Ezekiel 33:10-20 - Why Will You Die, Israel?

¹⁰ “Now as for you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus you have said, “Truly our transgressions and our sins are on us, and we are rotting away because of them; how then can we live?”’ ¹¹ Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back (change your way of thinking), turn back [in repentance] from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’

¹² And you, son of man, say to the sons of your people, ‘The righteousness of the righteous man will not save him in the day of his transgression; and as for the wickedness of the wicked, he will not stagger because of it in the day that he turns from his wickedness, whereas a righteous man will not be able to live because of his [previous acts of] righteousness on the day when he commits sin.’ ¹³ When I say to the righteous that he will most certainly live, and he trusts in his [previous acts of] righteousness [to save him] and commits injustice, none of his righteous deeds will be remembered; but he will die for his injustice that he committed.

¹⁴ But when I say to the wicked, ‘You will certainly die,’ and he turns from his sin and practices that which is just (fair) and right— ¹⁵ if a wicked man returns [what he took as] a pledge, pays back what he had taken by robbery, walks in the statutes which ensure life, without committing injustice, he will certainly live; he will not die. ¹⁶ None of his sins that he has committed will be remembered against him. He has practiced that which is just (fair) and right; he will most certainly live.

¹⁷ “Yet your people [who are in exile in Babylon] say, ‘The way of the Lord is not right;’ but as for them, it is their own way that is not right. ¹⁸ When the righteous turns back from his righteousness and commits injustice, he will also die because of it. ¹⁹ But when a wicked man turns back from his wickedness and practices what is just (fair) and right, he will live because of it. ²⁰ Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not right.’ O house of Israel, I will judge you, every one [of you] in accordance with his own ways!”