You [Lord] called as in the day of an appointed feast
My terrors (dangers) on every side;
And there was no one who escaped or survived
In the day of the Lord’s anger.
Those I have cared for and brought up with tenderness,
My enemy annihilated them.

I have become the [object of] ridicule to all my people,
And [the subject of] their mocking song all the day.

My soul has been cast far away from peace;
I have forgotten happiness.

But this I call to mind,
Therefore I have hope.

We have transgressed and rebelled,
You have not pardoned.

You have covered Yourself with anger
And pursued us;
You have slain [without pity] and have not spared.

You have covered Yourself with a cloud
So that no prayer can pass through.

You have made us scum and refuse
Among the peoples (Gentile nations).

All our enemies have gaped at us.

Panic and pitfall (traps, danger) have come on us,
Devastation and destruction.

Without cause my enemies
Hunted me down like a bird;

O Lord, You have pleaded my soul’s cause [You have guided my way and protected me];
You have rescued and redeemed my life.

O Lord, You have seen the wrong [done to me];
Judge my case.

You have seen all their vengeance,
All their schemes against me.

You have heard their reproach, O Lord,
And all their schemes against me.

The hands of compassionate women
Boiled their own children;
They became food for them
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people [Judah].

[And as for us,] yet our eyes failed,
Looking in vain for help.
Watching [from the towers] we watched
For a nation that could not save.

We have become orphans without a father;
Our mothers are like widows.

We have to pay for our drinking water;
Our wood comes to us at a price.

We have given the hand [as a pledge of fidelity and submission] to Egypt and Assyria to get enough bread.

Our fathers sinned, and are no more;
It is we who have carried their sin.

Elders are gone from the gate;
Young men from their music.

The crown has fallen from our head [our honor is covered with dust]!
Woe to us, for we have sinned!

Unless You have utterly rejected us
And are exceedingly angry with us.

And He said to me, “I am sending you, son of man, to the children of Israel, to a rebellious people [in both the north and the south] that have rebelled against Me; they and their fathers have sinned and revolted against Me to this very day.

not to many peoples of unintelligible speech or difficult language, whose words you cannot understand. But I have sent you to them who should listen to you and pay attention to My message;

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

I have made your forehead like emery (diamond), harder than flint. Do not be afraid of them or be dismayed before them, though they are a rebellious house.”

“Son of man, I have appointed you as a watchman to the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from My mouth, warn them from Me.

However, if you have warned the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he will die in his sin; but you have freed yourself [from responsibility].

Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness (right standing with God) and sins, and I place an obstacle before him, he will die; since you have not warned him, he will die in his sin, and the righteous deeds which he has done will not be remembered; but you will be responsible for his blood.

However, if you have warned the righteous man not to sin and he does not sin, he will surely live because he took warning; also you have freed yourself [from responsibility].”

For I have assigned you the years of their wickedness and punishment, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days [representing three hundred and ninety years]; in this way you shall bear [symbolically] the wickedness and punishment of the house of Israel.

When you have completed these [days for Israel], lie down again, but on your right side (toward the south), and you shall bear the wickedness and punishment of the house of Judah forty days. I have assigned you one day for each year.

Now behold, I will put ropes on you so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have completed the days of your siege.

But I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold (hear me), I have never been defiled; for from my youth until now I have never eaten what died on its own or was torn by beasts, nor has any unclean meat ever entered my mouth.”

“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, thus says the Lord God, ‘Because you have more turmoil than the nations which surround you and have not walked in My statutes, nor kept My ordinances, nor observed the ordinances of the nations which surround you,’

And because of all your abominations, I will do among you that which I have not done, and the like of which I will not do again.

So, as I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘surely, because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable idols and with all your abominations, therefore I will also diminish you and withdraw, and My eye will have no pity and I will not spare [you].

‘Thus My anger will come to an end and I will satisfy My wrath on them, and I will be appeased; then they will know [without any doubt] that I the Lord have spoken in My zeal when I have spent My wrath on them.

So it will be a disgrace, a taunt, a warning and an object of horror to the [pagan] nations who surround you when I execute judgments against you in anger and in wrath and in raging reprimands—I, the Lord, have spoken.

Further, I will send against you hunger and wild beasts, and they will bereave you of children; virulent disease and bloodshed also will pass through you, and I will bring the sword on you. I, the Lord, have spoken.’”

“Yet I will leave some of you alive [a remnant], for you will have some who escaped the sword among the nations when you are scattered throughout the countries.

Then those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations to which they will be exiled, how I have been broken by their lewdness and their adulterous hearts which have turned away from Me, and by their eyes which lust after their idols; and they will loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed, for all their repulsive acts.

Then they will know [without any doubt] that I am the Lord; I have not said in vain that I would bring this disaster [as punishment] on them.”’

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.’

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.

‘They have blown the trumpet and have made everything ready, but no one is going to the battle, for My wrath is against all their multitude [of people].

Then He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, each man in his [secret] room of carved images? For they say, ‘The Lord does not see us; the Lord has abandoned the land.’”

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].”

He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? Is it too slight a thing for the house of Judah to commit the repulsive acts which they have committed here, that they have filled the land with violence and repeatedly provoked Me to anger? And behold, they are putting the branch to their nose.

Therefore, I indeed will deal in wrath. My eye will have no pity nor will I spare [them]; and though they cry loudly in My ears, yet I will not listen to them.”

Then [in my vision] I heard Him cry out with a thunderous voice, saying, “Approach now, executioners of the city, each with his weapon of destruction in his hand.”

But to the others I heard Him say, “Follow him [the man with the scribe’s writing case] throughout the city and strike; do not let your eyes have pity and do not spare [anyone].

Utterly slay old men, young men, maidens, little children, and women; but do not touch or go near anyone on whom is the mark. Begin at My sanctuary.” So they began with the old men who were in front of the temple [who did not have the Lord’s mark on their foreheads].

But as for Me, My eye will have no pity, nor will I spare, but I will bring their [wicked] conduct upon their [own] heads.”

Then behold, the man clothed in linen, who had the scribe’s writing case at his side, reported, “I have done just as You have commanded me.”

Beneath their wings the cherubim seemed to have [something in] the form of a man’s hand.

You have multiplied your slain in this city, and you have filled its streets with the corpses [of righteous men].”

Therefore, thus says the Lord God, “Your dead whom you have laid in the midst of your city are the meat and this city is the pot; but I shall force you out of [the security of] it.

You have feared the sword; so I will bring a sword upon you,” says the Lord God.

And you will know [without any doubt] that I am the Lord; for you have not walked in My statutes nor have you executed My ordinances, but you have acted in accordance with the ordinances of the nations around you.”’”

“Son of man, your brothers, your relatives, your fellow exiles and the whole house of Israel, all of them, are those to whom the [present] inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, ‘Go far away from the Lord; this land has been given to us as a possession.’

Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Though I had removed Israel far away among the nations and though I had scattered them among the countries, yet I have been a sanctuary for them for a little while in the countries to which they had gone.”’

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 [back] to you the land of Israel.”’

“Son of man, you live among a rebellious house, who have eyes to see but do not see, who have ears to hear but do not hear; for they are a rebellious people.

As they look on, load the provisions and supplies on your shoulder and carry it out in the dark. You shall cover your face so that you cannot see the land, for I have set you as a sign to the house of Israel.”

Say, ‘I am a sign to you. As I have done, so it will be done to them; they will go into exile, into captivity.’

“Son of man, what is this proverb that you have in the land of Israel, saying, ‘The days are long and every vision fails’?

Therefore say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “None of My words will be delayed any longer. Whatever word I speak will be fulfilled completely,”’” says the Lord God.

Thus says the Lord God, “Woe (judgment is coming) to the foolish prophets who are following their own spirit [claiming to have seen things] but have [in fact] seen nothing.

O Israel, your prophets have been like foxes among the ruins.

You have not gone up into the gaps or breaches, nor built the wall around the house of Israel that it might stand in the battle on the day of the Lord.

They have seen falsehood and lying divination, saying, ‘The Lord says,’ but the Lord has not sent them. Yet they hope and make men to hope for the confirmation of their word.

Did you not see (make up) a false vision and speak a lying divination when you said, ‘The Lord declares,’ but it is not I who have spoken?”’”

Therefore, thus says the Lord God, “Because you have spoken empty and delusive words and have seen lies, therefore behold, I am against you,” says the Lord God.

It is definitely because they have seduced My people, saying, ‘Peace,’ when there is no peace, and because when one builds a [flimsy] wall, behold, these [lying] prophets plaster it over with whitewash;

So I will tear down the wall which you have plastered with whitewash and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundations will be exposed; when it falls, you will perish in its midst. And you shall know and understand fully that I am the Lord.

Thus I will expend My wrath on the wall and on those who have plastered it with whitewash and I will say to you, ‘The wall is gone and its plasterers are gone,

You have profaned Me among My people [in payment] for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, killing people who should not die and giving [a guarantee of] life to those who should not live, because of your lies to My people who pay attention to lies.”’”

Because you disheartened the righteous with falsehood when I did not cause him grief, but have encouraged the wicked not to turn from his wicked way and preserve his life,

“Son of man, these men have set up [and honored] their idols in their hearts and have put right before their faces the [vile] stumbling block of their wickedness and guilt; should I [permit Myself to] be consulted by them at all?

Yet, behold, survivors will be left in it [escaping the judgments], both sons and daughters. Listen carefully, they are going to come out to you [in Babylon] and you will see their [wicked] conduct and [despicable] actions; then you will be at peace in regard to the disaster which I have brought against Jerusalem for everything which I have brought on it [has been deserved].

Then they will reassure you [in regard to the appropriateness of the judgments] when you see their [heinous] conduct and actions, for you will know that I have not done without cause whatever I did to it,” declares the Lord God.

Therefore, thus says the Lord God, ‘Like the wood of the grapevine among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so have I given up the people of Jerusalem;

I will make the land desolate (ruined, deserted), because they have acted unfaithfully [through their idolatry],’ says the Lord God.”

No eye looked with pity on you to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you; but you were thrown out in the open field, for you were loathed on the day that you were born.

Also My bread which I gave you, [made from the] fine flour and oil and honey with which I fed you, you even offered it before idols [no better than cow dung] as a sweet and soothing aroma; so it happened,” says the Lord God.

“Moreover, you took your sons and your daughters whom you had borne to Me, and you destroyed them as sacrifices [to your man-made gods]. Were your gross immoralities so small a matter?

You slaughtered My children and offered them up to [worthless] idols, forcing them to pass through the [hideousness of the] fire.

And in all your repulsive acts and prostitutions (idolatrous immoralities) you did not [pause to] remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, squirming in your [newborn] blood.

that you built yourself an altar for prostitution and made yourself a high place [for ritual prostitution] in every square [of Jerusalem].

At the beginning of every street you built your high place and made your beauty repulsive; and you offered your body to every passer-by and multiplied your obscene immorality.

You also prostituted yourself with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors [by embracing their pagan rituals], and you multiplied your obscene immorality to provoke Me to anger.

Behold now [listen very carefully], I have stretched out My hand against you, reduced your portion, and handed you over to the desire of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who are ashamed of your infamous behavior.

therefore, listen, I will gather all your lovers (pagan allies) with whom you took pleasure, and all those whom you loved with all those whom you hated; I will even gather them against you from every direction and will expose your nakedness to them that they may see all your nakedness [making you, Israel, an object of loathing and of mockery, a spectacle among the nations].

Because you have not remembered the days of your youth but have enraged Me with all these things, therefore, I in turn will bring your conduct down on your own head,” says the Lord God, “so that you will not commit this lewdness on top of all your other repulsive acts.

As I live,” says the Lord God, “Sodom, your sister and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done.