Why have we gone from your memory for ever? why have you been turned away from us for so long?

Make us come back to you, O Lord, and let us be turned; make our days new again as in the past.

But you have quite given us up; you are full of wrath against us.

Now it came about in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, while I was by the river Chebar among those who had been made prisoners, that the heavens were made open and I saw visions of God.

On the fifth day of the month, in the fifth year after King Jehoiachin had been made a prisoner,

And in the heart of it were the forms of four living beings. And this was what they were like; they had the form of a man.

And their feet were straight feet; and the under sides of their feet were like the feet of oxen; and they were shining like polished brass.

And their wings were separate at the top; two of the wings of every one were joined one to another, and two were covering their bodies.

And between the living beings it was like burning coals of fire, as if flames were going one after the other between the living beings; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went thunder-flames.

The form of the wheels and their work was like a beryl; the four of them had the same form and design, and they were like a wheel inside a wheel.

And I saw that they had edges, and their edges, even of the four, were full of eyes round about.

And when the living beings went on, the wheels went by their side; and when the living beings were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up.

Wherever the spirit was to go they went; and the wheels were lifted up by their side: for the spirit of the living beings was in the wheels.

When these went on, the others went; and when these came to rest, the others came to rest; and when these were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up by their side: for the spirit of the living beings was in the wheels.

Under the arch their wings were straight, one stretched out to another: every one had two wings covering their bodies on this side and two covering their bodies on that side.

And he said to me, Son of man, get up on your feet, so that I may say words to you.

And the children are hard and stiff-hearted; I am sending you to them: and you are to say to them, These are the words of the Lord.

And they, if they give ear to you or if they do not give ear (for they are an uncontrolled people), will see that there has been a prophet among them.

And you, son of man, have no fear of them or of their words, even if sharp thorns are round you and you are living among scorpions: have no fear of their words and do not be overcome by their looks, for they are an uncontrolled people.

And you are to give them my words, if they give ear to you or if they do not: for they are uncontrolled.

But you, son of man, give ear to what I say to you, and do not be uncontrolled like that uncontrolled people: let your mouth be open and take what I give you.

And he put it open before me, and it had writing on the front and on the back; words of grief and sorrow and trouble were recorded in it.

And he said to me, Son of man, take this roll for your food, and go and say my words to the children of Israel.

And he said to me, Son of man, let your stomach make a meal of it and let your inside be full of this roll which I am giving you. Then I took it, and it was sweet as honey in my mouth.

For you are not sent to a people whose talk is strange and whose language is hard, but to the children 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 children of Israel will not give ear to you; for they have no mind to give ear to me: for all the children of Israel have a hard brow and a stiff heart.

See, I have made your face hard against their faces, and your brow hard against their brows.

Like a diamond harder than rock I have made your brow: have no fear of them and do not be overcome by their looks, for they are an uncontrolled people.

Then he said to me, Son of man, take into your heart all my words which I am about to say to you, and let your ears be open to them.

And go now to those who have been taken away as prisoners, to the children of your people, and say to them, This is what the Lord has said; if they give ear or if they do not.

Then I came to those who had been taken away as prisoners, who were at Telabib by the river Chebar, and I was seated among them full of wonder for seven days.

Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the children of Israel: so give ear to the word of my mouth, and give them word from me of their danger.

When I say to the evil-doer, Death will certainly be your fate; and you give him no word of it and say nothing to make clear to the evil-doer the danger of his evil way, so that he may be safe; that same evil man will come to death in his evil-doing; but I will make you responsible for his blood.

But if you give the evil-doer word of his danger, and he is not turned from his sin or from his evil way, death will overtake him in his evil-doing; but your life will be safe.

But if you say to the upright man that he is not to do evil, he will certainly keep his life because he took note of your word; and your life will be safe.

Then the spirit came into me and put me on my feet; and he had talk with me and said to me, Go and keep yourself shut up inside your house.

And I will make your tongue fixed to the roof of your mouth, so that you have no voice and may not make protests to them: for they are an uncontrolled people.

But when I have talk with you I will make your mouth open, and you are to say to them, This is what the Lord has said: Let the hearer give ear; and as for him who will not, let him keep his ears shut: for they are an uncontrolled people.

And take a flat iron plate, and put it for a wall of iron between you and the town: and let your face be turned to it, and it will be shut in and you will make an attack on it. This will be a sign to the children of Israel.

Then, stretching yourself out on your left side, take the sin of the children of Israel on yourself: for as long as you are stretched out, so long will the sin of the children of Israel be on you.

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.

And let your face be turned to where Jerusalem is shut in, with your arm uncovered, and be a prophet against 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.

And let your food be barley cakes, cooking it before their eyes with the waste which comes out of a man.

And the Lord said, Even so the children of Israel will have unclean bread for their food among the nations where I am driving them.

Then I said, Ah, Lord! see, my soul has never been unclean, and I have never taken as my food anything which has come to a natural death or has been broken by beasts, from the time when I was young even till now; no disgusting flesh has ever come into my mouth.

Then he said to me, See, I have given you cow's waste in place of man's waste, and you will make your bread ready on it.

And you, son of man, take a sharp sword, using it like a haircutter's blade, and making it go over your head and the hair of your chin: and take scales for separating the hair by weight.

You are to have a third part burned with fire inside the town, when the days of the attack are ended; and a third part you are to take and give blows with the sword round about it; and give a third part for the wind to take away, and let loose a sword after them.

And take from them a small number of hairs, folding them in your skirts.

This is what the Lord has said: This is Jerusalem: I have put her among the nations, and countries are round her on every side;

For this cause the Lord has said: Because you have been more uncontrolled than the nations round about you, and have not been guided by my rules or kept my orders, but have kept the orders of the nations round about you;

And I will do in you what I have not done and will not do again, because of all your disgusting ways.

For this cause, by my life, says the Lord, because you have made my holy place unclean with all your hated things and all your disgusting ways, you will become disgusting to me; my eye will have no mercy and I will have no pity.

When I send on you the evil arrows of disease, causing destruction, which I will send to put an end to you; and, further, I will take away your necessary food.

Son of man, let your face be turned to the mountains of Israel, and be a prophet to them, and say,

You mountains of Israel, give ear to the words of the Lord: this is what the Lord has said to the mountains and the hills, to the waterways and the valleys: See, I, even I, am sending on you a sword for the destruction of your high places.

And your altars will be made waste, and your sun-images will be broken: and I will have your dead men placed before your images.

And I will put the dead bodies of the children of Israel in front of their images, sending your bones in all directions about your altars.

In all your living-places the towns will become broken walls, and the high places made waste; so that your altars may be broken down and made waste, and your images broken and ended, and so that your sun-images may be cut down and your works rubbed out.

But still, I will keep a small band safe from the sword among the nations, when you are sent wandering among the countries.

And those of you who are kept safe will have me in mind among the nations where they have been taken away as prisoners, how I sent punishment on their hearts which were untrue to me, and on their eyes which were turned to their false gods: and they will be full of hate for themselves because of the evil things which they have done in all their disgusting ways.

This is what the Lord has said: Give blows with your hand, stamping with your foot, and say, O sorrow! because of all the evil and disgusting ways of the children of Israel: for death will overtake them by the sword and through need of food and by disease.

And you will be certain that I am the Lord, when their dead men are stretched among their images round about their altars on every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, and under every branching tree, and under every thick oak-tree, the places where they made sweet smells to all their images.

Now the end has come on you, and I will send my wrath on you, judging you for your ways, I will send punishment on you for all your disgusting acts.

My eye will not have mercy on you, and I will have no pity: but I will send the punishment of your ways on you, and your disgusting works will be among you: and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

Now, in a little time, I will let loose my passion on you, and give full effect to my wrath against you, judging you for your ways, and sending punishment on you for all your disgusting works.

My eye will not have mercy, and I will have no pity: I will send on you the punishment of your ways, and your disgusting works will be among you; and you will see that I am the Lord who gives punishment.

The time has come, the day is near: let not him who gives a price for goods be glad, or him who gets the price have sorrow:

They will put out their silver into the streets, and their gold will be as an unclean thing; their silver and their gold will not be able to keep them safe in the day of the wrath of the Lord; they will not get their desire or have food for their need: because it has been the cause of their falling into sin.

Now in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, when I was in my house and the responsible men of Judah were seated before me, the hand of the Lord came on me there.

And he put out the form of a hand and took me by the hair of my head; and the wind, lifting me up between the earth and the heaven, took me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the way into the inner door facing to the north; where was the seat of the image of envy.

Then he said to me, Son of man, now let your eyes be lifted up in the direction of the north; and on looking in the direction of the north, to the north of the doorway of the altar, I saw this image of envy by the way in.

And he said to me, Son of man, do you see what they are doing? even the very disgusting things which the children of Israel are doing here, causing me to go far away from my holy place? but you will see other most disgusting things.

And he said to me, Go in and see the evil and disgusting things which they are doing here.

So I went in and saw; and there every sort of living thing which goes flat on the earth, and unclean beasts, and all the images of the children of Israel, were pictured round about on the wall.

Then he took me to the door of the way into the Lord's house looking to the north; and there women were seated weeping for Tammuz.

And he took me into the inner square of the Lord's house, and at the door of the Temple of the Lord, between the covered way and the altar, there were about twenty-five men with their backs turned to the Temple of the Lord and their faces turned to the east; and they were worshipping the sun, turning to the east.

Then he said to me, Have you seen this, O son of man? is it a small thing to the children of Judah that they do the disgusting things which they are doing here? for they have made the land full of violent behaviour, making me angry again and again: and see, they put the branch to my nose.

The Lord said to him, Go through the town, through the middle of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the brows of the men who are sorrowing and crying for all the disgusting things which are done in it.

And to these he said in my hearing, Go through the town after him using your axes: do not let your eyes have mercy, and have no pity:

Give up to destruction old men and young men and virgins, little children and women: but do not come near any man who has the mark on him: and make a start at my holy place. So they made a start with the old men who were before the house.

Now while they were doing so, and I was untouched, I went down on my face, and crying out, I said, Ah, Lord! will you give all the rest of Israel to destruction in letting loose your wrath on Jerusalem?

And he said to the man clothed in linen, Go in between the wheels, under the winged ones, and get your two hands full of burning coals from between the winged ones and send them in a shower over the town. And he went in before my eyes.

Now the winged ones were stationed on the right side of the house when the man went in; and the inner square was full of the cloud.

And looking, I saw four wheels by the side of the winged ones, one wheel by the side of a winged one and another wheel by the side of another: and the wheels were like the colour of a beryl stone to the eye.

In form the four of them were all the same, they seemed like a wheel inside a wheel.

When they were moving, they went on their four sides without turning; they went after the head in the direction in which it was looking; they went without turning.

And the edges of the four wheels were full of eyes round about.

As for the wheels, they were named in my hearing, the circling wheels.

And when the winged ones went, the wheels went by their side: and when their wings were lifted to take them up from the earth, the wheels were not turned from their side.

When they were at rest in their place, these were at rest; when they were lifted up, these went up with them: for the spirit of life was in them.

This is the living being which I saw under the God of Israel by the river Chebar; and it was clear to me that they were the winged ones.

Every one had four faces and every one had four wings; and hands like a man's hands were under their wings.

As for the form of their faces, they were the faces whose form I saw by the river Chebar; when they went, every one of them went straight forward.

Then he said to me, Son of man, these are the men who are designing evil, who are teaching evil ways in this town: