Ezekiel 7 - 8

The Pitiless Wrath of Yahweh

Moreover, the word of Yahweh came to me saying, 2 “Now as for you, son of man, thus says Lord Yahweh to the land of Israel, ‘An end! The end is coming on the four corners of the earth. 3 Now the end is upon you, and I will send My anger against you; I will judge you according to your ways and put all your abominations upon you. 4 For My eye will have no pity on you, nor will I spare you, but I will put your ways upon you, and your abominations will be among you; then you will know that I am Yahweh!’ 5 “Thus says Lord Yahweh, ‘A calamitous evil, a unique calamitous evil, behold, it is coming! 6 An end has come; the end has come! It has awakened against you; behold, it is coming! 7 Your doom has come to you, O inhabitant of the land. The time has come; the day is near—confusion rather than joyful shouting on the mountains. 8 Now it is near when I will pour out My wrath on you and spend My anger against you and judge you according to your ways and put on you all your abominations. 9 My eye will show no pity, nor will I spare. I will give to you according to your ways, while your abominations are among you; then you will know that I, Yahweh, do the striking. 10 ‘Behold, the day! Behold, it is coming! Your doom has gone forth; the rod has blossomed; arrogance has budded. 11 Violence has grown into a rod of wickedness. None of them shall remain, none of their multitude, none of their moaning, nor anything eminent among them. 12 The time has come; the day has arrived. Let not the buyer be glad nor the seller mourn; for wrath is against all their multitude. 13 Indeed, the seller will not return to himself what he sold as long as they both live; for the vision regarding all their multitude will not return empty, nor will any of them strengthen his life by his iniquity. 14 ‘They have blown the trumpet and made everything ready, but no one is going to the battle, for My wrath is against all their multitude. 15 The sword is outside, and the plague and the famine are inside. He who is in the field will die by the sword; famine and the plague will also devour those in the city. 16 Even when their survivors escape, they will be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them moaning, each over his own iniquity. 17 All hands will hang limp, and all knees will become like water. 18 They will gird themselves with sackcloth, and horror will cover them; and shame will be on all faces and baldness on all their heads. 19 They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will become an impure thing; their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver them in the day of the fury of Yahweh. They cannot satisfy their soul, nor can they fill their stomachs, for their iniquity has become an occasion of stumbling.

The Temple Profaned

20 They transformed the beauty of His ornaments into pride, and they made the images of their abominations and their detestable things with it; therefore I will make it an impure thing to them. 21 I will give it into the hands of the foreigners as plunder and to the wicked of the earth as spoil, and they will profane it. 22 I will also turn My face from them, and they will profane My secret place; then robbers will enter and profane it. 23 ‘Make the chain, for the land is full of judgments that promote bloodshed, and the city is full of violence. 24 Therefore, I will bring the most evil of the nations, and they will possess their houses. I will also make the pride of the strong ones cease, and their holy places will be profaned. 25 Anguish has come, and they will seek peace, but there will be none. 26 Disaster will come upon disaster, and report will be added to report; then they will seek a vision from a prophet, but the law will be lost from the priest and counsel from the elders. 27 The king will mourn, the prince will be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land will be dismayed. According to their way I will deal with them, and by their judgments I will judge them. And they will know that I am Yahweh.’”

Visions of Abominations in the Sanctuary

Now it happened in the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth month, as I was sitting in my house with the elders of Judah sitting before me, that the hand of Lord Yahweh fell on me there. 2 Then I looked, and behold, a likeness as the appearance of one on fire; from His loins and downward there was the appearance of fire, and from His loins and upward the appearance of brightness, like the gleam of glowing metal. 3 He sent forth 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 the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the inner court, where the seat of the figure of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy, was located. 4 And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the appearance which I saw in the plain. 5 Then He said to me, “Son of man, raise your eyes now toward the north.” So I raised my eyes toward the north, and behold, to the north of the altar gate was this figure of jealousy at the entrance. 6 And He said to me, “Son of man, are you seeing what they are doing, the great abominations which the house of Israel is doing here, so that I would be far from My sanctuary? But yet you will see still greater abominations.” 7 Then He brought me to the entrance of the court, and when I looked, behold, a hole in the wall. 8 He said to me, “Son of man, now dig through the wall.” So I dug through the wall, and behold, an entrance. 9 And He said to me, “Go in and see the evil abominations that they are doing here.” 10 So I entered and looked, and behold, every form of creeping things and beasts and detestable things, with all the idols of the house of Israel, were carved on the wall all around. 11 Standing in front of them were seventy elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan standing among them, each man with his censer in his hand and the fragrance of the cloud of incense rising. 12 Then He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each man in the room of his carved images? For they say, ‘Yahweh does not see us; Yahweh has forsaken the land.’” 13 And He said to me, “Yet you will see still greater abominations which they are doing.” 14 Then He brought me to the entrance of the gate of the house of Yahweh which was toward the north; and behold, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz. 15 He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? Yet you will see still greater abominations than these.” 16 Then He brought me into the inner court of the house of Yahweh. And behold, at the entrance to the temple of Yahweh, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of Yahweh and their faces toward the east; and they were prostrating themselves eastward toward the sun. 17 He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? Is it too light a thing for the house of Judah to do the abominations which they have done here, that they have filled the land with violence and provoked Me to anger still more? For behold, they are sending forth the twig to their nose. 18 Therefore, I also will do this in wrath: My eye will have no pity, nor will I spare; and they will cry in My ears with a loud voice, yet I will not listen to them.”