its loins it was fire, and above the loins it was like the appearance of brightness, like gleaming amber.

³It stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my head; and the spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven, and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the gateway of the inner court that faces north, to the seat of the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy.

⁴And the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision that I had seen in the valley.

⁵Then God said to me, “O mortal, lift up your eyes now in the direction of the north.” So I lifted up my eyes toward the north, and there, north of the altar gate, in the entrance, was this image of jealousy.

⁶He said to me, “Mortal, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel are committing here, to drive me far from my sanctuary? Yet you will see still greater abominations.”

⁷And he brought me to the entrance of the court; I looked, and there was a hole in the wall.

⁸Then he said to me, “Mortal, dig through the wall”; and when I dug through the wall, there was an entrance.

⁹He said to me, “Go in, and see the vile abominations that they are committing here.”

¹⁰So I went in and looked; there, portrayed on the wall all around, were all kinds of creeping things, and loathsome animals, and all the idols of the house of Israel.

¹¹Before them stood seventy of the elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan standing among them. Each had his censer in his hand, and the fragrant cloud of incense was ascending.

¹²Then he said to me, “Mortal, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in his room of images? For they say, ‘The LORD does not see us, the LORD has forsaken the land.’”

¹³He said also to me, “You will see still greater abominations that they are committing.”

¹⁴Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the LORD; women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz.

¹⁵Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, O mortal? You will see still greater abominations than these.”

¹⁶And he brought me into the inner court of the house of the LORD; there, at the entrance of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men, with their backs to the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east, prostrating themselves to the sun toward the east.

¹⁷Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, O mortal? Is it not bad enough that the house of Judah commits the abominations done here? Must they fill the land with violence, and provoke my anger still further? See, they are putting the branch to their nose!

¹⁸Therefore I will act in wrath; my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity; and though they cry in my hearing with a loud voice, I will not listen to them.”

¹Then he cried in my hearing with a loud voice, saying, “Draw near, you executioners of the city, each with his destroying weapon in his hand.”

²And six men came from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with his weapon for slaughter in his hand; among them was a man clothed in linen, with a writing case at his side. They went in and stood beside the bronze altar.

³Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub on which it rested to the threshold of the house. The LORD called to the man clothed in linen, who had the writing case at his side;

⁴and said to him, “Go through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of those who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it.”

⁵To the others he said in my hearing, “Pass through the city after him, and kill; your eye shall not spare, and you shall show no pity.

⁶Cut down old men, young men and young women, little children and women, but touch no one who has the mark. And begin at my sanctuary.” So they began with the elders who were in front of the house.

⁷Then he said to them, “Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain. Go!” So they went out and killed in the city.

⁸While they were killing, and I was left alone, I fell prostrate on my face and cried out, “Ah Lord GOD! will you destroy all who remain of Israel as you pour out your wrath upon Jerusalem?”

⁹He said to me, “The guilt of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great; the land is full of bloodshed and the city full of perversity; for they say, ‘The LORD has forsaken the land, and the LORD does not see.’

¹⁰As for me, my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity, but I will bring down their deeds upon their heads.”

¹¹Then the man clothed in linen, with the writing case at his side, brought back word, saying, “I have done as you commanded me.”

¹Then I looked, and above the dome that was over the heads of the cherubim there appeared above them something like a sapphire, in form resembling a throne.

²He said to the man clothed in linen, “Go within the wheelwork underneath the cherubim; fill your hands with burning coals from among the cherubim, and scatter them over the city.” He went in as I looked on.

³Now the cherubim were standing on the south side of the house when the man went in; and a cloud filled the inner court.

⁴Then the glory of the LORD rose up from the cherub to the threshold of the house; the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the glory of the LORD.

⁵The sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard as far as the outer court, like the voice of God Almighty when he speaks.

⁶When he commanded the man clothed in linen, “Take fire from within the wheelwork, from among the cherubim,” he went in and stood beside a wheel.

⁷And a cherub stretched out his hand from among the cherubim to the fire that was among the cherubim, took some of it and put it into the hands of the man clothed in linen, who took it and went out.

⁸The cherubim appeared to have the form of a human hand under their wings.

⁹I looked, and there were four wheels beside the cherubim, one beside each cherub; and the appearance of the wheels was like gleaming beryl.

¹⁰And as for their appearance, the four looked alike, something like a wheel within a wheel.

¹¹When they moved, they moved in any of the four directions without veering as they moved; but in whatever direction the front wheel faced, the others followed without veering as they moved.

¹²Their entire body, their rims, their spokes, their wings, and the wheels — the wheels of the four of them — were full of eyes all around.

¹³As for the wheels, they were called in my hearing “the wheelwork.”

¹⁴Each one had four faces: the first face was that of the cherub, the second face was that of a human being, the third that of a lion, and the fourth that of an eagle.

¹⁵The cherubim rose up. These were the living creatures that I saw by the river Chebar.

¹⁶When the cherubim moved, the wheels moved beside them; and when the cherubim lifted up their wings to rise up from the earth, the wheels at their side did not veer.

¹⁷When they stopped, the others stopped, and when they rose up, the others rose up with them; for the spirit of the living creatures was in them.

¹⁸Then the glory of the LORD went out from the threshold of the house and stopped above the cherubim.

¹⁹The cherubim lifted up their wings and rose up from the earth in my sight as they went out with the wheels beside them. They stopped at the entrance of the east gate of the house of the LORD; and the glory of the God of Israel was above them.

²⁰These were the living creatures that I saw underneath the God of Israel by the river Chebar; and I knew that they were cherubim.

²¹Each had four faces, each four wings, and underneath their wings something like human hands.

²²As for what their faces were like, they were the same faces whose appearance I had seen by the river Chebar. Each one moved straight ahead.