THE PROPHECY OF EZECHIEL
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
14:6. Therefore say to the house of Israel: Thus saith the Lord God: Be converted, and depart from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations.
14:7. For every man of the house of Israel, and every stranger among the proselytes in Israel, if he separate himself from me, and place his idols in his heart, and set the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and come to the prophet to inquire of me by him: I the Lord will answer him by myself.
14:8. And I will set my face against that man, and will make him an example, and a proverb, and will cut him off from the midst of my people: and you shall know that I am the Lord.
14:9. And when the prophet shall err, and speak a word: I the Lord have deceived that prophet: and I will stretch forth my hand upon him, and will cut him off from the midst of my people Israel.
The prophet shall err, etc... He speaks of false prophets, answering out of their own heads and according to their own corrupt inclinations. Ibid. I have deceived that prophet... God Almighty deceives false prophets, partly by withdrawing his light from them; and abandoning them to their own corrupt inclinations, which push them on to prophesy such things as are agreeable to those who consult them: and partly by disappointing them, and causing all thing to happen contrary to what they have said.
14:10. And they shall bear their iniquity: according to the iniquity of him that inquireth, so shall the iniquity of the prophet be.
14:11. That the house of Israel may go no more astray from me, nor be polluted with all their transgressions: but may be my people, and I may be their God, saith the Lord of hosts.
14:12. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
14:13. Son of man, when a land shall sin against me, so as to transgress grievously, I will stretch forth my hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread thereof: and I will send famine upon it, and will destroy man and beast out of it.
14:14. And if these three men, Noe, Daniel, and Job, shall be in it: they shall deliver their own souls by their justice, saith the Lord of hosts.
14:15. And if I shall bring mischievous beasts also upon the land to waste it, and it be desolate, so that there is none that can pass because of the beasts:
14:16. If these three men shall be in it, as I live, saith the Lord, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters: but they only shall be delivered, and the land shall be made desolate.
14:17. Or if I bring the sword upon that land, and say to the sword: Pass through the land: and I destroy man and beast out of it:
14:18. And these three men be in the midst thereof: as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they themselves alone shall be delivered.
14:19. Or if I also send the pestilence upon that land, and pour out my indignation upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast:
14:20. And Noe, and Daniel, and Job be in the midst thereof: as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter: but they shall only deliver their own souls by their justice.
14:21. For thus saith the Lord: Although I shall send in upon Jerusalem my four grievous judgments, the sword, and the famine, and the mischievous beasts, and the pestilence, to destroy out of it man and beast,
14:22. Yet there shall be left in it some that shall be saved, who shall bring away their sons and daughters: behold they shall come among you, and you shall see their way, and their doings: and you shall be comforted concerning the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, in all things that I have brought upon it.
14:23. And they shall comfort you, when you shall see their ways, and their doings: and you shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, saith the Lord God.
Ezechiel Chapter 15
As a vine cut down is fit for nothing but the fire; so it shall be with Jerusalem, for her sins.
15:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
15:2. Son of man, what shall be made of the wood of the vine, out of all the trees of the woods that are among the trees of the forests?
15:3. Shall wood be taken of it, to do any work, or shall a pin be made of it for any vessel to hang thereon?
15:4. Behold it is cast into the fire for fuel: the fire hath consumed both ends thereof, and the midst thereof is reduced to ashes: shall it be useful for any work?
15:5. Even when it was whole it was not fit for work: how much less, when the fire hath devoured and consumed it, shall any work be made of it?
15:6. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: As the vine tree among the trees of the forests which I have given to the fire to be consumed, so will I deliver up the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
15:7. And I will set my face against them: they shall go out from fire, and fire shall consume them: and you shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have set my face against them.
15:8. And I shall have made their land a wilderness, and desolate, because they have been transgressors, saith the Lord God.
Ezechiel Chapter 16
Under the figure of an unfaithful wife, God upbraids Jerusalem with her ingratitude and manifold disloyalties: but promiseth mercy by a new covenant.
16:1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
16:2. Son of man, make known to Jerusalem her abominations.
Make known to Jerusalem... That is, by letters, for the prophet was then in Babylon.
16:3. And thou shalt say: Thus saith the Lord God to Jerusalem: Thy root, and thy nativity is of the land of Chanaan, thy father was an Amorrhite, and thy mother a Cethite.
16:4. And when thou wast born, in the day of thy nativity thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed with water for thy health, nor salted with salt, nor swaddled with clouts.
16:5. No eye had pity on thee to do any of these things for thee, out of compassion to thee: but thou wast cast out upon the face of the earth in the abjection of thy soul, in the day that thou wast born.
16:6. And passing by thee, I saw that thou wast trodden under foot in thy own blood: and I said to thee when thou wast in thy blood: Live: I have said to thee: Live in thy blood.
16:7. I caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field: and thou didst increase and grow great, and advancedst, and camest to woman's ornament: thy breasts were fashioned, and thy hair grew: and thou was naked, and full of confusion.
16:8. And I passed by thee, and saw thee: and behold thy time was the time of lovers: and I spread my garment over thee, and covered thy ignominy and I swore to thee, and I entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God: and thou becamest mine.