The Daily Audio Bible

Punishment for Wickedness Foretold

7 Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ² “Also, son of man, thus says the Lord God to the land of Israel, ‘An end! The end is coming on the four corners of the land.^{(A) 3} Now the end is upon you, and I will send My anger against you and will judge you in accordance with your ways and I will bring [retribution for] all your abominations upon you. ⁴ 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.’

⁵ “Thus says the Lord God, ‘A disaster is coming, [one so destructive and injurious, so sudden and violent, that it stands alone,] a unique disaster, look it is coming! ⁶ An end is coming; the end has come! It has awakened against you. Look, it has come! ⁷ Your doom has come to you, O inhabitant of the land; the time has come, the day is near—tumult rather than joyful shouting on the mountains. ⁸ Now I will soon pour out My wrath on you and spend My anger against you, and I will judge you in accordance with your ways and will repay you [with punishment] for all your outrageous acts. ⁹ 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.

¹⁰ ‘Behold, the day! Behold, it is coming! Your doom has gone forth, the rod has blossomed, arrogance has sprouted. ¹¹ Violence has grown into a rod of wickedness; none of them (Israel) will remain, none of their people, none of their wealth, nor anything eminent among them. ¹² The time has come, the day has arrived. Let not the buyer rejoice nor the seller mourn, for wrath is against all their multitude [of people]. ¹³ For the seller will not regain and return to ^[a]what he sold, even were they yet alive; for the vision [of punishment] regarding all the multitude [of people] will not be turned back, nor will any one of them sustain his life because of his sin.

¹⁴ ‘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]. ¹⁵ The sword is outside and virulent disease and famine are within. He who is in the field will die by the sword, and famine and disease will devour those in the city. ¹⁶ Even when their survivors escape, they will be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them moaning, each over his [punishment for] sin. ¹⁷ All hands will hang limp and all knees will be as weak as water.^{(B) 18} They will also cover themselves with sackcloth; horror will overwhelm them, and shame will be on all faces and baldness on all their heads [as evidence of grief]. ¹⁹ They will fling their silver into the streets and their gold will be [discarded] like something unclean; their silver and their gold shall not be able to save them in the day of the wrath of the Lord. These [things] cannot satisfy their soul nor fill their stomachs, for they have become their stumbling block and source of sin.^(C)

The Temple Profaned

²⁰ As for the beauty of [gold for] ornaments, they turned it to pride and from it made the images of their repulsive things (idols) and of their vile things. Therefore I will make it an unclean thing to them. ²¹ I will give it into the hands of strangers (Babylonians) as plunder and to the wicked of the earth as spoil, and they shall profane it. ²² I will also turn My face away from them, and they will desecrate My secret treasure (the Jerusalem temple); and robbers will enter [irreverently] into it (the Holy of Holies) and violate it.

²³ ‘Prepare the chain [for imprisonment], for the land is full of bloody crimes [murders committed under the pretense of civil justice] and the city is full of violence. ²⁴ Therefore, I will bring the worst of the [Gentile] nations, and they will take possession of their houses [those of the people of Judah]; I will also silence their pride, and their holy places will be profaned. ²⁵ When anguish comes, they [of Judah] shall seek peace, but there will be none. ²⁶ Disaster will come upon disaster and rumor will be heaped on rumor; they will seek a vision from a prophet, but the law and guidance will be lost from the priest and [wise] counsel [will cease] from the elders.^{(D) 27} The king [of Judah] will mourn and the prince (Zedekiah) will be clothed with [garments of] despair and anguish, and the hands of the people of the land shall tremble [in terror]. I will deal with them in accordance with their conduct, and by their judgments I will judge them. And they will know [without any doubt] that I am the Lord.’”

Vision of Repulsive Acts in Jerusalem

8 It came about in the ^[b]sixth year [of the captivity of King Jehoiachin], on the fifth day of the sixth month, as I sat in my house [near Babylon] with the elders of Judah sitting before me, that the hand of the Lord ^[c]God fell on me there. ² Then I looked, and behold, a likeness [of a man] with the appearance of fire; from His ^[d]loins downward He was like fire, and from His loins upward He had the appearance of brightness, like gleaming metal (bronze). ³ He stretched out the form of a hand and took me by a lock of hair on my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the inner courtyard, where the seat of the idol (image) of ^[e]jealousy, which provokes to jealousy, was located.^{(E) 4} And behold, the glory and brilliance of the God of Israel [who had loved and chosen them] was there, like the vision which I saw in the plain.^(F)

⁵ Then He said to me, “Son of man, now raise your eyes toward the north.” So I looked toward the north, and behold, to the north of the altar gate was this idol (image) of jealousy at the entrance. ⁶ Furthermore, He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great repulsive acts which the house of Israel is committing here, to drive Me far away from My sanctuary? But you will again see greater repulsive acts.”

⁷ Then He brought me to the entrance of the courtyard; and when I looked, behold, [there was] a hole in the wall. ⁸ He said to me, “Son of man, now dig into the wall.” And when I had dug into the wall, behold, there was an entrance. ⁹ And He said to me, “Go in and see the wicked, repulsive acts that they are committing here.” ¹⁰ So I entered and looked, and saw every kind of creeping things and beasts and loathsome things, and all the idols of the house of Israel, carved all around on the wall. ¹¹ Standing before these [images] were seventy elders of the house of Israel, and among them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan [the scribe], each man with his censer in his hand and a thick and fragrant cloud of incense was rising [as they prayed to these gods]. ¹² 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.’” ¹³ He also said to me, “Yet again you will see even greater repulsive acts which they are committing.”

¹⁴ Then He brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the Lord’s house; and behold, women were sitting there weeping for ^[f]Tammuz. ¹⁵ 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].”

¹⁶ So He brought me to the inner court of the Lord’s house. And behold, at the entrance to the temple of the Lord, between the porch (vestibule, portico) and the [bronze] altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east; and they were bowing down toward the east and worshiping the sun. ¹⁷ 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 ^[g]branch to their nose. ¹⁸ 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.”^(G)

The Vision of Slaughter

9 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.” ² Behold, six men [angelic beings] came from the direction of the Upper Gate, which faces north, each with his battle-axe in his hand; and among them was a ^[h]certain man clothed in linen, with a scribe’s writing case at his side. They entered and stood beside the bronze altar.

³ Then the [^[i]Shekinah] glory and brilliance of the God of Israel (the cloud) ^[j]went up from the cherubim on which it had rested, to [stand above] the threshold of the [Lord’s] temple. And the Lord called to the man clothed with linen, who had the scribe’s writing case at his side. ⁴ The Lord said to him, “Go through the midst of the city, throughout all of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh [in distress] and grieve over all the repulsive acts which are being committed in it.” ⁵ 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]. ⁶ 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].^{(H) 7} And He said to the executioners, “Defile the temple and fill its courtyards with the dead. Go out!” So they went out and struck down the people in the city. ⁸ As they were executing them and I alone was left, I fell face downward and cried out, “Alas, Lord God! Will You destroy all that is left of Israel [the whole remnant] by pouring out Your wrath and indignation on Jerusalem?”

⁹ Then He said to me, “The wickedness (guilt) of the house of Israel and Judah is extremely great; the land is full of blood and the city is full of perversion and injustice; for they say, ‘The Lord has abandoned the land; the Lord does not see [what we are doing].’ ¹⁰ 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.”

¹¹ 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.”

The Perfect High Priest

5 For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed [to act] on behalf of men in things relating to God, so that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. ² He is able to deal gently with the spiritually ignorant and misguided, since he is also subject to human weakness; ³ and because of this [human weakness] he is required to offer sacrifices for sins, for himself as well as for the people. ⁴ And besides, one does not appropriate for himself the honor [of being high priest], but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was.

⁵ So too Christ did not glorify Himself so as to be made a high priest, but He [was exalted and appointed by the One] who said to Him,

⁶ just as He also says in another place,

⁷ In the days of His earthly life, Jesus offered up both [specific] petitions and [urgent] supplications [for that which He needed] with fervent crying and tears to the One who was [always] able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission toward God [His sinlessness and His unfailing determination to do the Father’s will]. ⁸ Although He was a Son [who had never been disobedient to the Father], He learned [active, special] obedience through what He suffered. ⁹ And having been made perfect [uniquely equipped and prepared as Savior and retaining His integrity amid opposition], He became the source of eternal salvation [an eternal inheritance] to all those who obey Him,^{(C) 10} being designated by God as High Priest according to the order of ^[b]Melchizedek.^(D)

¹¹ Concerning this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull and sluggish in [your spiritual] hearing and disinclined to listen. ¹² For though by this time you ought to be teachers [because of the time you have had to learn these truths], you actually need someone to teach you again the elementary principles of God’s word [from the beginning], and you have come to be continually in need of milk, not solid food. ¹³ For everyone who lives on milk is [doctrinally inexperienced and] unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a spiritual infant. ¹⁴ But solid food is for the [spiritually] mature, whose senses are trained by practice to distinguish between what is morally good and what is evil.

The Lord’s Wonderful Works in Behalf of Israel.