14‘So I will rstretch out My hand against them and make the land desolate, yes, more desolate than the wilderness toward sDiblah, in all their dwelling places. Then they shall know that I am the LORD.’ ” ’ ”
Ezekiel 7
Judgment on Israel Is Near
1Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
2“And you, son of man, thus says the Lord GOD to the land of Israel:
a‘An end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land.
3Now the end has come upon you,
And I will send My anger against you;
I will judge you baccording to your ways,
And I will repay you for all your abominations.
4c My eye will not spare you,
Nor will I have pity;
But I will repay your ways,
And your abominations will be in your midst;
d Then you shall know that I am the LORD!’
5“Thus says the Lord GOD:
‘A disaster, a singular edisaster;
Behold, it has come!
6An end has come,
The end has come;
It has dawned for you;
Behold, it has come!
7f Doom has come to you, you who dwell in the land;
g The time has come,
A day of trouble is near,
And not of rejoicing in the mountains.
8Now upon you I will soon hpour out My fury,
And spend My anger upon you;
I will judge you according to your ways,
And I will repay you for all your abominations.
9‘My eye will not spare,
Nor will I have pity;
I will 1repay you according to your ways,
And your abominations will be in your midst.
Then you shall know that I am the LORD who strikes.
10‘Behold, the day!
Behold, it has come!
i Doom has gone out;
The rod has blossomed,
Pride has budded.
11j Violence has risen up into a rod of wickedness;
None of them shall remain,
None of their multitude,
None of 2them;
k Nor shall there be wailing for them.
12The time has come,
The day draws near.
‘Let not the buyer lrejoice,
Nor the seller mmourn,
For wrath is on their whole multitude.
13For the seller shall not return to what has been sold,
Though he may still be alive;
For the vision concerns the whole multitude,
And it shall not turn back;
No one will strengthen himself
Who lives in iniquity.
14‘They have blown the trumpet and made everyone ready,
But no one goes to battle;
For My wrath is on all their multitude.
15n The sword is outside,
And the pestilence and famine within.
Whoever is in the field
Will die by the sword;
And whoever is in the city,
Famine and pestilence will devour him.
16‘Those who osurvive will escape and be on the mountains
Like doves of the valleys,
All of them mourning,
Each for his iniquity.
17Every phand will be feeble,
And every knee will be as weak as water.
18They will also qbe girded with sackcloth;
Horror will cover them;
Shame will be on every face,
Baldness on all their heads.
19‘They will throw their silver into the streets,
And their gold will be like refuse;
Their rsilver and their gold will not be able to deliver them
In the day of the wrath of the LORD;
They will not satisfy their souls,
Nor fill their stomachs,
Because it became their stumbling block of iniquity.
20‘As for the beauty of his ornaments,
He set it in majesty;
s But they made from it
The images of their abominations—
Their detestable things;
Therefore I have made it
Like refuse to them.
21I will give it as tplunder
Into the hands of strangers,
And to the wicked of the earth as spoil;
And they shall defile it.
22I will turn My face from them,
And they will defile My secret place;
For robbers shall enter it and defile it.
23‘Make a chain,
For uthe land is filled with crimes of blood,
And the city is full of violence.
24Therefore I will bring the vworst of the Gentiles,
And they will possess their houses;
I will cause the pomp of the strong to cease,
And their holy places shall be wdefiled.
253 Destruction comes;
They will seek peace, but there shall be none.
26x Disaster will come upon disaster,
And rumor will be upon rumor.
y Then they will seek a vision from a prophet;
But the law will perish 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 common people will tremble.
I will do to them according to their way,
And according to what they deserve I will judge them;
Then they shall know that I am the LORD!’ ”
Ezekiel 8
Abominations in the Temple
1And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house with athe elders of Judah sitting before me, that bthe hand of the Lord GOD fell upon me there.
2cThen I looked, and there was a likeness, like the appearance of fire—from the appearance of His waist and downward, fire; and from His waist and upward, like the appearance of brightness, dlike the color of amber.
3He estretched out the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my hair; and fthe Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven, and gbrought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the north gate of the inner court, hwhere the seat of the image of jealousy was, which iprovokes1 to jealousy.
4And behold, the jglory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision that I ksaw in the plain.
5Then He said to me, “Son of man, lift your eyes now toward the north.” So I lifted my eyes toward the north, and there, north of the altar gate, was this image of jealousy in the entrance.
6Furthermore He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great labominations that the house of Israel commits here, to make Me go far away from My sanctuary? Now turn again, you will see greater abominations.”
7So He brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, there was a hole in the wall.
8Then He said to me, “Son of man, dig into the wall”; and when I dug into the wall, there was a door.
9And He said to me, “Go in, and see the wicked abominations which they are doing there.”
10So I went in and saw, and there—every msort of ncreeping thing, abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, 2portrayed all around on the walls.
11And there stood before them oseventy men of the elders of the house of Israel, and in their midst stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan. Each man had a censer in his hand, and a thick cloud of incense went up.
12Then He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the room of his idols? For they say, p‘The LORD does not see us, the LORD has forsaken the land.’ ”
13And He said to me, “Turn again, and you will see greater abominations that they are doing.”
14So He brought m
e to the door of the north gate of the LORD’s house; and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for 3Tammuz.
15Then He said to me, “Have you seen this, O son of man? Turn again, you will see greater abominations than these.”
16So He brought me into the inner court of the LORD’s house; and there, at the door of the temple of the LORD, qbetween the porch and the altar, rwere about twenty-five men swith their backs toward the temple of the LORD and their faces toward the east, and they were worshiping tthe sun toward the east.
17And He said to me, “Have you seen this, O son of man? Is it a trivial thing to the house of Judah to commit the abominations which they commit here? For they have ufilled the land with violence; then they have returned to provoke Me to anger. Indeed they put the branch to their nose.
18v“Therefore I also will act in fury. My weye will not spare nor will I have pity; and though they xcry in My ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.”
Ezekiel 9
The Wicked Are Slain
1Then He called out in my hearing with a loud voice, saying, “Let those who have charge over the city draw near, each with a 1deadly weapon in his hand.”
2And suddenly six men came from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with his 2battle-ax in his hand. aOne man among them was clothed with linen and had a writer’s inkhorn 3at his side. They went in and stood beside the bronze altar.
3Now bthe glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub, where it had been, to the threshold of the 4temple. And He called to the man clothed with linen, who had the writer’s inkhorn at his side;
4and the LORD said to him, “Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put ca mark on the foreheads of the men dwho sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it.”
5To the others He said in my 5hearing, “Go after him through the city and ekill;6 fdo not let your eye spare, nor have any pity.
6g“Utterly7 slay old and young men, maidens and little children and women; but hdo not come near anyone on whom is the mark; and ibegin at My sanctuary.” jSo they began with the elders who were before the 8temple.
7Then He said to them, “Defile the 9temple, and fill the courts with the slain. Go out!” And they went out and killed in the city.
8So it was, that while they were killing them, I was left alone; and I kfell on my face and cried out, and said, l“Ah, Lord GOD! Will You destroy all the remnant of Israel in pouring out Your fury on Jerusalem?”
9Then He said to me, “The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and mthe land is full of bloodshed, and the city full of perversity; for they say, n‘The LORD has forsaken the land, and othe LORD does not see!’
10“And as for Me also, My peye will neither spare, nor will I have pity, but qI will recompense their deeds on their own head.”
11Just then, the man clothed with linen, who had the inkhorn at his side, reported back and said, “I have done as You commanded me.”
Ezekiel 10
The Glory Departs from the Temple
1And I looked, and there in the afirmament1 that was above the head of the cherubim, there appeared something like a sapphire stone, having the appearance of the likeness of a throne.
2bThen He spoke to the man clothed with linen, and said, “Go in among the wheels, under the cherub, fill your hands with ccoals of fire from among the cherubim, and dscatter them over the city.” And he went in as I watched.
3Now the cherubim were standing on the 2south side of the 3temple when the man went in, and the ecloud filled the inner court.
4fThen the glory of the LORD went up from the cherub, and paused over the threshold of the 4temple; and gthe house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the LORD’s hglory.
5And the isound of the wings of the cherubim was heard even in the outer court, like jthe voice of Almighty God when He speaks.
6Then it happened, when He commanded the man clothed in linen, saying, “Take fire from among the wheels, from among the cherubim,” that he went in and stood beside the wheels.
7And the cherub stretched out his hand from among the cherubim to the fire that was among the cherubim, and took some of it and put it into the hands of the man clothed with linen, who took it and went out.
8kThe cherubim appeared to have the form of a man’s hand under their wings.
9lAnd when I looked, there were four wheels by the cherubim, one wheel by one cherub and another wheel by each other cherub; the wheels appeared to have the color of a mberyl stone.
10As for their appearance, all four looked alike—as it were, a wheel in the middle of a wheel.
11nWhen they went, they went toward any of their four directions; they did not turn aside when they went, but followed in the direction the head was facing. They did not turn aside when they went.
12And their whole body, with their back, their hands, their wings, and the wheels that the four had, were ofull of eyes all around.
13As for the wheels, they were called in my 5hearing, “Wheel.”
14pEach one had four faces: the first face was the face of a cherub, the second face the face of a man, the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle.
15And the cherubim were lifted up. This was qthe living creature I saw by the River Chebar.
16rWhen the cherubim went, the wheels went beside them; and when the cherubim lifted their wings to mount up from the earth, the same wheels also did not turn from beside them.
17sWhen 6the cherubim stood still, the wheels stood still, and when 7one was lifted up, 8the other lifted itself up, for the spirit of the living creature was in them.
18Then tthe glory of the LORD udeparted from the threshold of the 9temple and stood over the cherubim.
19And vthe cherubim lifted their wings and mounted up from the earth in my sight. When they went out, the wheels were beside them; and they stood at the door of the weast gate of the LORD’s house, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them.
20xThis is the living creature I saw under the God of Israel yby the River Chebar, and I knew they were cherubim.
21zEach one had four faces and each one four wings, and the likeness of the hands of a man was under their wings.
22And athe likeness of their faces was the same as the faces which I had seen by the River Chebar, their appearance and their persons. bThey each went straight forward.
Ezekiel 11
Judgment on Wicked Counselors
1Then athe Spirit lifted me up and brought me to bthe East Gate of the LORD’s house, which faces eastward; and there cat the door of the gate were twenty-five men, among whom I saw Jaazaniah the son of Azzur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, princes of the people.
2And He said to me: “Son of man, these are the men who devise iniquity and give wicked 1counsel in this city,
3“who say, ‘The time is not dnear to build houses; ethis city is the 2caldron, and we are the meat.’
4“Therefore prophesy against them, prophesy, O son of man!”
5Then fthe Spirit of the LORD fell upon me, and said to me, “Speak! ‘Thus says the LORD: “Thus you have said, O house of Israel; for gI know the things that come into your mind.
6h“You have multiplied your slain in this city, and you have filled its streets with the slain.”
7‘Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: i“Your slain whom you have laid in its midst, they are the meat, and this city is the caldron; jbut I shall bring you out of the midst of it.
8“You have kfeared the sword; and I will bring a sword upon you,” says the Lord GOD.
9“And I will bring you out of its midst, and deliver you into the hands of strangers, and lexecute judgments on you.
10m“You shall fall by the sword. I will judge you at nthe border of Israel. oThen you shall know that I am the LORD.
11p“This city shall not be your 3caldron, nor shall you be the meat in its midst. I will judge you
at the border of Israel.
12“And you shall know that I am the LORD; for you have not walked in My statutes nor executed My judgments, but qhave done according to the customs of the Gentiles which are all around you.” ’ ”
13Now it happened, while I was prophesying, that rPelatiah the son of Benaiah died. Then sI fell on my face and cried with a loud voice, and said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Will You make a complete end of the remnant of Israel?”
God Will Restore Israel
14Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
15“Son of man, your brethren, your relatives, your countrymen, and all the house of Israel in its entirety, are those about whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, ‘Get far away from the LORD; this land has been given to us as a possession.’
16“Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “Although I have cast them far off among the Gentiles, and although I have scattered them among the countries, tyet I shall be a little 4sanctuary for them in the countries where they have gone.” ’
17“Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: u“I will gather you from the peoples, assemble you from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.” ’
18“And they will go there, and they will take away all its vdetestable things and all its abominations from there.
19“Then wI will give them one heart, and I will put xa new spirit within 5them, and take ythe stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh,
20z“that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them; aand they shall be My people, and I will be their God.
21“But as for those whose hearts follow the desire for their detestable things and their abominations, bI will recompense their deeds on their own heads,” says the Lord GOD.
22So the cherubim clifted up their wings, with the wheels beside them, and the glory of the God of Israel was high above them.
23And dthe glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city and stood eon the mountain, fwhich is on the east side of the city.
24Then gthe Spirit took me up and brought me in a vision by the Spirit of God into 6Chaldea, to those in captivity. And the vision that I had seen went up from me.
The MacArthur Study Bible, NKJV Page 381