Now it happened in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth of the month, as I was among the captives by the river Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.

In the fifth of the month, which was the fifth year of king Jehoiachin's captivity,

I looked, and behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, a great cloud, with flashing lightning, and a brightness around it, and out of its midst as it were glowing metal, out of the midst of the fire.

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

their wings were joined one to another; they didn't turn when they went; each one went straight forward.

Such were their faces. Their wings were spread out above. Two wings of each one touched another, and two covered their bodies.

Each one went straight forward: where the spirit would go, they went; they didn't turn when they went.

The appearance of the wheels and their work was like a beryl: and the four of them had the same likeness; and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel within a wheel.

As for their rims, they were high and awesome; and the four of them had their rims full of eyes all around.

Under the expanse their wings were straight, the one toward the other: each one had two which covered on this side, and every one had two which covered on that side, their bodies.

I saw as it were glowing metal, as the appearance of fire within it all around, from the appearance of his waist and upward; and from the appearance of his waist and downward I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness around him.

He said to me, "Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you."

The children are obstinate and hardhearted. I am sending you to them, and you shall tell them, 'Thus says the Lord GOD.'

They, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, (for they are a rebellious house), yet shall know that there has been a prophet among them.

You, son of man, do not be afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns are with you, and you do dwell among scorpions: do not be afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house.

You shall speak my words to them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear; for they are most rebellious.

But you, son of man, hear what I tell you; do not be rebellious like that rebellious house: open your mouth, and eat that which I give you."

He spread it before me: and it was written within and without; and there were written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe.

He said to me, "Son of man, cause your belly to eat, and fill your belly with this scroll that I give you." Then I ate it; and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth.

For you are not sent to a people of a strange speech and of a hard language, but to the house of Israel;

But the house of Israel will not listen to you; for they will not listen to me: for all the house of Israel are obstinate and hard-hearted.

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

As an adamant harder than flint have I made your forehead. Do not be afraid of them, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house."

Moreover he said to me, "Son of man, all my words that I shall speak to you receive in your heart, and hear with your ears.

And go to the exiles, to the children of your people, and speak to them, and tell them, 'Thus says the Lord GOD'; whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear.

Then I came to them of the exiles at Tel Aviv, that lived by the river Chebar, and to where they lived; and I sat there overwhelmed among them seven days.

When I tell the wicked, 'You shall surely die'; and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at your hand.

Yet if you warn the wicked, and he doesn't turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.

"Again, when a righteous man does turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die: because you have not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at your hand.

Nevertheless if you warn the righteous man, that the righteous not sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live, because he took warning; and you have delivered your soul."

Then the 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.

and I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth, that you shall be mute, and shall not be to them a reprover; for they are a rebellious house.

But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth, and you shall tell them, 'Thus says the Lord GOD': He who hears, let him hear; and he who forbears, let him forbear: for they are a rebellious house.

Take for yourself an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between you and the city: and set your face toward it, and it shall be besieged, and you shall lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.

"Moreover lie on your left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it; according to the number of the days that you shall lie on it, you shall bear their iniquity.

"Again, when you have accomplished these, you shall lie on your right side, and shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah: forty days, each day for a year, have I appointed it to you.

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

Behold, I lay bands on you, and you shall not turn you from one side to the other, until you have accomplished the days of your siege.

"Take for yourself also wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make bread of it; according to the number of the days that you shall lie on your side, even three hundred ninety days, you shall eat of it.

Your food which you shall eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time you shall eat it.

The LORD said, "Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations where I will drive them."

Then I said, "Ah Lord GOD. Behold, my soul has not been polluted; for from my youth up even until now have I not eaten of that which dies of itself, or is torn of animals; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth."

Then he said to me, "Behold, I have given you cow's dung for man's dung, and you shall prepare your bread thereon."

"You, son of man, take a sharp sword; You shall take it as a barber's razor to you, and shall cause it to pass on your head and on your beard: then take balances to weigh, and divide the hair.

A third part you shall burn in the fire in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled; and you shall take a third part, and strike with the sword around it; and a third part you shall scatter to the wind, and I will draw out a sword after them.

You shall take of it a few in number, and bind them in your skirts.

"Thus says the Lord GOD: 'This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst of the nations, and countries are around her.

She has rebelled against my ordinances in doing wickedness more than the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries that are around her; for they have rejected my ordinances, and as for my statutes, they have not walked in them.'

"Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: 'Because you are turbulent more than the nations that are around you, and have not walked in my statutes, neither have kept my ordinances, neither have done after the ordinances of the nations that are around you';

I will do in you that which I have not done, and whereunto I will not do any more the like, because of all your abominations.

"'Therefore 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 also diminish you; neither shall my eye spare, and I also will have no pity.

Moreover I will make you a desolation and a reproach among the nations that are around you, in the sight of all that pass by.

And you shall be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment, to the nations that are around you, when I shall execute judgments on you in anger and in wrath, and in wrathful rebukes; I, the LORD, have spoken;

when I shall send on them the evil arrows of famine, that are for destruction, which I will send to destroy you: and I will increase the famine on you, and will break your staff of bread;

"Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy to them,

and say, 'You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD: Thus says the Lord GOD to the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys: "Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword on you, and I will destroy your high places.

Your altars shall become desolate, and your incense altars shall be broken; and I will cast down your slain men before your idols.

I will lay the dead bodies of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones around your altars.

In all your dwelling places the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your incense altars may be cut down, and your works may be abolished.

Those of you that escape shall remember me among the nations where they shall be carried captive, how that I have been broken with their lewd heart, which has departed from me, and with their eyes, which play the prostitute after their idols: and they shall loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.

"Thus says the Lord GOD: 'Strike with your hand, and stamp with your foot, and say, "Alas." because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel; for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.

You shall know that I am the LORD, when their slain men shall be among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the places where they offered pleasant aroma to all their idols.

Now is the end on you, and I will send my anger on you, and will judge you according to your ways; and I will bring on you all your abominations.

My eye shall not spare you, neither will I have pity; but I will bring your ways on you, and your abominations shall be in the midst of you: and you shall know that I am the LORD.'"

Your doom has come to you, inhabitant of the land: the time has come, the day is near, a day of tumult, and not of joyful shouting, on the mountains.

Now will I shortly pour out my wrath on you, and accomplish my anger against you, and will judge you according to your ways; and I will bring on you all your abominations.

My eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will bring on you according to your ways; and your abominations shall be in the midst of you; and you shall know that I, the LORD, do strike.

Behold, the day, behold, it comes: your doom is gone forth; the rod has blossomed, pride has budded.'

It happened in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord GOD fell there on me.

Then I saw, and behold, a likeness as the appearance of fire; from the appearance of his waist and downward, fire; and from his waist and upward, as the appearance of brightness, as it were glowing metal.

He put forth the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and the sky, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the gate of the inner court that looks toward the north; where there was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy.

Then he said to me, "Son of man, lift up your eyes now the way toward the north." So I lifted up my eyes the way toward the north, and see, northward of the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry.

He brought me into the inner court of the LORD's house; and see, at the door of the LORD's temple, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men, with their backs toward the LORD's temple, and their faces toward the east; and they were worshipping the sun toward the east.

Then he cried in my ears with a loud voice, saying, "Cause those who are in charge of the city to draw near, every man with his destroying weapon in his hand."

The LORD said to him, "Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark on the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry over all the abominations that are done in its midst."

To the others he said in my hearing, "Go through the city after him, and strike: do not let your eye spare, neither have pity;

kill utterly the old man, the young man and the virgin, and little children and women; but do not come near any man on whom is the mark: and begin at my sanctuary." Then they began at the old men that were before the house.

It happened, while they were smiting, and I was left, that I fell on my face, and cried, and said, "Ah Lord GOD. Will you destroy all the residue of Israel in your pouring out of your wrath on Jerusalem?"

Then I looked, and saw, in the expanse that was over the head of the cherubim there appeared above them as it were a sapphire stone, as the appearance of the likeness of a throne.

He spoke to the man clothed in linen, and said, "Go in between the whirling wheels, even under the cherubim, and fill both your hands with coals of fire from between the cherubim, and scatter them over the city." He went in as I watched.

When they went, they went in their four directions: they didn't turn as they went, but to the place where the head looked they followed it; they didn't turn as they went.

Their whole body, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings, and the wheels, were full of eyes all around, even the wheels that the four of them had.

As for the wheels, they were called in my hearing, "the whirling wheels."

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

As for the likeness of their faces, they were the faces which I saw by the river Chebar, their appearances and themselves; they went every one straight forward.

He said to me, "Son of man, these are the men who devise iniquity, and who give wicked counsel in this city;

who say, 'The time is not near to build houses: this is the caldron, and we are the meat.'

The Spirit of the LORD fell on me, and he said to me, "Speak, Thus says the LORD: 'Thus you have said, house of Israel; for I know the things that come into your mind.

You have multiplied your slain in this city, and you have filled its streets with the slain.'

Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: 'Your slain whom you have laid in its midst, they are the meat, and this is the caldron; but you shall be brought out of its midst.

This shall not be your caldron, neither shall you be the meat in its midst; I will judge you in the border of Israel;

and you shall know that I am the LORD: for you have not walked in my statutes, neither have you executed my ordinances, but have done after the ordinances of the nations that are around you.'"

"Son of man, your brothers, even your brothers, the men of your relatives, and all the house of Israel, all of them, to whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, 'Go far away from the LORD. This land has been given to us for a possession.'

Therefore say, 'Thus says the Lord GOD: "Whereas I have removed them far off among the nations, and whereas I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them a sanctuary for a little while in the countries where they have come."'

Therefore say, 'Thus says the Lord GOD: "I will gather you from the peoples, and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel."

Then the cherubim lifted up their wings, and the wheels were beside them; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above.

"Son of man, you dwell in the midst of the rebellious house, who have eyes to see, and do not see, who have ears to hear, and do not hear; for they are a rebellious house.

Therefore, you son of man, prepare your stuff for moving, and move by day in their sight; and you shall move from your place to another place in their sight: it may be they will consider, though they are a rebellious house.

You shall bring forth your stuff by day in their sight, as stuff for moving; and you shall go forth yourself at even in their sight, as when men go forth into exile.

Dig through the wall in their sight, and carry your stuff out that way.