I was amazed to see a wind storm blow in from the north, consisting of a massive cloud and fire that was flashing back and forth, surrounded by bright light. From deep within the cloud, something was shining that appeared to have a color like bronze that had been placed in fire until it glowed.

except that they each had four faces, four pairs of wings,

The form of their faces was human, but each of the four also had the face of a lion to the right, the face of an ox to the left, and the face of an eagle behind them.

and underneath the canopy, their wings spread out straight over their heads toward each other. They each also had two wings with which they covered themselves, one wing covering its body on one side and one wing covering itself on the other side.

Even while he was speaking to me, the Spirit entered me, set me on my feet, and I listened to the voice that had been speaking to me.

Whether this rebellious group listens to you or not, at least they'll realize that a prophet had appeared in their midst!

This isn't a large group of people whose speech is unintelligible to you or whose language is difficult for you to comprehend. Frankly, if I had sent you to that kind of people, they would certainly have listened to you!

"When a righteous man abandons his righteousness to practice unrighteousness, I'll set a stumbling block before him. He'll die. If you don't warn him, he'll die in his sin and the righteous deeds that he had practiced won't be remembered, but you'll be held responsible for his death.

If you warn the righteous person, so that he doesn't commit sin, then he'll live, since he had been warned. And you will have saved your life."

So I got up, went to the valley, and there was the glory of the LORD, standing there just like I had seen at the Chebar River. So I fell on my face.

The Spirit entered me, rested on me, caused me to stand on my feet, and then he spoke to me. This is what he had to say: "Go barricade yourself in your house.

In the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth month, I had just sat down in my house, with the elders of Judah seated in front of me. All of a sudden, the hand of the Lord GOD touched me

The form of a hand reached out and took me by the hair of my head. Then the Spirit lifted me up between the earth and sky, brought me toward Jerusalem, and in visions that came from God took me through the doors of the inner gate that faced north, where an image that provoked God's jealous anger had been erected.

All of a sudden, the glory of the God of Israel was there! It looked like what I had seen back in the valley.

Then the glory that is Israel's God arose from the cherubim on which he had been seated and settled on the threshold of the Temple. He called out to the man dressed in linen who wore the writing case at his side.

Each had four faces. The first one was the face of a cherub, the second the face of a man, the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle.

The cherubim arose. These were the same beings that I had seen at the Chebar River.

These were the living beings that I had seen under the God of Israel on the bank of the Chebar River. I knew that they were cherubim.

Each one had four faces. Each one had four wings, and the form of human hands could be seen under their wings.

As to the likeness of their faces, they were like what I had seen on the bank of the Chebar River. They each moved straight ahead.

Then in a vision from the Spirit of God, the Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the exiles in Chaldea. At that point, the vision that I had been observing ended.

Later, I spoke to the exiles concerning everything the LORD had spoken that I had witnessed.

Later, some men from the elders of Israel came to visit me. After they had sat down in my presence,

I made you increase like sprouting grain in the field. As a result, you multiplied greatly. Eventually, you reached the age when young women start wearing jewelry. Your breasts were formed, your hair had grown, but you were still bare and naked."'"

You took some of your clothes and made gaily-colored high places and prostituted yourself all around them something which had never happened before nor will ever happen again.

"You also took your fine jewelry including my gold and my silver that I had given you. Then you made for yourself male images and had sex with them!

Look! Because it's a transplanted vine, won't it wither when the east wind hits it? It will surely wither in the terraces where it had started to sprout."'"

He despised the oath he had made and broke the covenant. Look! Because he willingly submitted, yet he has done all these things, he won't escape.

None of the transgressions that he had committed will be held against him. Because of the righteous deeds that he had done, he'll live.

But when the righteous person abandons his righteous deeds and commits evil, detestable practices, as wicked people do, he won't live, will he? None of the righteous acts that he had done will be remembered. He'll die in his treacherous unfaithfulness and sins that he had committed."

Because he reconsidered his transgression and turned away from everything that he had been doing, he'll certainly live and not die.

The nations heard about him. He had become caught in their trap. They brought him with hooks to the land of Egypt.

When she learned that her plans had been frustrated and that her hopes were dashed, she took another of her cubs and turned him into a fierce lion.

"Your mother was like a vine entwining a pomegranate, planted by water, full of fruit, and full of branches because it had been watered generously.

Fire had burned through its branches, consuming its shoots and fruits. No strong branches remain in it, and there is no scepter to rule!' "This is a lamentation, and it is to be used in mourning."

That day I promised to bring them out of the land of Egypt to the land that I had explored for them a land flowing with milk and honey. It's the most beautiful of all lands.

I did this so my reputation wouldn't be tarnished among the nations in whose presence I had brought them out.

"Moreover, I solemnly swore to them in the wilderness that I wouldn't bring them to the land that I had given them a land flowing with milk and honey, the most beautiful of all lands

I brought them to the land that I had promised to give them. But whenever they saw any high hill and or any leafy tree, they slaughtered their sacrifices there and presented their offerings that provoked my anger. There they presented their pleasing aromas and poured out their drink offering.

"Her sister Oholibah saw this, but she was more corrupt in her lust and sexual immorality than her sister had been in her own sexual immorality.

"She became even more sexually immoral when she saw the images of the Chaldean men who had been carved in red on their walls.

Girded with waistbands around their loins, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them looked like chariot officers, similar to the Babylonians from Chaldea, where they had been born.

She displayed her immorality publicly and stripped herself naked, so I turned away in disgust from her, just as I had turned away in disgust from her sister.

"After she had worn herself out by her adulterous behavior, I asked her, "Will they continue with their sexual immorality and with their prostitution?'

They've gone to her, like men do, to have sex with a prostitute. They had sex with Oholah and Oholibah, those licentious women.

So I spoke to the people in the morning, and my wife died that evening. The next morning, I did as I had been commanded.

Beth-togarmah traded horses, war horses, and mules in exchange for what you had to sell.

"Aram was one of your customers because you had so much merchandise. They paid by trading turquoise, purple yarn, embroidered goods, Egyptian linen, coral, and rubies.

Traders from Sheba and Raamah paid for the best of what you had to offer with all types of spices, precious stones, and gold.

You used to be in Eden God's paradise! You wore precious stones for clothing: ruby, topaz, diamond, beryl, onyx, jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and carbuncle. Your settings were crafted in gold, along with your engravings. On the day of your creation they had been prepared!

Another message came to me from the LORD, who had this to say:

In the tenth year, on the twelfth day of the tenth month, a message came to me from the LORD, who had this to say:

On the first day of the first month of the twenty-seventh year of our captivity, a message came to me from the LORD, who had this to say:

Another message came to me from the LORD, who had this to say:

On the seventh day of the first month of the eleventh year of our captivity, a message came to me from the LORD. It had this to say:

Abundant water made it great, Subterranean rivers made it grow. Rivers surrounded the area where it had been planted, and water channels nourished all the trees in the fields.

They also went down with it into Sheol, to those who had been killed violently and to those who had trusted in its strength by living in its shadow among the nations.

On the first day of the twelfth month of the twelfth year of our captivity, a message came to me from the LORD, who had this to say:

They have prepared a bed for her and for her hordes that surround her graves. All of them are uncircumcised, having been killed violently, because they had spread terror throughout the land of the living. They will bear the shame of those who descend to the Pit and will take their place among the dead.

After all, he heard the alarm sounding, but did not heed the warning, so his shed blood will remain his own responsibility. If he had heeded the warning, he would have saved himself.

On the fifth day of the tenth month of the twelfth year of our captivity, a fugitive who had escaped from Jerusalem came and informed me, "The city has been destroyed."

Now the hand of the LORD had been touching me the evening before that fugitive arrived, so the LORD had given me something to say by the time the messenger arrived the next morning. He opened my mouth and I no longer had nothing to say to him.

A message came from the LORD for me, and it had this to say:

That's how you'll know that I, the LORD, have heard every loathsome, reviling thing that you've had to say against the mountains of Israel, such as, "They're desolate, and we'll eat them for dinner!'

"Therefore prophesy concerning the land of Israel and speak to its mountains, hills, ravines, and valleys. Tell them, "This is what the Lord GOD says: "Pay attention! In my zealous anger I'm speaking because you've had to endure the mockery of the world's nations."'"

So I poured out my anger on them because of all the bloodshed throughout the land and because they had defiled it with their idolatry.

The desolate fields will be cultivated, replacing the former wasteland that everyone who passed by in times past had noticed.

So I prophesied, just as I had been ordered to do so. Immediately there was a noise and a rattling and then all of a sudden the bones came together by themselves! Each bone came together, all of them attached together!

So I prophesied as I had been ordered, breath entered them, and they began to live. They stood on their own feet as a vast, united army.

"""Many days from now in the latter years you will be summoned to a land that has been restored from violence. You will be gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which formerly had been a continuous waste, but which will be populated with people who have been brought back from the nations. All of them will be living there securely.

That's where he took me. All of a sudden, there was a man whose appearance resembled glowing bronze! He had a measuring reed and line in his hand as he stood in the city gate.

All of a sudden, we were at the exterior wall that completely surrounded the Temple. The man whom I had observed held a measuring reed that was six cubits long as measured in cubits that were a cubit and a handbreadth long. As he measured the thickness of the wall, he measured out one reed. Its height was also one reed.

Next, he brought me into the outer court, where chambers and a paved area had been constructed all around the courtyard, with 30 chambers facing the pavement.

It was equipped with three guardhouses on each side. Its side pillars and porches had measurements identical to the first gate: 50 cubits long and 25 cubits wide.

Its windows, porches, and palm tree ornaments had measurements identical to the east-facing gate. Reached by seven ascending steps, its porch lay to the front of the steps.

There were carved cherubim and palm trees, alternating with a palm tree between a cherub, and each cherub had two faces,

Each door had two sections mounted on hinges, for a total of two sections for one door and two sections for the other.

The doors of the nave had carvings engraved on them, consisting of cherubim and palm trees identical to those on the walls. The front of the exterior porch was equipped with a wooden threshold.

The three part structure had no columns, unlike the courts, which is why the upper chambers were offset from the ground upward, more so than the lower and middle chambers.

After he had finished measuring the inner temple, he brought me out through the east-facing gate and measured it all around.

His appearance in the vision that I was having was similar to what I observed in the vision where he had come to destroy the city, and also like the visions that I saw by the Chebar River. I fell flat on my face

"You are to tell the Resistance that is, the house of Israel, "This is what the Lord GOD says: "I've had enough of all of your loathsome behavior, you house of Israel!

When he had measured out another 1,000 cubits, the water had become deep enough that I wasn't able to ford it. Instead, I would have had to swim through it.