and four faces are to each, and four wings are to each of them,

and their feet are straight feet, and the sole of their feet is as a sole of a calf's foot, and they are sparkling as the colour of bright brass;

and hands of man under their wings -- on their four sides, and their faces and their wings -- are to them four;

joining one unto another are their wings, they turn not round in their going, each straight forward they go.

As to the likeness of their faces, the face of a man, and the face of a lion, toward the right are to them four, and the face of an ox on the left are to them four, and the face of an eagle are to them four.

And their faces and their wings are separate from above, to each are two joining together, and two are covering their bodies.

As to the likeness of the living creatures, their appearances are as coals of fire -- burning as the appearance of lamps; it is going up and down between the living creatures, and brightness is to the fire, and out of the fire is going forth lightning.

And the living creatures are running, and turning back, as the appearance of the flash.

The appearance of the wheels and their works is as the colour of beryl, and one likeness is to them four, and their appearances and their works are as it were the wheel in the midst of the wheel.

As to their rings, they are both high and fearful, and their rings are full of eyes round about them four.

And in the going of the living creatures, the wheels go beside them, and in the living creatures being lifted up from off the earth, lifted up are the wheels.

Whither the spirit is to go, they go, thither the spirit is to go, and the wheels are lifted up over-against them, for a living spirit is in the wheels.

In their going, they go; and in their standing, they stand; and in their being lifted up from off the earth, lifted up are the wheels over-against them; for a living spirit is in the wheels.

And under the expanse their wings are straight, one toward the other, to each are two covering on this side, and to each are two covering on that side -- their bodies.

And he said unto me, Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to nations that are rebellious, which have rebelled against me: they and their fathers have transgressed against me even unto this very day.

The people to whom I am sending you are obstinate and hard-hearted, and you must say to them, 'This is what the sovereign Lord says.'

And as for them, whether they listen or not -- for they are a rebellious house -- they will know that a prophet has been among them.

But you, son of man, do not fear them, and do not fear their words -- even though briers and thorns surround you and you live among scorpions -- do not fear their words and do not be terrified of the looks they give you, for they are a rebellious house!

You must speak my words to them whether they listen or not, for they are rebellious.

Therefore, thou son of man, obey thou all things, that I say unto thee, and be not thou stiffnecked, like as they are a stiffnecked household. Open thy mouth, and eat that I give thee."

and He spreadeth it before me, and it is written in front and behind, and written on it are lamentations, and mourning, and woe!

For you are not being sent to a people of unintelligible speech and difficult language, but to the house of Israel --

Not to a number of peoples whose talk is strange and whose language is hard and whose words are not clear to you. Truly, if I sent you to them they would give ear to you.

But the house of Israel is unwilling to listen to you, because they are not willing to listen to me, for the whole house of Israel is hard-headed and hard-hearted.

So pay attention! I'm going to make you just as obstinate and unyielding as they are.

I have made your forehead harder than flint -- like diamond! Do not fear them or be terrified of the looks they give you, for they are a rebellious house."

And I come in unto the Removed, at Tel-Ahib, who are dwelling at the river Chebar, and where they are dwelling I also dwell seven days, causing astonishment in their midst.

"Son of Man," he said, "I've appointed you to be a watchman over the house of Israel. Therefore when you hear a message that comes from me, you are to warn them for me.

I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you will be silent and unable to reprove them, for they are a rebellious house.

But when I speak with you, I will loosen your tongue and you must say to them, 'This is what the sovereign Lord says.' Those who listen will listen, but the indifferent will refuse, for they are a rebellious house.

"And now Son of Man, you are to take a brick, set it in front of you, and inscribe on it the outline of the city that is, Jerusalem.

how it is besieged, how bulwarks and strong ditches are graven on every side of it. Describe also the tents, and a host of men round about it.

Then for your part take an iron frying pan and set it up as an iron wall between you and the city. Set your face toward it. It is to be under siege; you are to besiege it. This is a sign for the house of Israel.

“Then lie down on your left side (toward the north) to bear [symbolically] the wickedness and punishment of the house of Israel. You shall bear their wickedness and punishment for the number of days that you lie on your side.

I have determined that the number of the years of their iniquity are to be the number of days for you -- 390 days. So bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

And when these days are ended, turning on your right side, you are to take on yourself the sin of the children of Judah: forty days, a day for a year, I have had it fixed for you.

After this, you are to turn toward the rampart of Jerusalem and oppose it with your bare arms, because I'm going to prophesy about it.

And see, I will put bands on you; and you will be stretched out without turning from one side to the other till the days of your attack are ended.

And take for yourself wheat and barley and different sorts of grain, and put them in one vessel and make bread for yourself from them; all the days when you are stretched on your side it will be your food.

And you are to take your food by weight, twenty shekels a day: you are to take it at regular times.

And you are to take water by measure, the sixth part of a hin: you are to take it at regular times.

You are to eat it as barley cakes and bake it right in front of them, using dried human dung for cooking fuel."

"Now as for you, Son of Man, you are to go find a sharp sword and use it like a barber's razor. You are to cut your hair and beard. Then you are to take a weighing scale and divide your shaved hair into three parts.

Burn a third of it in the fire inside the city when the days of your siege are completed. Take a third and slash it with a sword all around the city. Scatter a third to the wind, and I will unleash a sword behind them.

You are to preserve a few strands of hair and hide them in the folds of your garment.

Then you are to take a few strands, throw them in the fire, and incinerate them. A fire will proceed to the house of Israel from there."

“Thus says the Lord God, ‘This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the center of the nations, and countries are around her.

And she has rebelled against My ordinances more wickedly than the [pagan] nations and against My statutes more than the countries that are around her; for Israel has rejected My ordinances and has not walked in My statutes.’

"Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Because you are more arrogant than the nations around you, you have not followed my statutes and have not carried out my regulations. You have not even carried out the regulations of the nations around you!

Therefore, fathers will eat their sons among you, and sons will eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments on you and I will scatter to all the winds the remnant of you.

Thy third part -- by pestilence they die, And by famine are consumed in thy midst, And the third part, by sword they fall round about thee, And the third part, to every wind I scatter, And a sword I draw out after them.

Moreover, I will make you a desolation and a disgrace among the nations which surround you and in the sight of all who pass by.

So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment, unto the nations that are round about thee, when I shall execute judgments on thee in anger and in wrath, and in wrathful rebukes; (I, Jehovah, have spoken it;)

When I send against them the deadly arrows of hunger which were for the destruction of those whom I will send to destroy you, then I will increase the famine upon you and break your staff of bread.

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.

In all your dwellings the cities are laid waste, And the high places are desolate, So that waste and desolate are your altars, And broken and ceased have your idols, And cut down have been your images, And blotted out have been your works.

"'But I will spare some of you. Some will escape the sword when you are scattered in foreign lands.

Then your survivors will remember me among the nations where they are exiled. They will realize how I was crushed by their unfaithful heart which turned from me and by their eyes which lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves because of the evil they have done and because of all their abominable practices.

Whoso is far off, shall die of the pestilence; he that is nigh at hand shall perish with the sword; and the others that are besieged shall die of hunger. Thus will I satisfy my wrathful displeasure upon them.

Then you will know that I am the Lord, when their slain are among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, under every green tree and under every leafy oak—the places where they offered soothing aroma to all their idols.

"Son of Man, this is what Lord GOD says to the land of Israel: "It's over! All four corners of the land are out of time!

For My eye will have no pity on you, nor will I spare you, but I will repay you for your evil ways, while your abominations are among you; and you will know (recognize, understand) [without any doubt] that I am the Lord.’

Doom is coming upon you who live in the land! The time is coming, the day is near. There are sounds of tumult, not shouts of joy, on the mountains.

My eye will show no pity nor will I spare [you]. I will repay you in accordance with your ways, while your abominations are in your midst; then you will know and understand that it is I, the Lord, who strikes you.

Violence hath risen up as a sceptre of lawlessness, - There are none of them And none of their multitude And none of their throngs And no lamentation over them.

The customer will no longer pay the seller while both parties are alive, for the vision against their whole crowd will not be revoked. Each person, for his iniquity, will fail to preserve his life.

The sword is outside; pestilence and famine are inside the house. Whoever is in the open field will die by the sword, and famine and pestilence will consume everyone in the city.

All the hands are feeble, and all knees go -- waters.

The king doth become a mourner, And a prince putteth on desolation, And the hands of the people of the land are troubled, From their own way I deal with them, And with their own judgments I judge them, And they have known that I am Jehovah!'

And it cometh to pass, in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth of the month, I am sitting in my house, and elders of Judah are sitting before me, and fall on me there doth a hand of the Lord Jehovah,

He said to me, "Son of man, do you see what they are doing -- the great abominations that the people of Israel are practicing here, to drive me far from my sanctuary? But you will see greater abominations than these!"

He said to me, "Go in and see the evil abominations they are practicing here."

and seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel -- and Jaazaniah son of Shaphan standing in their midst -- are standing before them, and each his censer in his hand, and the abundance of the cloud of perfume is going up.

He said to me, "Do you see, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in the chamber of his idolatrous images? For they think, 'The Lord does not see us! The Lord has abandoned the land!'"

He also said to me, “Yet again you will see even greater repulsive acts which they are committing.”

And He bringeth me in unto the opening of the gate of the house of Jehovah that is at the north, and lo, there the women are sitting weeping for Tammuz.

He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? Yet you will see still greater repulsive acts than these [that they are committing].”

And He bringeth me in unto the inner court of the house of Jehovah, and lo, at the opening of the temple of Jehovah, between the porch and the altar, about twenty-five men, their backs toward the temple of Jehovah, and their faces eastward, and they are bowing themselves eastward to the sun.

He said to me, "Do you see, son of man? Is it a trivial thing that the house of Judah commits these abominations they are practicing here? For they have filled the land with violence and provoked me to anger still further. Look, they are putting the branch to their nose!

Then he shouted in my ears, "Approach, you who are to visit destruction on the city, each with his destructive weapon in his hand!"

And lo, six men are coming from the way of the upper gate, that is facing the north, and each his slaughter-weapon in his hand, and one man in their midst is clothed with linen, and a scribe's inkhorn at his loins, and they come in, and stand near the brazen altar.

The Lord said to him, “Go through the midst of the city, throughout all of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh [in distress] and grieve over all the repulsive acts which are being committed in it.”

You are to execute old men, young men, young women, little children, and women. But don't touch anyone who has been marked. Begin at my Holy Place!" And so they started with the elders who were in standing in front of the Temple.

And they begin among the aged men who are before the house, and He saith unto them, 'Defile the house, and fill the courts with the wounded, go forth.' And they have gone forth and have smitten in the city.

As they were striking the people and I alone was left, I fell on my face and cried out saying, “Alas, Lord God! Are You destroying the whole remnant of Israel by pouring out Your wrath on Jerusalem?”

Then He said to me, “The wickedness (guilt) of the house of Israel and Judah is extremely great; the land is full of blood and the city is full of perversion and injustice; for they say, ‘The Lord has abandoned the land; the Lord does not see [what we are doing].’

Then said he that sat therein, to him that had the linen raiment upon him, "Creep in between the wheels that are under the Cherubims, and take thine hand full of hot coals out from between the Cherubims, and cast them over the city. And he crept in, that I might see."

And the cherubs are standing on the right side of the house, at the going in of the man, and the cloud hath filled the inner court,

And then at his command to the man clothed in linen, {saying}, "Take fire from among the wheel area from among the cherubim," he went and stood beside the wheel.

And all their flesh, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings, and the wheels, are full of eyes round about; to them four are their wheels.

And four faces are to each; the face of the one is the face of the cherub, and the face of the second the face of man, and of the third the face of a lion, and of the fourth the face of an eagle.

Then the cherubim rose up. They are the living beings that I saw by the river Chebar.

In their standing they stand, and in their exaltation they are exalted with them: for the living spirit is in them.

and the cherubs lift up their wings, and are lifted up from the earth before mine eyes; in their going forth, the wheels also are over-against them, and he standeth at the opening of the east gate of the house of Jehovah, and the honour of the God of Israel is over them from above.

These are the living beings that I saw beneath the God of Israel by the river Chebar; so I knew that they were cherubim.

Four faces are to each, and four wings to each, and the likeness of the hands of man is under their wings.

As to the likeness of their faces, they are the faces that I saw by the river Chebar, their appearances and themselves; each straight forward they go.

The Lord said to me, "Son of man, these are the men who plot evil and give wicked advice in this city.

They say, 'The time is not near to build houses; the city is a cooking pot and we are the meat in it.'

Therefore you are to prophesy against them. Prophesy, Son of Man!"