Ezekiel 4:1

²When the LORD spoke at first by Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and children of unfaithfulness; for the land commits great adultery, forsaking the LORD.”

³So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; and she conceived, and bore him a son.

⁴The LORD said to him, “Call his name Jezreel, for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel on the house of Jehu, and will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease. ⁵It will happen in that day that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.”

⁶She conceived again, and bore a daughter. Then he said to him, “Call her name Lo-Ruhamah,^[+] for I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel, that I should in any way pardon them.

⁷But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and will save them by the LORD their God, ^[+] and will not save them by bow, sword, battle, horses, or horsemen.”

⁸Now when she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, she conceived, and bore a son.

⁹He said, “Call his name Lo-Ammi,^[+] for you are not my people, and I will not be yours.

²⁷As Samuel turned around to go away, Saul grabbed the skirt of his robe, and it tore. ²⁸Samuel said to him, “The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today, and has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you.

³⁰Ahijah took the new garment that was on him, and tore it in twelve pieces. ³¹He said to Jeroboam, “Take ten pieces; for the LORD, the God of Israel, says, ‘Behold, I will tear the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon and will give ten tribes to you

¹“You, son of man, take a sharp sword. You shall take it as a barber’s razor to yourself, and shall cause it to pass over your head and over your beard. Then take balances to weigh and divide the hair. ²A third part you shall burn in the fire in the middle of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled. You shall take a third part, and strike with the sword around it. A third part you shall scatter to the wind, and I will draw out a sword after them. ³You shall take a small number of these and bind them in the folds of your robe. ⁴Of these again you shall take, and cast them into the middle of the fire, and burn them in the fire. From it a fire will come out into all the house of Israel.

⁵“The Lord GOD says: ‘This is Jerusalem. I have set her in the middle of the nations, and countries are around her. ⁶She has rebelled against my ordinances in doing wickedness more than the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries that are around her; for they have rejected my ordinances, and as for my statutes, they have not walked in them.’

⁷“Therefore the Lord GOD says: ‘Because you are more turbulent than the nations that are around you, and have not walked in my statutes, neither have kept my ordinances, neither have followed the ordinances of the nations that are around you; ⁸therefore the Lord GOD says: ‘Behold, I, even I, am against you; and I will execute judgments among you in the sight of the nations. ⁹I will do in you that which I have not done, and which I will not do anything like it any more, because of all your abominations. ¹⁰Therefore the fathers will eat the sons within you, and the sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments on you; and I will scatter the whole remnant of you to all the winds. ¹¹Therefore as I live,’ says the Lord GOD, ‘surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things, and with all your abominations, therefore I will also diminish you. My eye won’t spare, and I will have no pity. ¹²A third part of you will die with the pestilence, and they will be consumed with famine within you. A third part will fall by the sword around you. A third part I will scatter to all the winds, and will draw out a sword after them.

¹³“‘Thus my anger will be accomplished, and I will cause my wrath toward them to rest, and I will be comforted. They will know that I, the LORD, have spoken in my zeal, when I have accomplished my wrath on them.

¹⁴“‘Moreover I will make you a desolation and a reproach among the nations that are around you, in the sight of all that pass by. ¹⁵So it will be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment, to the nations that are around you, when I execute judgments on you in anger and in wrath, and in wrathful rebukes—I, the LORD, have spoken it— ¹⁶when I send on them the evil arrows of famine that are for destruction, which I will send to destroy you. I will increase the famine on you and will break your staff of bread. ¹⁷I will send on you famine and evil animals, and they will bereave you. Pestilence and blood will pass through you. I will bring the sword on you. I, the LORD, have spoken it.’”

²at that time the LORD spoke by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, “Go, and loosen the sackcloth from off your waist, and take your sandals from off your feet.” He did so, walking naked and barefoot. ³The LORD said, “As my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and a wonder concerning Egypt and concerning Ethiopia, ⁴so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Ethiopia, young and old, naked and barefoot, and with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.

³“Therefore, you son of man, prepare your baggage for moving, and move by day in their sight. You shall move from your place to another place in their sight. It may be they will consider, though they are a rebellious house. ⁴You shall bring out your baggage by day in their sight, as baggage for moving. You shall go out yourself at evening in their sight, as when men go out into exile. ⁵Dig through the wall in their sight, and carry your baggage out that way. ⁶In their sight you shall bear it on your shoulder, and carry it out in the dark. You shall cover your face, so that you don’t see the land, for I have set you for a sign to the house of Israel.”

⁷I did so as I was commanded. I brought out my baggage by day, as baggage for moving, and in the evening I dug through the wall with my hand. I brought it out in the dark, and bore it on my shoulder in their sight.

⁸In the morning, the LORD’s word came to me, saying, ⁹“Son of man, hasn’t the house of Israel, the rebellious house, said to you, ‘What are you doing?’

¹⁰“Say to them, ‘The Lord GOD says: “This burden concerns the prince in Jerusalem, and all the house of Israel among whom they are.”’

¹¹“Say, ‘I am your sign. As I have done, so will it be done to them. They will go into exile, into captivity.

¹²“‘The prince who is among them will bear his baggage on his shoulder in the dark, and will go out. They will dig through the wall to carry things out that way. He will cover his face, because he will not see the land with his eyes. ¹³I will also spread my net on him, and he will be taken in my snare. I will bring him to Babylon to the land of the Chaldeans; yet he will not see it, though he will die there. ¹⁴I will scatter toward every wind all who are around him to help him, and all his bands. I will draw out the sword after them.

¹⁵“‘They will know that I am the LORD when I disperse them among the nations and scatter them through the countries. ¹⁶But I will leave a few men of them from the sword, from the famine, and from the pestilence, that they may declare all their abominations among the nations where they come. Then they will know that I am the LORD.’”

¹Thus said the LORD, “Go, and buy a potter’s earthen container, and take some of the elders of the people and of the elders of the priests; ²and go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the gate Harsith, and proclaim there the words that I will tell you. ³Say, ‘Hear the LORD’s word, kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel says, “Behold, I will bring evil on this place, which whoever hears, his ears will tingle. ⁴Because they have forsaken me, and have defiled this place, and have burned incense in it to other gods that they didn’t know—they, their fathers, and the kings of Judah—and have filled this place with the blood of innocents, ⁵and have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire for burnt offerings to Baal, which I didn’t command, nor speak, which didn’t even enter into my mind. ⁶Therefore, behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that this place will no more be called ‘Topheth’, nor ‘The Valley of the son of Hinnom’, but ‘The valley of Slaughter’.

⁷“‘“I will make the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem void in this place. I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life. I will give their dead bodies to be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth. ⁸I will make this city an astonishment and a hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its plagues. ⁹I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters. They will each eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and in the distress with which their enemies, and those who seek their life, will distress them.”’

¹⁰“Then you shall break the container in the sight of the men who go with you, ¹¹and shall tell them, ‘The LORD of Armies says: “Even so I will break this people and this city as one breaks a potter’s vessel, that can’t be made whole again. They will bury in Topheth until there is no place to bury. ¹²This is what I will do to this place,” says the LORD, “and to its inhabitants, even making this city as Topheth. ¹³The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah, which are defiled, will be as the place of Topheth, even all the houses on whose roofs they have burned incense to all the army of the sky and have poured out drink offerings to other gods.”’”

¹⁴Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the court of the LORD’s house, and said to all the people: ¹⁵“The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel says, ‘Behold, I will bring on this city and on all its towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have made their neck stiff, that they may not hear my words.’”

¹⁵For the LORD, the God of Israel, says to me: “Take this cup of the wine of wrath from my hand, and cause all the nations to whom I send you to drink it. ¹⁶They will drink, and reel back and forth, and be insane, because of the sword that I will send among them.”

¹⁷Then I took the cup at the LORD’s hand, and made all the nations to drink, to whom the LORD had sent me: ¹⁸Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, with its kings and its princes, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse, as it is today; ¹⁹Pharaoh king of Egypt, with his servants, his princes, and all his people; ²⁰and all the mixed people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, all the kings of the Philistines, Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod; ²¹Edom, Moab, and the children of Ammon; ²²and all the kings of Tyre, all the kings of Sidon, and the kings of the isle which is beyond the sea; ²³Dedan, Tema, Buz, and all who have the corners of their beard cut off; ²⁴and all the kings of Arabia, all the kings of the mixed people who dwell in the wilderness; ²⁵and all the kings of Zimri, all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes; ²⁶and all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another; and all the kingdoms of the world, which are on the surface of the earth. The king of Sheshach will drink after them.

²⁷“You shall tell them, ‘The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Drink, and be drunk, vomit, fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you.”’ ²⁸It shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at your hand to drink, then you shall tell them, ‘The LORD of Armies says: “You shall surely drink. ²⁹For, behold, I begin to work evil at the city which is called by my name; and should you be utterly unpunished? You will not be unpunished; for I will call for a sword on all the inhabitants of the earth, says the LORD of Armies.”’

³⁰“Therefore prophesy against them all these words, and tell them, “‘The LORD will roar from on high, and utter his voice from his holy habitation. He will mightily roar against his fold. He will give a shout, as those who tread grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth. ³¹A noise will come even to the end of the earth; for the LORD has a controversy with the nations. He will enter into judgment with all flesh. As for the wicked, he will give them to the sword,”’ says the LORD.”

³²The LORD of Armies says, “Behold, evil will go out from nation to nation, and a great storm will be raised up from the uttermost parts of the earth.”

³³The slain of the LORD will be at that day from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth. They won’t be lamented. They won’t be gathered or buried. They will be dung on the surface of the ground. ³⁴Wail, you shepherds, and cry. Wallow in dust, you leader of the flock; for the days of your slaughter and of your dispersions have fully come, and you will fall like fine pottery. ³⁵The shepherds will have no way to flee. The leader of the flock will have no escape. ³⁶A voice of the cry of the shepherds, and the wailing of the leader of the flock, for the LORD destroys their pasture. ³⁷The peaceful folds are brought to silence because of the fierce anger of the LORD. ³⁸He has left his covert, as the lion; for their land has become an astonishment because of the fierceness of the oppression, and because of his fierce anger.

¹⁰I have also spoken to the prophets, and I have multiplied visions; and by the ministry of the prophets I have used parables.

¹The LORD said to me, “Go again, love a woman loved by another, and an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods, and love cakes of raisins.”

²So I bought her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer^[+] and a half of barley. ³I said to her, “You shall stay with me many days. You shall not play the prostitute, and you shall not be with any other man. I will also be so toward you.”

⁴For the children of Israel shall live many days without king, without prince, without sacrifice, without sacred stone, and without ephod or idols. ⁵Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king, and shall come with trembling to the LORD and to his blessings in the last days.