In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, while I was among the exiles by the Chebar Canal, the heavens opened and I saw visions of God.

On the fifth day of the month—it was the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s exile—

Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the hooves of a calf, sparkling like the gleam of polished bronze.

Their wings were touching. The creatures did not turn as they moved; each one went straight ahead.

That is what their faces were like. Their wings were spread upward; each had two wings touching that of another and two wings covering its body.

The creatures were darting back and forth like flashes of lightning.

Their rims were large and frightening. Each of their four rims were full of eyes all around.

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

The children are obstinate and hardhearted. I am sending you to them, and you must say to them, ‘This is what the Lord God says.’

Whether they listen or refuse to listen—for they are a rebellious house—they will know that a prophet has been among them.

“But you, son of man, do not be afraid of them or their words, though briers and thorns are beside you and you live among scorpions. Don’t be afraid of their words or be discouraged by the look on their faces, for they are a rebellious house.

But speak My words to them whether they listen or refuse to listen, for they are rebellious.

“And you, son of man, listen to what I tell you: Do not be rebellious like that rebellious house. Open your mouth and eat what I am giving you.”

When He unrolled it before me, it was written on the front and back; words of lamentation, mourning, and woe were written on it.

“Son of man,” He said to me, “eat and fill your stomach with this scroll I am giving you.” So I ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth.

For you are not being sent to a people of unintelligible speech or difficult language but to the house of Israel.

You are not being sent to many peoples of unintelligible speech or difficult language, whose words you cannot understand. No doubt, if I sent you to them, they would listen to you.

Look, I have made your face as hard as their faces and your forehead as hard as their foreheads.

I have made your forehead like a diamond, harder than flint. Don’t be afraid of them or discouraged by the look on their faces, even though they are a rebellious house.”

Go to your people, the exiles, and speak to them. Tell them, ‘This is what the Lord God says,’ whether they listen or refuse to listen.”

I came to the exiles at Tel-abib, who were living by the Chebar Canal, and I sat there among them stunned for seven days.

But if you warn a wicked person and he does not turn from his wickedness or his wicked way, he will die for his iniquity, but you will have saved your life.

But if you warn the righteous person that he should not sin, and he does not sin, he will indeed live because he listened to your warning, and you will have saved your life.”

The Spirit entered me and set me on my feet. He spoke with me and said: “Go, shut yourself inside your house.

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

But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth, and you will say to them, ‘This is what the Lord God says.’ Let the one who listens, listen, and let the one who refuses, refuse—for they are a rebellious house.

Take an iron plate and set it up as an iron wall between yourself and the city. Turn your face toward it so that it is under siege, and besiege it. This will be a sign for the house of Israel.

“Then lie down on your left side and place the iniquity of the house of Israel on it. You will bear their iniquity for the number of days you lie on your side.

When you have completed these days, lie down again, but on your right side, and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah. I have assigned you 40 days, a day for each year.

You must turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem with your arm bared, and prophesy against it.

Be aware that I will put cords on you so you cannot turn from side to side until you have finished the days of your siege.

“Also take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt. Put them in a single container and make them into bread for yourself. You are to eat it during the number of days you lie on your side, 390 days.

You are also to drink water by measure, a sixth of a gallon, which you will drink from time to time.

The Lord said, “This is how the Israelites will eat their bread—ceremonially unclean—among the nations where I will banish them.”

But I said, “Oh, Lord God, I have never been defiled. From my youth until now I have not eaten anything that died naturally or was mauled by wild beasts. And impure meat has never entered my mouth.”

He replied to me, “Look, I will let you use cow dung instead of human excrement, and you can make your bread over that.”

“Now you, son of man, take a sharp sword, use it as you would a barber’s razor, and shave your head and beard. Then take a set of scales and divide the hair.

You are to burn up a third of it in the city when the days of the siege have ended; you are to take a third and slash it with the sword all around the city; and you are to scatter a third to the wind, for I will draw a sword to chase after them.

But you are to take a few strands from the hair and secure them in the folds of your robe.

“Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: Because you have been more insubordinate than the nations around you—you have not walked in My statutes or kept My ordinances; you have not even kept the ordinances of the nations around you—

Because of all your detestable practices, I will do to you what I have never done before and what I will never do again.

As a result, fathers will eat their sons within Jerusalem, and sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments against you and scatter all your survivors to every direction of the wind.

“Therefore, as I live”—this is the declaration of the Lord God—“I am going to cut you off and show you no pity, because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable practices and abominations. Yes, I will not spare you.

A third of your people will die by plague and be consumed by famine within you; a third will fall by the sword all around you; and I will scatter a third to every direction of the wind, and I will draw a sword to chase after them.

When I shoot deadly arrows of famine at them, arrows for destruction that I will send to destroy you, inhabitants of Jerusalem, I will intensify the famine against you and cut off your supply of bread.

“Son of man, turn your face toward the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them.

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.

Your altars will be desolated and your incense altars smashed. I will throw down your slain in front of your idols.

I will lay the corpses of the Israelites in front of their idols and scatter your bones around your altars.

Wherever you live the cities will be in ruins and the high places will be desolate, so that your altars will lie in ruins and be desecrated, your idols smashed and obliterated, your incense altars cut down, and your works wiped out.

“Yet I will leave a remnant when you are scattered among the nations, for throughout the countries there will be some of you who will escape the sword.

Then your survivors will remember Me among the nations where they are taken captive, how I was crushed by their promiscuous hearts that turned away from Me and by their eyes that lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves because of the evil things they did, their detestable practices of every kind.

“This is what the Lord God says: Clap your hands, stamp your feet, and cry out over all the evil and detestable practices of the house of Israel, who will fall by the sword, famine, and plague.

You will all know that I am Yahweh when their slain lie among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the mountaintops, and under every green tree and every leafy oak—the places where they offered pleasing aromas to all their idols.

The end is now upon you;
I will send My anger against you
and judge you according to your ways.
I will punish you for all your detestable practices.

I will not look on you with pity or spare you,
but I will punish you for your ways
and for your detestable practices within you.
Then you will know that I am Yahweh.”

I will pour out My wrath on you very soon;
I will exhaust My anger against you
and judge you according to your ways.
I will punish you for all your detestable practices.

I will not look on you with pity or spare you.
I will punish you for your ways
and for your detestable practices within you.
Then you will know
that it is I, Yahweh, who strikes.

They have blown the trumpet
and prepared everything,
but no one goes to war,
for My wrath is on all her masses.

The sword is on the outside;
plague and famine are on the inside.
Whoever is in the field will die by the sword,
and famine and plague will devour
whoever is in the city.

They will throw their silver into the streets,
and their gold will seem like something filthy.
Their silver and gold will be unable to save them
in the day of the Lord’s wrath.
They will not satisfy their appetites
or fill their stomachs,
for these were the stumbling blocks
that brought about their iniquity.

In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, I was sitting in my house and the elders of Judah were sitting in front of me, and there the hand of the Lord God came down on me.

He stretched out what appeared to be a hand and took me by the hair of my head. Then the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and carried me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the inner gate that faces north, where the offensive statue that provokes jealousy was located.

He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing here, more detestable things that the house of Israel is committing, so that I must depart from My sanctuary? You will see even more detestable things.”

He said to me, “Go in and see the terrible and detestable things they are committing here.”

Seventy elders from the house of Israel were standing before them, with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan standing among them. Each had a firepan in his hand, and a fragrant cloud of incense was rising up.

Then He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the darkness, each at the shrine of his idol? For they are saying, ‘The Lord does not see us. The Lord has abandoned the land.’”

Again He said to me, “You will see even more detestable things, which they are committing.”

So He brought me to the inner court of the Lord’s house, and there were about 25 men at the entrance of the Lord’s temple, between the portico and the altar, with their backs to the Lord’s temple and their faces turned to the east. They were bowing to the east in worship of the sun.

And He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? Is it not enough for the house of Judah to commit the detestable things they are practicing here, that they must also fill the land with violence and repeatedly provoke Me to anger, even putting the branch to their nose?

Therefore I will respond with wrath. I will not show pity or spare them. Though they cry out in My ears with a loud voice, I will not listen to them.”

And I saw six men coming from the direction of the Upper Gate, which faces north, each with a war club in his hand. There was another man among them, clothed in linen, with writing equipment at his side. They came and stood beside the bronze altar.

Then the glory of the God of Israel rose from above the cherub where it had been, to the threshold of the temple. He called to the man clothed in linen with the writing equipment at his side.

He spoke as I listened to the others, “Pass through the city after him and start killing; do not show pity or spare them!

Slaughter the old men, the young men and women, as well as the older women and little children, but do not come near anyone who has the mark. Now begin at My sanctuary.” So they began with the elders who were in front of the temple.

While they were killing, I was left alone. And I fell facedown and cried out, “Oh, Lord God! Are You going to destroy the entire remnant of Israel when You pour out Your wrath on Jerusalem?”

But as for Me, I will not show pity or spare them. I will bring their actions down on their own heads.”

The Lord spoke to the man clothed in linen and said, “Go inside the wheelwork beneath the cherubim. Fill your hands with hot coals from among the cherubim and scatter them over the city.” So he went in as I watched.

Now the cherubim were standing to the south of the temple when the man went in, and the cloud filled the inner court.

I looked, and there were four wheels beside the cherubim, one wheel beside each cherub. The luster of the wheels was like the gleam of beryl.

Their entire bodies, including their backs, hands, wings, and the wheels that the four of them had, were full of eyes all around.

As I listened the wheels were called “the wheelwork.”

The cherubim ascended; these were the living creatures I had seen by the Chebar Canal.

The cherubim lifted their wings and ascended from the earth right before my eyes; the wheels were beside them as they went. The glory of the God of Israel was above them, and it stood at the entrance to the eastern gate of the Lord’s house.

These were the living creatures I had seen beneath the God of Israel by the Chebar Canal, and I recognized that they were cherubim.

The Spirit then lifted me up and brought me to the eastern gate of the Lord’s house, which faces east, and at the gate’s entrance were 25 men. Among them I saw Jaazaniah son of Azzur, and Pelatiah son of Benaiah, leaders of the people.

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

They are saying, ‘Isn’t the time near to build houses? The city is the pot, and we are the meat.’

Then the Spirit of the Lord came on me, and He told me, “You are to say: This is what the Lord says: That is what you are thinking, house of Israel; and I know the thoughts that arise in your mind.

You have multiplied your slain in this city, filling its streets with the dead.

“Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: The slain you have put within it are the meat, and the city is the pot, but I will remove you from it.

“Son of man, your own relatives, those who have the right to redeem you, and the entire house of Israel, all of them, are those that the residents of Jerusalem have said this to, ‘Stay away from the Lord; this land has been given to us as a possession.’

“Therefore say: This is what the Lord God says: Though I sent them far away among the nations and scattered them among the countries, yet for a little while I have been a sanctuary for them in the countries where they have gone.

“Therefore say: This is what the Lord God says: I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.

“Son of man, you are living among a rebellious house. They have eyes to see but do not see, and ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious house.

“Son of man, get your bags ready for exile and go into exile in their sight during the day. You will go into exile from your place to another place while they watch; perhaps they will understand, though they are a rebellious house.

During the day, bring out your bags like an exile’s bags while they look on. Then in the evening go out in their sight like those going into exile.

And while they look on, lift the bags to your shoulder and take them out in the dark; cover your face so that you cannot see the land. For I have made you a sign to the house of Israel.”

“Son of man, hasn’t the house of Israel, that rebellious house, asked you, ‘What are you doing?’

Say to them: This is what the Lord God says: This oracle is about the prince in Jerusalem and all the house of Israel who are living there.