Ezekiel 33:29

⁷The slain will fall among you, and you will know that I am the LORD.

²⁵“Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withheld good from you. ²⁶For wicked men are found among my people. They watch, as fowlers lie in wait. They set a trap. They catch men. ²⁷As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit. Therefore they have become great, and grew rich. ²⁸They have grown fat. They shine; yes, they excel in deeds of wickedness. They don’t plead the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may prosper; and they don’t defend the rights of the needy.

²⁹“Shouldn’t I punish for these things?” says the LORD. “Shouldn’t my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

³⁰“An astonishing and horrible thing has happened in the land. ³¹The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and my people love to have it so. What will you do in the end of it?

²⁷The king will mourn, and the prince will be clothed with desolation. The hands of the people of the land will be troubled. I will do to them after their way, and according to their own judgments I will judge them. Then they will know that I am the LORD.’”

⁹The LORD’s voice calls to the city— and wisdom fears your name— “Listen to the rod, and he who appointed it. ¹⁰Are there yet treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and a short ephah^[+] that is accursed? ¹¹Shall I tolerate dishonest scales, and a bag of deceitful weights? ¹²Her rich men are full of violence, her inhabitants speak lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their speech.

¹⁷“Son of man, when the house of Israel lived in their own land, they defiled it by their ways and by their deeds. Their way before me was as the uncleanness of a woman in her impurity. ¹⁸Therefore I poured out my wrath on them for the blood which they had poured out on the land, and because they had defiled it with their idols.

¹⁶The LORD has made himself known. He has executed judgment. The wicked is snared by the work of his own hands. Meditation. Selah.

⁶He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they do? Even the great abominations that the house of Israel commit here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? But you will again see yet other great abominations.”

⁷He brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold, a hole in the wall. ⁸Then he said to me, “Son of man, dig now in the wall.” When I had dug in the wall, I saw a door.

⁹He said to me, “Go in, and see the wicked abominations that they do here.”

¹⁰So I went in and looked, and saw every form of creeping things, abominable animals, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed around on the wall. ¹¹Seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel stood before them. In the middle of them Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan stood, every man with his censer in his hand; and the smell of the cloud of incense went up.

¹²Then he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in his rooms of imagery? For they say, ‘The LORD doesn’t see us. The LORD has forsaken the land.’” ¹³He said also to me, “You will again see more of the great abominations which they do.”

¹⁴Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD’s house which was toward the north; and I saw the women sit there weeping for Tammuz. ¹⁵Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, son of man? You will again see yet greater abominations than these.”

²⁵There is a conspiracy of her prophets within it, like a roaring lion ravening the prey. They have devoured souls. They take treasure and precious things. They have made many widows within it. ²⁶Her priests have done violence to my law and have profaned my holy things. They have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they caused men to discern between the unclean and the clean, and have hidden their eyes from my Sabbaths. So I am profaned among them. ²⁷Her princes within it are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood and to destroy souls, that they may get dishonest gain. ²⁸Her prophets have plastered for them with whitewash, seeing false visions, and divining lies to them, saying, ‘The Lord GOD says,’ when the LORD has not spoken. ²⁹The people of the land have used oppression and exercised robbery. Yes, they have troubled the poor and needy, and have oppressed the foreigner wrongfully.

³⁰“I sought for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I would not destroy it; but I found no one. ³¹Therefore I have poured out my indignation on them. I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath. I have brought their own way on their heads,” says the Lord GOD.

¹“Run back and forth through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in its wide places, if you can find a man, if there is anyone who does justly, who seeks truth, then I will pardon her. ²Though they say, ‘As the LORD lives,’ surely they swear falsely.”

³O LORD, don’t your eyes look on truth? You have stricken them, but they were not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock. They have refused to return.

⁴Then I said, “Surely these are poor. They are foolish; for they don’t know the LORD’s way, nor the law of their God. ⁵I will go to the great men and will speak to them, for they know the way of the LORD, and the law of their God.” But these with one accord have broken the yoke, and burst the bonds. ⁶Therefore a lion out of the forest will kill them. A wolf of the evenings will destroy them. A leopard will watch against their cities. Everyone who goes out there will be torn in pieces, because their transgressions are many and their backsliding has increased.

⁷“How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me, and sworn by what are no gods. When I had fed them to the full, they committed adultery, and assembled themselves in troops at the prostitutes’ houses. ⁸They were as fed horses roaming at large. Everyone neighed after his neighbor’s wife. ⁹Shouldn’t I punish them for these things?” says the LORD. “Shouldn’t my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

²“You, son of man, will you judge? Will you judge the bloody city? Then cause her to know all her abominations. ³You shall say, ‘The Lord GOD says: “A city that sheds blood within herself, that her time may come, and that makes idols against herself to defile her! ⁴You have become guilty in your blood that you have shed, and are defiled in your idols which you have made! You have caused your days to draw near, and have come to the end of your years. Therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations, and a mocking to all the countries. ⁵Those who are near and those who are far from you will mock you, you infamous one, full of tumult.

⁶“‘“Behold, the princes of Israel, everyone according to his power, have been in you to shed blood. ⁷In you have they treated father and mother with contempt. ^[+] Among you they have oppressed the foreigner. In you they have wronged the fatherless and the widow. ⁸You have despised my holy things, and have profaned my Sabbaths. ⁹Slanderous men have been in you to shed blood. In you they have eaten on the mountains. They have committed lewdness among you. ¹⁰In you have they uncovered their fathers’ nakedness. In you have they humbled her who was unclean in her impurity. ¹¹One has committed abomination with his neighbor’s wife, and another has lewdly defiled his daughter-in-law. Another in you has humbled his sister, his father’s daughter. ¹²In you have they taken bribes to shed blood. You have taken interest and increase, and you have greedily gained of your neighbors by oppression, and have forgotten me,” says the Lord GOD.

¹³“‘“Behold, therefore I have struck my hand at your dishonest gain which you have made, and at the blood which has been shed within you. ¹⁴Can your heart endure, or can your hands be strong, in the days that I will deal with you? I, the LORD, have spoken it, and will do it. ¹⁵I will scatter you among the nations, and disperse you through the countries. I will purge your filthiness out of you.