Moff EZE Chapter 33

◄ EZE 33 ► ║ ═ ©

33 This word from the Eternal came to me: 2 “Son of man, speak to your own people and say to them: ‘When I bring the sword upon a country, and the natives take one of their number and make him their sentinel; 3 if he sees the sword coming on the land and blows the trumpet to warn the folk, 4 then anyone who hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning but is swept off by the sword, that man is responsible for his own death. 5 He heard the sound of the trumpet and he did not take warning; he is responsible for his own death. Had he taken warning, he would have saved his life. 6 But if the sentinel does not blow the trumpet when he sees the sword coming, and if the sword comes and sweeps off anyone of the folk, that man is swept off on account of his iniquity, but for his death I will hold the sentinel responsible! 7 Now, son of man, I have placed you as a sentinel for Israel; whenever you hear a word from my lips, warn them from me. 8 When I tell the wicked, “You must die,”--then, if you do not say a word of warning to the wicked to give up his evil course, he has to die for his iniquity, but I will hold you responsible. 9 Yet if you warn the wicked to give up his evil course and if he will not give it up, he has to die for his iniquity, but you have saved yourself.

10 Son of man, tell Israel: ‘This is your cry, that “our transgressions and our sins press upon us, we are wasting away under them; how can we live?” 11 Tell them: By my life! says the Lord the Eternal, I have no desire for the death of the wicked, but for him to live by giving up his evil course. Give up your evil courses, give them up: O Israel, why will you die?’ 12 And tell your people this, O son of man: ‘A good man’s goodness shall not save him when he goes wrong: a wicked man’s wickedness shall not ruin him when he gives up his wickedness [[; neither shall a good man’s goodness keep him alive when he sins]]. 13 When I tell the good man, “You shall live,” and when he relies upon his goodness and commits iniquity, none of his good deeds shall be remembered, he shall die for the iniquity he has committed. 14 And when I tell the wicked, “You shall die,” and when he gives up his sins and does What is lawful and right, 15 restoring the pledge deposited with him, refunding what he has robbed, and following the rules that lead to life, then he shall certainly live, he shall not die; 16 none of the sins he has committed shall be remembered against him; he has done what is lawful and right, he shall certainly live. 17 Yet your people complain, “The Lord is not acting fairly!” It is they who are not acting fairly. 18 When a good man gives up being good to commit iniquity, he shall die for it; 19 when a wicked man gives up being wicked to do what is lawful and right, he shall live by that. 20 And yet you complain, “The Eternal is not acting fairly!” O Israel, I will deal with every one of you as he has lived.’ ”

21 In the eleventh year of our exile, on the fifth day of the tenth month, a man who had escaped from Jerusalem came and told me, “The city has fallen.” 22 Now the hand of the Eternal had been upon me the evening before the fugitive arrived, but he had opened my mouth at the moment when the man reached me in the morning; my mouth had been opened and I was silent no longer. 23 This word from the Eternal had come to me:

24 “Son of man, those who haunt the ruins in the land of Israel are saying, ‘Abraham was only one man and yet he was given possession of the entire land; we are many, and we are sure to have the land for our own.’ 25 Tell them what the Lord the Eternal says: ‘You to possess the land, you who eat flesh with the blood in it and worship idols and commit bloodshed! You to possess the land, 26 you who have recourse to the sword, you who commit detestable impieties, you who seduce one another’s wives!’ 27 Tell them this is what the Lord the Eternal says: ‘By my life! those in the ruins shall fall by the sword, those who are out in the open I shall let wild beasts devour, and those in the fortresses and caves shall die by pestilence; 28 I will lay the land waste and desolate, the strength that was its pride shall pass, and the uplands of Israel shall be deserted, without a wayfarer. 29 When I lay the land desolate and waste for all their detestable impieties, then shall they realize that I am the Eternal.’

30 As for you, O son of man, your people are talking about you in the streets and at the doors of their houses, saying to one another, ‘Come and let us hear what is the word from the Eternal to-day!’ 31 They come to you as usual, they sit in front of you, they hear your words, but they will not obey them; their lips are full of lies, their minds are set upon their selfish ends, 32 and they heed you as they would a love-song beautifully rendered and well played--they hear your words, but they will not obey them. 33 Yet when the hour comes--and it is coming--they shall realize that there was a prophet among them!”

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