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Judgment on Wicked Counselors

¹ The spirit lifted me up and brought me to the east gate of the house of the Lord, which faces east. There, at the entrance of the gateway, were twenty-five men; among them I saw Jaazaniah son of Azzur, and Pelatiah son of Benaiah, officials of the people. ² He said to me, "Mortal, these are the men who devise iniquity and who give wicked counsel in this city; ³ they say, ‘The time is not near to build houses; this city is the pot, and we are the meat.' ⁴ Therefore prophesy against them; prophesy, O mortal."

⁵ Then the spirit of the Lord fell upon me, and he said to me, "Say, Thus says the Lord: This is what you think, O house of Israel; I know the things that come into your mind. ⁶ You have killed many in this city, and have filled its streets with the slain. ⁷ Therefore thus says the Lord God: The slain whom you have placed within it are the meat, and this city is the pot; but you shall be taken out of it. ⁸ You have feared the sword; and I will bring the sword upon you, says the Lord God. ⁹ I will take you out of it and give you over to the hands of foreigners, and execute judgments upon you. ¹⁰ You shall fall by the sword; I will judge you at the border of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord. ¹¹ This city shall not be your pot, and you shall not be the meat inside it; I will judge you at the border of Israel. ¹² Then you shall know that I am the Lord, whose statutes you have not followed, and whose ordinances you have not kept, but you have acted according to the ordinances of the nations that are around you."

¹³ Now, while I was prophesying, Pelatiah son of Benaiah died. Then I fell down on my face, cried with a loud voice, and said, "Ah Lord God! will you make a full end of the remnant of Israel?"

God Will Restore Israel

¹⁴ Then the word of the Lord came to me: ¹⁵ Mortal, your kinsfolk, your own kin, your fellow exiles,^[a] the whole house of Israel, all of them, are those of whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, "They have gone far from the Lord; to us this land is given for a possession." ¹⁶ Therefore say: Thus says the Lord God: Though I removed them far away among the nations, and though I scattered them among the countries, yet I have been a sanctuary to them for a little while^[b] in the countries where they have gone. ¹⁷ Therefore say: Thus says the Lord God: I will gather you from the peoples, and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. ¹⁸ When they come there, they will remove from it all its detestable things and all its abominations. ¹⁹ I will give them one^[c] heart, and put a new spirit within them; I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, ²⁰ so that they may follow my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God. ²¹ But as for those whose heart goes after their detestable things and their abominations,^[d] I will bring their deeds upon their own heads, says the Lord God.

²² Then the cherubim lifted up their wings, with the wheels beside them; and the glory of the God of Israel was above them. ²³ And the glory of the Lord ascended from the middle of the city, and stopped on the mountain east of the city. ²⁴ The spirit lifted me up and brought me in a vision by the spirit of God into Chaldea, to the exiles. Then the vision that I had seen left me. ²⁵ And I told the exiles all the things that the Lord had shown me.