11Thus said the Lord GOD: Strike your hands together and stamp your feet and cry: Aha! over all the vile abominations of the House of Israel who shall fall by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. 12He who is far away shall die of pestilence, and he who is near shall fall by the sword, and he who survives and is protected shall die of famine. Thus I will spend My fury upon them. 13And you shall know that I am the LORD, when your slain lie among the fetishes round about their altars, on every high hill, on all the mountaintops, under every green tree, and under every leafy oak—wherever they presented pleasing odors to all their fetishes.
14I will stretch out My hand against them, and lay the land waste and desolate in all their settlements, from the wilderness as far as Diblah;c then they shall know that I am the LORD.
7 The word of the LORD came to me: 2You, O mortal, [say:] Thus said the Lord GOD to the land of Israel: Doom! Doom is coming upon the four corners of the land. 3Now doom is upon you! I will let loose My anger against you and judge you according to your ways; I will requite you for all your abominations. 4I will show you no pity and no compassion; but I will requite you for your ways and for the abominations in your midst. And you shall know that I am the LORD.
5Thus said the Lord GOD: a-A singular disaster; a disaster-a is coming. 6Doom is coming! The hour of doom is coming! It stirs against you; there it comes! 7b-The cycle has come around for you, O inhabitants of the land; the time has come; the day is near. There is panic on the mountains, not joy.-b 8Very soon I will pour out My wrath upon you and spend My anger on you; I will judge you according to your ways, and I will requite you for all your abominations. 9I will show you no pity and no compassion; but I will requite you for your ways, and for the abominations in your midst. And you shall know it was I the LORD who punished.
10Here is the day! See, the b-cycle has come round; it has appeared. The rod has blossomed; arrogance has budded, 11lawlessness has grown into a rod of wickedness. Nothing comes of them, nor of their abundance, nor of their wealth; nor is there preeminence among them.-b 12The time has come, the day has arrived. Let not the buyer rejoice nor the seller mourn—for divine wrath shall overtake all her multitude. 13For the seller shall not return to what he sold so long as they remain among the living. For the vision concerns all her multitude, it shall not be revoked. And because of his guilt, no man shall hold fast to his life.
14They have sounded the horn, and all is prepared; but no one goes to battle, for My wrath is directed against all her multitude. 15The sword is outside and pestilence and famine are inside; he who is in the open shall die by the sword, he who is in the town shall be devoured by famine and pestilence. 16And if any survive, they shall take to the mountains; they shall be c-like doves of the valley, moaning together-c—every one for his iniquity. 17All hands shall grow weak, and all knees shall turn to water. 18They shall gird on sackcloth, and horror shall cover them; every face shall betray shame, and every head shall be made bald.
19They shall throw their silver into the streets, and their gold shall be treated as something unclean. Their silver and gold shall not avail to save them in the day of the LORD’s wrath—to satisfy their hunger or to fill their stomachs. Because they made them stumble into guilt—20for out of their beautiful adornments, in which they took pride, they made their images and their detestable abominations—therefore I will make themd an unclean thing to them. 21I will give them as spoil to strangers, and as plunder to the wicked of the earth; and they shall defile them. 22I will turn My face from them, and My treasures shall be defiled; ruffians shall invade it and defile it.
23b-Forge the chain,-b for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of lawlessness. 24I will bring in the worst of the nations to take possession of their houses; so shall I turn to naught the pride of the powerful, and their sanctuaries shall be defiled.
25Horrorb comes, and they shall seek safety, but there shall be none. 26Calamity shall follow calamity, and rumor follow rumor. Then they shall seek vision from the prophet in vain; instruction shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the elders. 27The king shall mourn, the prince shall clothe himself with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land shall tremble. I will treat them in accordance with their own ways and judge them according to their deserts. And they shall know that I am the LORD.
8 In the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth month, I was sitting at home, and the elders of Judah were sitting before me, and there the hand of the Lord GOD fell upon me. 2As I looked, there was a figure that had the appearance of fire:a from what appeared as his loins down, [he was] fire; and from his loins up, his appearance was resplendent and had the color of amber. 3He stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by the hair of my head. A spirit lifted me up between heaven and earth and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the Penimithb Gate that faces north; that was the site of the infuriating image that provokes fury. 4And the Presence of the God of Israel appeared there, like the vision that I had seen in the valley.c
5And He said to me, “O mortal, turn your eyes northward.” I turned my eyes northward, and there, d-north of the gate of the altar, was-d that infuriating image on the approach.b 6And He said to me, “Mortal, do you see what they are doing, the terrible abominations that the House of Israel is practicing here, e-to drive Me far-e from My Sanctuary? You shall yet see even greater abominations!”
7Then He brought me to the entrance of the court;f and I looked, and there was a hole in the wall. 8He said to me, “Mortal, break through the wall”; so I broke through the wall and found an entrance. 9And He said to me, “Enter and see the vile abominations that they are practicing here.” 10I entered and looked, and there all detestable forms of creeping things and beasts and all the fetishes of the House of Israel were depicted over the entire wall. 11Before them stood seventy men, elders of the House of Israel, with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan standing in their midst. Everyone had a censer in his hand, and a thick cloud of incense smoke ascended. 12Again He spoke to me, “O mortal, have you seen what the elders of the House of Israel are doing in the darkness, everyone in his image-covered chamber? For they say, ‘The LORD does not see us; the LORD has abandoned the country.’ ” 13And He said to me, “You shall see even more terrible abominations which they practice.”
14Next He brought me to the entrance of the north g-gate of the House of the LORD;-g and there sat the women bewailing Tammuz.h 15He said to me, “Have you seen, O mortal? You shall see even more terrible abom-inations than these.”
16Then He brought me into the inner court of the House of the LORD, and there, at the entrance to the Temple of the LORD, between the portico and the altar, were about twenty-five men, their backs to the Temple of the LORD and their faces to the east; they were bowing low to the sun in the east. 17And He said to me, “Do you see, O mortal? Is it not enough for the House of Judah to practice the abominations that they have com-mitted here, that they must fill the country with lawlessness and provoke Me still further and i-thrust the branch to their nostrils?-i 18I in turn will act with fury, I will show no pity or compassion; though they cry aloud to Me, I will not listen to them.”
9 Then He called loudly in my hearing, saying, “Approach, you men in charge of the city, each bearing his weapons of destruction!” 2And six men entered by way of the upper gate that faces north, each with his club in his hand; and among them was another, clothed in linen, with a writing case at his waist. They came forward and stopped at the bronze altar. 3Now the Presence of the God of Israel had moved from the cherub on which it had rested to the
