# verses

text:
So Jeremiah told Zedekiah, "This is the Message from God, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel: 'If you will turn yourself over to the generals of the king of Babylon, you will live, this city won't be burned down, and your family will live.


text:
But if you don't turn yourself over to the generals of the king of Babylon, this city will go into the hands of the Chaldeans and they'll burn it down. And don't for a minute think there's any escape for you.' "


text:
King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, "But I'm afraid of the Judeans who have already deserted to the Chaldeans. If they get hold of me, they'll rough me up good."


text:
Jeremiah assured him, "They won't get hold of you. Listen, please. Listen to God's voice. I'm telling you this for your own good so that you'll live.


text:
Picture this in your mind—all the women still left in the palace of the king of Judah, led out to the officers of the king of Babylon, and as they're led out they are saying:<br/>" 'They lied to you and did you in,<br/>those so-called friends of yours;<br/>And now you're stuck, about knee-deep in mud,<br/>and your "friends," where are they now?'


text:
"They'll take all your wives and children and give them to the Chaldeans. And you, don't think you'll get out of this—the king of Babylon will seize you and then burn this city to the ground."


text:
Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, "Don't let anyone know of this conversation, if you know what's good for you.


text:
If the government officials get wind that I've been talking with you, they may come and say, 'Tell us what went on between you and the king, what you said and what he said. Hold nothing back and we won't kill you.'


text:
If this happens, tell them, 'I presented my case to the king so that he wouldn't send me back to the dungeon of Jonathan to die there.' "


text:
And sure enough, all the officials came to Jeremiah and asked him. He responded as the king had instructed. So they quit asking. No one had overheard the conversation


text:
In the ninth year and tenth month of Zedekiah king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came with his entire army and laid siege to Jerusalem.


text:
In the eleventh year and fourth month, on the ninth day of Zedekiah's reign, they broke through into the city.


text:
All the officers of the king of Babylon came and set themselves up as a ruling council from the Middle Gate: Nergal-sharezer of Simmagar, Nebushazban the Rabsaris, Nergal-sharezer the Rabmag, along with all the other officials of the king of Babylon.


text:
When Zedekiah king of Judah and his remaining soldiers saw this, they ran for their lives. They slipped out at night on a path in the king's garden through the gate between two walls and headed for the wilderness, toward the Jordan Valley.


text:
The Babylonian army chased them and caught Zedekiah in the wilderness of Jericho. They seized him and took him to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah in the country of Hamath. Nebuchadnezzar decided his fate.


text:
The king of Babylon killed all the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah right before his eyes and then killed all the nobles of Judah.


text:
After Zedekiah had seen the slaughter, Nebuchadnezzar blinded him, chained him up, and then took him off to Babylon.


text:
Meanwhile, the Babylonians burned down the royal palace, the Temple, and all the homes of the people. They leveled the walls of Jerusalem.


text:
Nebuzaradan, commander of the king's bodyguard, rounded up everyone left in the city, along with those who had surrendered to him, and herded them off to exile in Babylon.


text:
He didn't bother taking the few poor people who had nothing. He left them in the land of Judah to eke out a living as best they could in the vineyards and fields.


text:
Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon gave Nebuzaradan captain of the king's bodyguard special orders regarding Jeremiah:


text:
So Nebuzaradan, chief of the king's bodyguard, along with Nebushazban the Rabsaris, Nergal-sharezer the Rabmag, and all the chief officers of the king of Babylon,


text:
sent for Jeremiah, taking him from the courtyard of the royal guards and putting him under the care of Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, to be taken home. And so he was able to live with the people.


text:
Earlier, while Jeremiah was still in custody in the courtyard of the royal guards, God's Message came to him:


text:
"Go and speak with Ebed-melek the Ethiopian. Tell him, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel, says, Listen carefully: I will do exactly what I said I would do to this city—bad news, not good news. When it happens, you will be there to see it.


text:
But I'll deliver you on that doomsday. You won't be handed over to those men whom you have good reason to fear.


text:
Yes, I'll most certainly save you. You won't be killed. You'll walk out of there safe and sound because you trusted me.' " God's Decree.


text:
God's Message to Jeremiah after Nebuzaradan captain of the bodyguard set him free at Ramah. When Nebuzaradan came upon him, he was in chains, along with all the other captives from Jerusalem and Judah who were being herded off to exile in Babylon.


text:
The captain of the bodyguard singled out Jeremiah and said to him, "Your God pronounced doom on this place.


text:
God came and did what he had warned he'd do because you all sinned against God and wouldn't do what he told you. So now you're all suffering the consequences.


text:
"But today, Jeremiah, I'm setting you free, taking the chains off your hands. If you'd like to come to Babylon with me, come along. I'll take good care of you. But if you don't want to come to Babylon with me, that's just fine, too. Look, the whole land stretches out before you. Do what you like. Go and live wherever you wish.


text:
If you want to stay home, go back to Gedaliah son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan. The king of Babylon made him governor of the cities of Judah. Stay with him and your people. Or go wherever you'd like. It's up to you."<br/>The captain of the bodyguard gave him food for the journey and a parting gift, and sent him off.


text:
Jeremiah went to Gedaliah son of Ahikam at Mizpah and made his home with him and the people who were left behind in the land.


text:
When the army leaders and their men, who had been hiding out in the fields, heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam as governor of the land, putting him in charge of the men, women, and children of the poorest of the poor who hadn't been taken off to exile in Babylon,


text:
they came to Gedaliah at Mizpah: Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan and Jonathan the sons of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth, the sons of Ephai the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah son of the Maacathite, accompanied by their men.


text:
Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, promised them and their men, "You have nothing to fear from the Chaldean officials. Stay here on the land. Be subject to the king of Babylon. You'll get along just fine.


text:
"My job is to stay here in Mizpah and be your advocate before the Chaldeans when they show up. Your job is to take care of the land: Make wine, harvest the summer fruits, press olive oil. Store it all in pottery jugs and settle into the towns that you have taken over."


text:
The Judeans who had escaped to Moab, Ammon, Edom, and other countries heard that the king of Babylon had left a few survivors in Judah and made Gedaliah son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan, governor over them.


text:
They all started coming back to Judah from all the places where they'd been scattered. They came to Judah and to Gedaliah at Mizpah and went to work gathering in a huge supply of wine and summer fruits.


text:
One day Johanan son of Kareah and all the officers of the army who had been hiding out in the backcountry came to Gedaliah at Mizpah


text:
and told him, "You know, don't you, that Baaliss king of Ammon has sent Ishmael son of Nethaniah to kill you?" But Gedaliah son of Ahikam didn't believe them.


text:
Then Johanan son of Kareah took Gedaliah aside privately in Mizpah: "Let me go and kill Ishmael son of Nethaniah. No one needs to know about it. Why should we let him kill you and plunge the land into anarchy? Why let everyone you've taken care of be scattered and what's left of Judah destroyed?"


text:
But Gedaliah son of Ahikam told Johanan son of Kareah, "Don't do it. I forbid it. You're spreading a false rumor about Ishmael."


text:
But in the seventh month, Ishmael son of Nethaniah, son of Elishama, came. He had royal blood in his veins and had been one of the king's high-ranking officers. He paid a visit to Gedaliah son of Ahikam at Mizpah with ten of his men. As they were eating together,


text:
Ishmael and his ten men jumped to their feet and knocked Gedaliah down and killed him, killed the man the king of Babylon had appointed governor of the land.


text:
Ishmael also killed all the Judeans who were with Gedaliah in Mizpah, as well as the Chaldean soldiers who were stationed there.


text:
men arrived from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria, eighty of them, with their beards shaved, their clothing ripped, and gashes on their bodies. They were pilgrims carrying grain offerings and incense on their way to worship at the Temple in Jerusalem.


text:
Ishmael son of Nethaniah went out from Mizpah to welcome them, weeping ostentatiously. When he greeted them he invited them in: "Come and meet Gedaliah son of Ahikam."


text:
But as soon as they were inside the city, Ishmael son of Nethaniah and his henchmen slaughtered the pilgrims and dumped the bodies in a cistern.


text:
Ten of the men talked their way out of the massacre. They bargained with Ishmael, "Don't kill us. We have a hidden store of wheat, barley, olive oil, and honey out in the fields." So he held back and didn't kill them with their fellow pilgrims.


text:
Ishmael's reason for dumping the bodies into a cistern was to cover up the earlier murder of Gedaliah. The cistern had been built by king Asa as a defense against Baasha king of Israel. This was the cistern that Ishmael son of Nethaniah filled with the slaughtered men.


text:
Ishmael then took everyone else in Mizpah, including the king's daughters entrusted to the care of Gedaliah son of Ahikam by Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard, as prisoners. Rounding up the prisoners, Ishmael son of Nethaniah proceeded to take them over into the country of Ammon.


text:
Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers with him heard about the atrocities committed by Ishmael son of Nethaniah.


text:
When all the prisoners from Mizpah who had been taken by Ishmael saw Johanan son of Kareah and the army officers with him, they couldn't believe their eyes. They were so happy!


text:
Then Johanan son of Kareah and the army officers with him gathered together what was left of the people whom Ishmael son of Nethaniah had taken prisoner from Mizpah after the murder of Gedaliah son of Ahikam—men, women, children, eunuchs—and brought them back from Gibeon.


text:
They set out at once for Egypt to get away from the Chaldeans, stopping on the way at Geruth-kimham near Bethlehem.


text:
They were afraid of what the Chaldeans might do in retaliation of Ishmael son of Nethaniah's murder of Gedaliah son of Ahikam, whom the king of Babylon had appointed as governor of the country.


text:
All the army officers, led by Johanan son of Kareah and Jezaniah son of Hoshaiah, accompanied by all the people, small and great,


text:
came to Jeremiah the prophet and said, "We have a request. Please listen. Pray to your God for us, what's left of us. You can see for yourself how few we are!


text:
Jeremiah the prophet said, "I hear your request. And I will pray to your God as you have asked. Whatever God says, I'll pass on to you. I'll tell you everything, holding nothing back."


text:
They said to Jeremiah, "Let God be our witness, a true and faithful witness against us, if we don't do everything that your God directs you to tell us.


text:
Whether we like it or not, we'll do it. We'll obey whatever our God tells us. Yes, count on us. We'll do it."


text:
He called together Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers with him, including all the people, regardless of how much clout they had.


text:
He then spoke: "This is the Message from God, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your prayer.


text:
He says, 'If you are ready to stick it out in this land, I will build you up and not drag you down, I will plant you and not pull you up like a weed. I feel deep compassion on account of the doom I have visited on you.


text:
You don't have to fear the king of Babylon. Your fears are for nothing. I'm on your side, ready to save and deliver you from anything he might do.


text:
I'll pour mercy on you. What's more, he will show you mercy! He'll let you come back to your very own land.'


text:
and saying instead, 'No! We're off to Egypt, where things are peaceful—no wars, no attacking armies, plenty of food. We're going to live there.' If


text:
what's left of Judah is headed down that road, then listen to God's Message. This is what God-of-the-Angel-Armies says: 'If you have determined to go to Egypt and make that your home,


text:
then the very wars you fear will catch up with you in Egypt and the starvation you dread will track you down in Egypt. You'll die there!


text:
Every last one of you who is determined to go to Egypt and make it your home will either be killed, starve, or get sick and die. No survivors, not one! No one will escape the doom that I'll bring upon you.'


text:
"This is the Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel: 'In the same way that I swept the citizens of Jerusalem away with my anger and wrath, I'll do the same thing all over again in Egypt. You'll end up being cursed, reviled, ridiculed, and mocked. And you'll never see your homeland again.


text:
'<br/>"God has plainly told you, you leftovers from Judah, 'Don't go to Egypt.' Could anything be plainer? I warn you this day


text:
that you are living out a fantasy. You're making a fatal mistake.<br/>"Didn't you just now send me to your God, saying, 'Pray for us to our God. Tell us everything that God says and we'll do it all'?


text:
"Well, now I've told you, told you everything he said, and you haven't obeyed a word of it, not a single word of what your God sent me to tell you.


text:
So now let me tell you what will happen next: You'll be killed, you'll starve to death, you'll get sick and die in the wonderful country where you've determined to go and live."


text:
When Jeremiah finished telling all the people the whole Message that their God had sent him to give them—all these words—


text:
Azariah son of Hoshaiah and Johanan son of Kareah, backed by all the self-important men, said to Jeremiah, "Liar! Our God never sent you with this message telling us not to go to Egypt and live there.


text:
Baruch son of Neriah is behind this. He has turned you against us. He's playing into the hands of the Babylonians so we'll either end up being killed or taken off to exile in Babylon."


text:
Johanan son of Kareah and the army officers, and the people along with them, wouldn't listen to God's Message that they stay in the land of Judah and live there.


text:
Johanan son of Kareah and the army officers gathered up everyone who was left from Judah, who had come back after being scattered all over the place—


text:
the men, women, and children, the king's daughters, all the people that Nebuzaradan captain of the bodyguard had left in the care of Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, and last but not least, Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch son of Neriah.


text:
They entered the land of Egypt in total disobedience of God's Message and arrived at the city of Tahpanhes.


text:
"Pick up some large stones and cover them with mortar in the vicinity of the pavement that leads up to the building set aside for Pharaoh's use in Tahpanhes. Make sure some of the men of Judah are watching.


text:
"Then address them: 'This is what God-of-the-Angel-Armies says: Be on the lookout! I'm sending for and bringing Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon—my servant, mind you!—and he'll set up his throne on these very stones that I've had buried here and he'll spread out his canopy over them.


text:
He'll burn down the temples of Egypt's gods. He'll either burn up the gods or haul them off as booty. Like a shepherd who picks lice from his robes, he'll pick Egypt clean. And then he'll walk away without a hand being laid on him.


text:
He'll shatter the sacred obelisks at Egypt's House of the Sun and make a huge bonfire of the temples of Egypt's gods.' "


text:
The Message that Jeremiah received for all the Judeans who lived in the land of Egypt, who had their homes in Migdol, Tahpanhes, Noph, and the land of Pathros:


text:
"This is what God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel, says: 'You saw with your own eyes the terrible doom that I brought down on Jerusalem and the Judean cities. Look at what's left: ghost towns of rubble and smoking ruins,


text:
and all because they took up with evil ways, making me angry by going off to offer sacrifices and worship the latest in gods—no-gods that neither they nor you nor your ancestors knew the first thing about.


text:
Morning after morning and long into the night I kept after you, sending you all those prophets, my servants, begging you, "Please, please—don't do this, don't fool around in this loathsome gutter of gods that I hate with a passion."


text:
But do you think anyone paid the least bit of attention or repented of evil or quit offering sacrifices to the no-gods? Not one.


text:
So I let loose with my anger, a firestorm of wrath in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, and left them in ruins and wasted. And they're still in ruins and wasted.'


text:
"This is the Message of God, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel: 'So why are you ruining your lives by amputating yourselves—man, woman, child, and baby—from the life of Judah, leaving yourselves isolated, unconnected?


text:
And why do you deliberately make me angry by what you do, offering sacrifices to these no-gods in the land of Egypt where you've come to live? You'll only destroy yourselves and make yourselves an example used in curses and an object of ridicule among all the nations of the earth.


text:
" 'Have you so soon forgotten the evil lives of your ancestors, the evil lives of the kings of Judah and their wives, to say nothing of your own evil lives, you and your wives, the evil you flaunted in the land of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem?


text:
And to this day, there's not a trace of remorse, not a sign of reverence, nobody caring about living by what I tell them or following my instructions that I've set out so plainly before you and your parents!


text:
So this is what God-of-the-Angel-Armies decrees:<br/>" 'Watch out! I've decided to bring doom on you and get rid of everyone connected with Judah.


text:
I'm going to take what's left of Judah, those who have decided to go to Egypt and live there, and finish them off. In Egypt they will either be killed or starve to death. The same fate will fall upon both the obscure and the important. Regardless of their status, they will either be killed or starve. You'll end up cursed, reviled, ridiculed, and mocked.


text:
I'll give those who are in Egypt the same medicine I gave those in Jerusalem: massacre, starvation, and disease.


text:
None of those who managed to get out of Judah alive and get away to Egypt are going to make it back to the Judah for which they're so homesick. None will make it back, except maybe a few fugitives.' "


text:
The men who knew that their wives had been burning sacrifices to the no-gods, joined by a large crowd of women, along with virtually everyone living in Pathros of Egypt, answered Jeremiah:


text:
We're going to go right on offering sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, keeping up the traditions set by our ancestors, our kings and government leaders in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem in the good old days. We had a good life then—lots of food, rising standard of living, and no bad luck.


text:
But the moment we quit sacrificing to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out offerings to her, everything fell apart. We've had nothing but massacres and starvation ever since.


text:
"<br/>And then the women chimed in: "Yes! Absolutely! We're going to keep at it, offering sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out offerings to her. Aren't our husbands behind us? They like it that we make goddess cookies and pour out our offerings to her."


text:
Then Jeremiah spoke up, confronting the men and the women, all the people who had answered so insolently. He said,


text:
"The sacrifices that you and your parents, your kings, your government officials, and the common people of the land offered up in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem—don't you think God noticed? He noticed, all right.


text:
And he got fed up. Finally, he couldn't take your evil behavior and your disgusting acts any longer. Your land became a wasteland, a death valley, a horror story, a ghost town. And it continues to be just that.


text:
This doom has come upon you because you kept offering all those sacrifices, and you sinned against God! You refused to listen to him, wouldn't live the way he directed, ignored the covenant conditions."


text:
Jeremiah kept going, but now zeroed in on the women: "Listen, all you who are from Judah and living in Egypt—please, listen to God's Word.


text:
God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel, says: 'You women! You said it and then you did it. You said, "We're going to keep the vows we made to sacrifice to the Queen of Heaven and pour out offerings to her, and nobody's going to stop us!" '<br/>"Well, go ahead. Keep your vows. Do it up big.


text:
But also listen to what God has to say about it, all you who are from Judah but live in Egypt: 'I swear by my great name, backed by everything I am—this is God speaking!—that never again shall my name be used in vows, such as "As sure as the Master, God, lives!" by anyone in the whole country of Egypt.


text:
I've targeted each one of you for doom. The good is gone for good.<br/>" 'All the Judeans in Egypt will die off by massacre or starvation until they're wiped out.


text:
The few who get out of Egypt alive and back to Judah will be very few, hardly worth counting. Then that ragtag bunch that left Judah to live in Egypt will know who had the last word.


text:
" 'And this will be the evidence: I will bring punishment right here, and by this you'll know that the decrees of doom against you are the real thing.


text:
Watch for this sign of doom: I will give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt over to his enemies, those who are out to kill him, exactly as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah to his enemy Nebuchadnezzar, who was after him.


text:
This is what Jeremiah told Baruch one day in the fourth year of Jehoiakim's reign as he was taking dictation from the prophet:


text:
You say, 'These are bad times for me! It's one thing after another. God is piling on the pain. I'm worn out and there's no end in sight.'


text:
"But God says, 'Look around. What I've built I'm about to wreck, and what I've planted I'm about to rip up.


text:
And I'm doing it everywhere—all over the whole earth! So forget about making any big plans for yourself. Things are going to get worse before they get better. But don't worry. I'll keep you alive through the whole business.' "


text:
The Message to Egypt and the army of Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt at the time it was defeated by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon while camped at Carchemish on the Euphrates River in the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah:


text:
Harness the horses!<br/>Up in the saddles!<br/>Battle formation! Helmets on,<br/>spears sharpened, armor in place!'


text:
But what's this I see?<br/>They're scared out of their wits!<br/>They break ranks and run for cover.<br/>Their soldiers panic.<br/>They run this way and that,<br/>stampeding blindly.<br/>It's total chaos, total confusion, danger everywhere!"<br/>God's Decree.


text:
"The swiftest runners won't get away,<br/>the strongest soldiers won't escape.<br/>In the north country, along the River Euphrates,<br/>they'll stagger, stumble, and fall.


text:
Why, it's Egypt like the Nile in flood,<br/>like its streams torrential,<br/>Saying, 'I'll take over the world.<br/>I'll wipe out cities and peoples.'


text:
Run, horses!<br/>Roll, chariots!<br/>Advance, soldiers<br/>from Cush and Put with your shields,<br/>Soldiers from Lud,<br/>experts with bow and arrow.


text:
"But it's not your day. It's the Master's, me, God-of-the-Angel-Armies—<br/>the day when I have it out with my enemies,<br/>The day when Sword puts an end to my enemies,<br/>when Sword exacts vengeance.<br/>I, the Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies,<br/>will pile them on an altar—a huge sacrifice!—<br/>In the great north country,<br/>along the mighty Euphrates.


text:
"Oh, virgin Daughter Egypt,<br/>climb into the mountains of Gilead, get healing balm.<br/>You will vainly collect medicines,<br/>for nothing will be able to cure what ails you.


text:
The whole world will hear your anguished cries.<br/>Your wails fill the earth,<br/>As soldier falls against soldier<br/>and they all go down in a heap."


text:
The Message that God gave to the prophet Jeremiah when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon was on his way to attack Egypt:


text:
"Tell Egypt, alert Migdol,<br/>post warnings in Noph and Tahpanhes:<br/>'Wake up! Be prepared!<br/>War's coming!'


text:
Your ragtag army will fall to pieces.<br/>The word is passing through the ranks,<br/>'Let's get out of here while we still can.<br/>Let's head for home and save our skins.'


text:
As sure as I am the living God"<br/>—the King's Decree, God-of-the-Angel-Armies is his name—<br/>"A conqueror is coming: like Tabor, singular among mountains;<br/>like Carmel, jutting up from the sea!


text:
So pack your bags for exile,<br/>you coddled daughters of Egypt,<br/>For Memphis will soon be nothing,<br/>a vacant lot grown over with weeds.


text:
All her hired soldiers are stationed to defend her—<br/>like well-fed calves they are.<br/>But when their lives are on the line, they'll run off,<br/>cowards every one.<br/>When the going gets tough,<br/>they'll take the easy way out.


text:
"Egypt will slither and hiss like a snake<br/>as the enemy army comes in force.<br/>They will rush in, swinging axes<br/>like lumberjacks cutting down trees.


text:
They'll level the country"—God's Decree—"nothing<br/>and no one standing for as far as you can see.<br/>The invaders will be a swarm of locusts,<br/>innumerable, past counting.


text:
God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel, says, "Watch out when I visit doom on the god Amon of Thebes, Egypt and its gods and kings, Pharaoh and those who trust in him.


text:
I'll turn them over to those who are out to kill them, to Nebuchadnezzar and his military. Egypt will be set back a thousand years. Eventually people will live there again." God's Decree.


text:
"But you, dear Jacob my servant, you have nothing to fear.<br/>Israel, there's no need to worry.<br/>Look up! I'll save you from that far country,<br/>I'll get your children out of the land of exile.<br/>Things are going to be normal again for Jacob,<br/>safe and secure, smooth sailing.


text:
Yes, dear Jacob my servant, you have nothing to fear.<br/>Depend on it, I'm on your side.<br/>I'll finish off all the godless nations<br/>among which I've scattered you,<br/>But I won't finish you off.<br/>I have more work left to do on you.<br/>I'll punish you, but fairly.<br/>No, I'm not finished with you yet."


text:
This is what God says:<br/>"Look out! Water will rise in the north country,<br/>swelling like a river in flood.<br/>The torrent will flood the land,<br/>washing away city and citizen.<br/>Men and women will scream in terror,<br/>wails from every door and window,


text:
As the thunder from the hooves of the horses will be heard,<br/>the clatter of chariots, the banging of wheels.<br/>Fathers, paralyzed by fear,<br/>won't even grab up their babies


text:
Because it will be doomsday for Philistines, one and all,<br/>no hope of help for Tyre and Sidon.<br/>God will finish off the Philistines,<br/>what's left of those from the island of Crete.


text:
Gaza will be shaved bald as an egg,<br/>Ashkelon struck dumb as a post.<br/>You're on your last legs.<br/>How long will you keep flailing?


text:
"Oh, Sword of God,<br/>how long will you keep this up?<br/>Return to your scabbard.<br/>Haven't you had enough? Can't you call it quits?


text:
"But how can it quit<br/>when I, God, command the action?<br/>I've ordered it to cut down<br/>Ashkelon and the seacoast."


text:
The Message on Moab from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel:<br/>"Doom to Nebo! Leveled to the ground!<br/>Kiriathaim demeaned and defeated,<br/>The mighty fortress reduced to a molehill,


text:
Moab's glory—dust and ashes.<br/>Conspirators plot Heshbon's doom:<br/>'Come, let's wipe Moab off the map.'<br/>Dungface Dimon will loudly lament,<br/>as killing follows killing.


text:
Up the ascent of Luhith<br/>climbers weep,<br/>And down the descent from Horonaim,<br/>cries of loss and devastation.


text:
You trusted in thick walls and big money, yes?<br/>But it won't help you now.<br/>Your big god Chemosh will be hauled off,<br/>his priests and managers with him.


text:
A wrecker will wreck every city.<br/>Not a city will survive.<br/>The valley fields will be ruined,<br/>the plateau pastures destroyed, just as I told you.


text:
Cover the land of Moab with salt.<br/>Make sure nothing ever grows here again.<br/>Her towns will all be ghost towns.<br/>Nobody will ever live here again.


text:
"Moab has always taken it easy—<br/>lazy as a dog in the sun,<br/>Never had to work for a living,<br/>never faced any trouble,<br/>Never had to grow up,<br/>never once worked up a sweat.


text:
But those days are a thing of the past.<br/>I'll put him to work at hard labor.<br/>That will wake him up to the world of hard knocks.<br/>That will smash his illusions.


text:
Moab will be as ashamed of god Chemosh<br/>as Israel was ashamed of her Bethel calf-gods,<br/>the calf-gods she thought were so great.


text:
The destruction of Moab has already begun.<br/>Her choice young soldiers are lying dead right now."<br/>The King's Decree—<br/>his full name, God-of-the-Angel-Armies.


text:
Weep for Moab, friends and neighbors,<br/>all who know how famous he's been.<br/>Lament, 'His mighty scepter snapped in two like a toothpick,<br/>that magnificent royal staff!'


text:
"Come down from your high horse, pampered beauty of Dibon.<br/>Sit in dog dung.<br/>The destroyer of Moab will come against you.<br/>He'll wreck your safe, secure houses.


text:
Stand on the roadside,<br/>pampered women of Aroer.<br/>Interview the refugees who are running away.<br/>Ask them, 'What's happened? And why?'


text:
Moab will be an embarrassing memory, nothing left of the place.<br/>Wail and weep your eyes out!<br/>Tell the bad news along the Arnon river.<br/>Tell the world that Moab is no more.


text:
"Turn Moab into a drunken sot, drunk on the wine of my wrath, a dung-faced drunk, filling the country with vomit—Moab a falling-down drunk, a joke in bad taste.


text:
Wasn't it you, Moab, who made crude jokes over Israel? And when they were caught in bad company, didn't you cluck and gossip and snicker?


text:
"Leave town! Leave! Look for a home in the cliffs,<br/>you who grew up in Moab.<br/>Try living like a dove<br/>who nests high in the river gorge.


text:
"We've all heard of Moab's pride,<br/>that legendary pride,<br/>The strutting, bullying, puffed-up pride,<br/>the insufferable arrogance.


text:
I know"—God's Decree—"his rooster-crowing pride,<br/>the inflated claims, the sheer nothingness of Moab.


text:
But I will weep for Moab,<br/>yes, I will mourn for the people of Moab.<br/>I will even mourn for the people of Kir-heres.


text:
I'll weep for the grapevines of Sibmah<br/>and join Jazer in her weeping—<br/>Grapevines that once reached the Dead Sea<br/>with tendrils as far as Jazer.<br/>Your summer fruit and your bursting grapes<br/>will be looted by brutal plunderers,


text:
Lush Moab stripped<br/>of song and laughter.<br/>And yes, I'll shut down the winepresses,<br/>stop all the shouts and hurrahs of harvest.


text:
"Heshbon and Elealeh will cry out, and the people in Jahaz will hear the cries. They will hear them all the way from Zoar to Horonaim and Eglath-shelishiyah. Even the waters of Nimrim will be dried up.


text:
"I will put a stop in Moab"—God's Decree—"to all hiking to the high places to offer burnt sacrifices to the gods.


text:
"My heart moans for Moab, for the men of Kir-heres, like soft flute sounds carried by the wind. They've lost it all. They've got nothing.


text:
"Everywhere you look are signs of mourning:<br/>heads shaved, beards cut,<br/>Hands scratched and bleeding,<br/>clothes ripped and torn.


text:
"In every house in Moab there'll be loud lamentation, on every street in Moab, loud lamentation. As with a pottery jug that no one wants, I'll smash Moab to bits." God's Decree.


text:
"Moab ruined!<br/>Moab shamed and ashamed to be seen!<br/>Moab a cruel joke!<br/>The stark horror of Moab!"


text:
God's verdict on Moab. Indeed!<br/>"Look! An eagle is about to swoop down<br/>and spread its wings over Moab.


text:
The towns will be captured,<br/>the fortresses taken.<br/>Brave warriors will double up in pain, helpless to fight,<br/>like a woman giving birth to a baby.


text:
"A man running in terror<br/>will fall into a trap.<br/>A man climbing out of a pit<br/>will be caught in a trap.<br/>This is my agenda for Moab<br/>on doomsday." God's Decree.


text:
"On the outskirts of Heshbon,<br/>refugees will pull up short, worn out.<br/>Fire will flame high from Heshbon,<br/>a firestorm raging from the capital of Sihon's kingdom.<br/>It will burn off Moab's eyebrows,<br/>will scorch the skull of the braggarts.


text:
That's all for you, Moab!<br/>You worshipers of Chemosh will be finished off!<br/>Your sons will be trucked off to prison camps;<br/>your daughters will be herded into exile.


text:
But yet there's a day that's coming<br/>when I'll put things right in Moab.<br/>"For now, that's the judgment on Moab."


text:
God's Message on the Ammonites:<br/>"Doesn't Israel have any children,<br/>no one to step into her inheritance?<br/>So why is the god Milcom taking over Gad's land,<br/>his followers moving into its towns?


text:
But not for long! The time's coming"<br/>—God's Decree—<br/>"When I'll fill the ears of Rabbah, Ammon's big city,<br/>with battle cries.<br/>She'll end up a pile of rubble,<br/>all her towns burned to the ground.<br/>Then Israel will kick out the invaders.<br/>I, God, say so, and it will be so.


text:
Wail Heshbon, Ai is in ruins.<br/>Villages of Rabbah, wring your hands!<br/>Dress in mourning, weep buckets of tears.<br/>Go into hysterics, run around in circles!<br/>Your god Milcom will be hauled off to exile,<br/>and all his priests and managers right with him.


text:
Why do you brag of your once-famous strength?<br/>You're a broken-down has-been, a castoff<br/>Who fondles his trophies and dreams of glory days<br/>and vainly thinks, 'No one can lay a hand on me.'


text:
Well, think again. I'll face you with terror from all sides."<br/>Word of the Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies.<br/>"You'll be stampeded headlong,<br/>with no one to round up the runaways.


text:
The Message of God-of-the-Angel-Armies on Edom:<br/>"Is there nobody wise left in famous Teman?<br/>no one with a sense of reality?<br/>Has their wisdom gone wormy and rotten?


text:
Run for your lives! Get out while you can!<br/>Find a good place to hide,<br/>you who live in Dedan!<br/>I'm bringing doom to Esau.<br/>It's time to settle accounts.


text:
When harvesters work your fields,<br/>don't they leave gleanings?<br/>When burglars break into your house,<br/>don't they take only what they want?


text:
But I'll strip Esau clean.<br/>I'll search out every nook and cranny.<br/>I'll destroy everything connected with him,<br/>children and relatives and neighbors.<br/>There'll be no one left who will be able to say,


text:
Indeed. God says, "I tell you, if there are people who have to drink the cup of God's wrath even though they don't deserve it, why would you think you'd get off? You won't get off. You'll drink it. Oh yes, you'll drink every drop.


text:
And as for Bozrah, your capital, I swear by all that I am"—God's Decree—"that that city will end up a pile of charred ruins, a stinking garbage dump, an obscenity—and all her daughter-cities with her."


text:
I've just heard the latest from God.<br/>He's sent an envoy to the nations:<br/>"Muster your troops and attack Edom.<br/>Present arms! Go to war!"


text:
You think you're so great—<br/>strutting across the stage of history,<br/>Living high in the impregnable rocks,<br/>acting like king of the mountain.<br/>You think you're above it all, don't you,<br/>like an eagle in its aerie?<br/>Well, you're headed for a fall.<br/>I'll bring you crashing to the ground." God's Decree.


text:
She'll join Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighbors in the sewers of history." God says so.<br/>"No one will live there,<br/>no mortal soul move in there.


text:
"Watch this: Like a lion coming up<br/>from the thick jungle of the Jordan<br/>Looking for prey in the mountain pastures,<br/>I will come upon Edom and pounce.<br/>I'll take my pick of the flock—and who's to stop me?<br/>The shepherds of Edom are helpless before me."


text:
So, listen to this plan that God has worked out against Edom, the blueprint of what he's prepared for those who live in Teman:<br/>"Believe it or not, the young, the vulnerable—<br/>mere lambs and kids—will be dragged off.<br/>Believe it or not, the flock<br/>in shock, helpless to help, will watch it happen.


text:
The very earth will shudder because of their cries,<br/>cries of anguish heard at the distant Red Sea.


text:
Look! An eagle soars, swoops down,<br/>spreads its wings over Bozrah.<br/>Brave warriors will double up in pain, helpless to fight,<br/>like a woman giving birth to a baby."


text:
The Message on Damascus:<br/>"Hamath and Arpad will be in shock<br/>when they hear the bad news.<br/>Their hearts will melt in fear<br/>as they pace back and forth in worry.


text:
The blood will drain from the face of Damascus<br/>as she turns to flee.<br/>Hysterical, she'll fall to pieces,<br/>disabled, like a woman in childbirth.


text:
Her bright young men dead in the streets,<br/>her brave warriors silent as death.<br/>On that day"—Decree of God-of-the-Angel-Armies—


text:
The Message on Kedar and the sheikdoms of Hazor who were attacked by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. This is God's Message:<br/>"On your feet! Attack Kedar!<br/>Plunder the Bedouin nomads from the east.


text:
Grab their blankets and pots and pans.<br/>Steal their camels.<br/>Traumatize them, shouting, 'Terror! Death! Doom!<br/>Danger everywhere!'


text:
Oh, run for your lives,<br/>You nomads from Hazor." God's Decree.<br/>"Find a safe place to hide.<br/>Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon<br/>has plans to wipe you out,<br/>to go after you with a vengeance:


text:
'After them,' he says. 'Go after these relaxed nomads<br/>who live free and easy in the desert,<br/>Who live in the open with no doors to lock,<br/>who live off by themselves.'


text:
Their camels are there for the taking,<br/>their herds and flocks, easy picking.<br/>I'll scatter them to the four winds,<br/>these defenseless nomads on the fringes of the desert.<br/>I'll bring terror from every direction.<br/>They won't know what hit them." God's Decree.


text:
"Jackals will take over the camps of Hazor,<br/>camps abandoned to wind and sand.<br/>No one will live there,<br/>no mortal soul move in there."


text:
This is what God-of-the-Angel-Armies says:<br/>"Watch this! I'll break Elam's bow,<br/>her weapon of choice, across my knee.


text:
Then I'll let four winds loose on Elam,<br/>winds from the four corners of earth.<br/>I'll blow them away in all directions,<br/>landing homeless Elamites in every country on earth.


text:
They'll live in constant fear and terror<br/>among enemies who want to kill them.<br/>I'll bring doom on them,<br/>my anger-fueled doom.<br/>I'll set murderous hounds on their heels<br/>until there's nothing left of them.


text:
"Get the word out to the nations! Preach it!<br/>Go public with this, broadcast it far and wide:<br/>Babylon taken, god-Bel hanging his head in shame,<br/>god-Marduk exposed as a fraud.<br/>All her god-idols shuffling in shame,<br/>all her play-gods exposed as cheap frauds.


text:
For a nation will come out of the north to attack her,<br/>reduce her cities to rubble.<br/>Empty of life—no animals, no people—<br/>not a sound, not a movement, not a breath.


text:
"In those days, at that time"—God's Decree—<br/>"the people of Israel will come,<br/>And the people of Judah with them.<br/>Walking and weeping, they'll seek me, their God.


text:
They'll ask directions to Zion<br/>and set their faces toward Zion.<br/>They'll come and hold tight to God,<br/>bound in a covenant eternal they'll never forget.


text:
"My people were lost sheep.<br/>Their shepherds led them astray.<br/>They abandoned them in the mountains<br/>where they wandered aimless through the hills.<br/>They lost track of home,<br/>couldn't remember where they came from.


text:
Everyone who met them took advantage of them.<br/>Their enemies had no qualms:<br/>'Fair game' they said. 'They walked out on God.<br/>They abandoned the True Pasture, the hope of their parents.'


text:
"But now, get out of Babylon as fast as you can.<br/>Be rid of that Babylonian country.<br/>On your way. Good sheepdogs lead, but don't you be led.<br/>Lead the way home!


text:
Do you see what I'm doing?<br/>I'm rallying a host of nations against Babylon.<br/>They'll come out of the north,<br/>attack and take her.<br/>Oh, they know how to fight, these armies.<br/>They never come home empty-handed.


text:
"You Babylonians had a good time while it lasted, didn't you?<br/>You lived it up, exploiting and using my people,<br/>Frisky calves romping in lush pastures,<br/>wild stallions out having a good time!


text:
Well, your mother would hardly be proud of you.<br/>The woman who bore you wouldn't be pleased.<br/>Look at what's come of you! A nothing nation!<br/>Rubble and garbage and weeds!


text:
Emptied of life by my holy anger,<br/>a desert of death and emptiness.<br/>Travelers who pass by Babylon will gasp, appalled,<br/>shaking their heads at such a comedown.


text:
Gang up on Babylon! Pin her down!<br/>Throw everything you have against her.<br/>Hold nothing back. Knock her flat.<br/>She's sinned—oh, how she's sinned, against me!


text:
Shout battle cries from every direction.<br/>All the fight has gone out of her.<br/>Her defenses have been flattened,<br/>her walls smashed.<br/>'Operation God's Vengeance.'<br/>Pile on the vengeance!<br/>Do to her as she has done.<br/>Give her a good dose of her own medicine!


text:
Destroy her farms and farmers,<br/>ravage her fields, empty her barns.<br/>And you captives, while the destruction rages,<br/>get out while the getting's good,<br/>get out fast and run for home.


text:
"Israel is a scattered flock,<br/>hunted down by lions.<br/>The king of Assyria started the carnage.<br/>The king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar,<br/>Has completed the job,<br/>gnawing the bones clean."


text:
And now this is what God-of-the-Angel-Armies,<br/>the God of Israel, has to say:<br/>"Just watch! I'm bringing doom on the king of Babylon and his land,<br/>the same doom I brought on the king of Assyria.


text:
But Israel I'll bring home to good pastures.<br/>He'll graze on the hills of Carmel and Bashan,<br/>On the slopes of Ephraim and Gilead.<br/>He will eat to his heart's content.


text:
In those days and at that time"—God's Decree—<br/>"they'll look high and low for a sign of Israel's guilt—nothing;<br/>Search nook and cranny for a trace of Judah's sin—nothing.<br/>These people that I've saved will start out with a clean slate.


text:
"Attack Merathaim, land of rebels!<br/>Go after Pekod, country of doom!<br/>Hunt them down. Make a clean sweep." God's Decree.<br/>"These are my orders. Do what I tell you.


text:
The Hammer has been hammered,<br/>smashed and splintered,<br/>Babylon pummeled<br/>beyond recognition.


text:
I set out a trap and you were caught in it.<br/>O Babylon, you never knew what hit you,<br/>Caught and held in the steel grip of that trap!<br/>That's what you get for taking on God.


text:
"I, God, opened my arsenal.<br/>I brought out my weapons of wrath.<br/>The Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies,<br/>has a job to do in Babylon.


text:
Come at her from all sides!<br/>Break into her granaries!<br/>Shovel her into piles and burn her up.<br/>Leave nothing! Leave no one!


text:
Kill all her young turks.<br/>Send them to their doom!<br/>Doom to them! Yes, Doomsday!<br/>The clock has finally run out on them.


text:
And here's a surprise:<br/>Runaways and escapees from Babylon<br/>Show up in Zion reporting the news of God's vengeance,<br/>taking vengeance for my own Temple.


text:
"Call in the troops against Babylon,<br/>anyone who can shoot straight!<br/>Tighten the noose!<br/>Leave no loopholes!<br/>Give her back as good as she gave,<br/>a dose of her own medicine!<br/>Her brazen insolence is an outrage<br/>against God, The Holy of Israel.


text:
And now she pays: her young strewn dead in the streets,<br/>her soldiers dead, silent forever." God's Decree.


text:
"Do you get it, Mister Pride? I'm your enemy!"<br/>Decree of the Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies.<br/>"Time's run out on you:<br/>That's right: It's Doomsday.


text:
Mister Pride will fall flat on his face.<br/>No one will offer him a hand.<br/>I'll set his towns on fire.<br/>The fire will spread wild through the country."


text:
And here's more from God-of-the-Angel-Armies:<br/>"The people of Israel are beaten down,<br/>the people of Judah along with them.<br/>Their oppressors have them in a grip of steel.<br/>They won't let go.


text:
But the Rescuer is strong:<br/>God-of-the-Angel-Armies.<br/>Yes, I will take their side,<br/>I'll come to their rescue.<br/>I'll soothe their land,<br/>but rough up the people of Babylon.


text:
War to the death on her boasting pretenders, fools one and all!<br/>War to the death on her soldiers, cowards to a man!


text:
War to the death on her water supply—drained dry!<br/>A land of make-believe gods gone crazy—hobgoblins!


text:
The place will be haunted with jackals and scorpions,<br/>night-owls and vampire bats.<br/>No one will ever live there again.<br/>The land will reek with the stench of death.


text:
It will join Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighbors,<br/>the cities I did away with." God's Decree.<br/>"No one will live there again.<br/>No one will again draw breath in that land, ever.


text:
"And now, watch this! People pouring<br/>out of the north, hordes of people,<br/>A mob of kings stirred up<br/>from far-off places.


text:
Flourishing deadly weapons,<br/>barbarians they are, cruel and pitiless.<br/>Roaring and relentless, like ocean breakers,<br/>they come riding fierce stallions,<br/>In battle formation, ready to fight<br/>you, Daughter Babylon!


text:
Babylon's king hears them coming.<br/>He goes white as a ghost, limp as a dishrag.<br/>Terror-stricken, he doubles up in pain, helpless to fight,<br/>like a woman giving birth to a baby.


text:
"And now watch this: Like a lion coming up<br/>from the thick jungle of the Jordan,<br/>Looking for prey in the mountain pastures,<br/>I'll take over and pounce.<br/>I'll take my pick of the flock—and who's to stop me?<br/>All the so-called shepherds are helpless before me."


text:
So, listen to this plan that God has worked out against Babylon, the blueprint of what he's prepared for dealing with Chaldea:<br/>Believe it or not, the young,<br/>the vulnerable—mere lambs and kids—will be dragged off.<br/>Believe it or not, the flock<br/>in shock, helpless to help, watches it happen.


text:
When the shout goes up, "Babylon's down!"<br/>the very earth will shudder at the sound.<br/>The news will be heard all over the world.


text:
There's more. God says more:<br/>"Watch this:<br/>I'm whipping up<br/>A death-dealing hurricane against Babylon—'Hurricane Persia'—<br/>against all who live in that perverse land.


text:
I'm sending a cleanup crew into Babylon.<br/>They'll clean the place out from top to bottom.<br/>When they get through there'll be nothing left of her<br/>worth taking or talking about.<br/>They won't miss a thing.<br/>A total and final Doomsday!


text:
Fighters will fight with everything they've got.<br/>It's no holds barred.<br/>They will spare nothing and no one.<br/>It's final and wholesale destruction—the end!


text:
It turns out that Israel and Judah<br/>are not widowed after all.<br/>As their God, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, I am still alive and well,<br/>committed to them even though<br/>They filled their land with sin<br/>against Israel's most Holy God.


text:
"Get out of Babylon as fast as you can.<br/>Run for your lives! Save your necks!<br/>Don't linger and lose your lives to my vengeance on her<br/>as I pay her back for her sins.


text:
Babylon was a fancy gold chalice<br/>held in my hand,<br/>Filled with the wine of my anger<br/>to make the whole world drunk.<br/>The nations drank the wine<br/>and they've all gone crazy.


text:
Babylon herself will stagger and crash,<br/>senseless in a drunken stupor—tragic!<br/>Get anointing balm for her wound.<br/>Maybe she can be cured."


text:
"We did our best, but she can't be helped.<br/>Babylon is past fixing.<br/>Give her up to her fate.<br/>Go home.<br/>The judgment on her will be vast,<br/>a skyscraper-memorial of vengeance.


text:
"God has set everything right for us.<br/>Come! Let's tell the good news<br/>Back home in Zion.<br/>Let's tell what our God did to set things right.


text:
"Sharpen the arrows!<br/>Fill the quivers!<br/>God has stirred up the kings of the Medes,<br/>infecting them with war fever: 'Destroy Babylon!'<br/>God's on the warpath.<br/>He's out to avenge his Temple.


text:
Give the signal to attack Babylon's walls.<br/>Station guards around the clock.<br/>Bring in reinforcements.<br/>Set men in ambush.<br/>God will do what he planned,<br/>what he said he'd do to the people of Babylon.


text:
You have more water than you need,<br/>you have more money than you need—<br/>But your life is over,<br/>your lifeline cut."


text:
God-of-the-Angel-Armies has solemnly sworn:<br/>"I'll fill this place with soldiers.<br/>They'll swarm through here like locusts<br/>chanting victory songs over you."


text:
He thunders and rain pours down.<br/>He sends the clouds soaring.<br/>He embellishes the storm with lightnings,<br/>launches the wind from his warehouse.


text:
Stick-god worshipers look mighty foolish!<br/>god-makers embarrassed by their handmade gods!<br/>Their gods are frauds, dead sticks—<br/>deadwood gods, tasteless jokes.


text:
But the Portion-of-Jacob is the real thing;<br/>he put the whole universe together,<br/>With special attention to Israel.<br/>His name? God-of-the-Angel-Armies!


text:
God says, "You, Babylon, are my hammer,<br/>my weapon of war.<br/>I'll use you to smash godless nations,<br/>use you to knock kingdoms to bits.


text:
I'll use you to smash man and woman,<br/>use you to smash the old man and the boy.<br/>I'll use you to smash the young man and young woman,


text:
use you to smash shepherd and sheep.<br/>I'll use you to smash farmer and yoked oxen,<br/>use you to smash governors and senators.


text:
"Judeans, you'll see it with your own eyes. I'll pay Babylon and all the Chaldeans back for all the evil they did in Zion." God's Decree.


text:
"I'm your enemy, Babylon, Mount Destroyer,<br/>you ravager of the whole earth.<br/>I'll reach out, I'll take you in my hand,<br/>and I'll crush you till there's no mountain left.<br/>I'll turn you into a gravel pit—


text:
no more cornerstones cut from you,<br/>No more foundation stones quarried from you!<br/>Nothing left of you but gravel." God's Decree.


text:
"Raise the signal in the land,<br/>blow the shofar-trumpet for the nations.<br/>Consecrate the nations for holy work against her.<br/>Call kingdoms into service against her.<br/>Enlist Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz.<br/>Appoint a field marshal against her,<br/>and round up horses, locust hordes of horses!


text:
Consecrate the nations for holy work against her—<br/>the king of the Medes, his leaders and people.


text:
"The very land trembles in terror, writhes in pain,<br/>terrorized by my plans against Babylon,<br/>Plans to turn the country of Babylon<br/>into a lifeless moonscape—a wasteland.


text:
Babylon's soldiers have quit fighting.<br/>They hide out in ruins and caves—<br/>Cowards who've given up without a fight,<br/>exposed as cowering milksops.<br/>Babylon's houses are going up in flames,<br/>the city gates torn off their hinges.


text:
Runner after runner comes racing in,<br/>each on the heels of the last,<br/>Bringing reports to the king of Babylon<br/>that his city is a lost cause.


text:
The fords of the rivers are all taken.<br/>Wildfire rages through the swamp grass.<br/>Soldiers desert left and right.


text:
I, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, said it would happen:<br/>'Daughter Babylon is a threshing floor<br/>at threshing time.<br/>Soon, oh very soon, her harvest will come<br/>and then the chaff will fly!'


text:
"Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon<br/>chewed up my people and spit out the bones.<br/>He wiped his dish clean, pushed back his chair,<br/>and belched—a huge gluttonous belch.


text:
Lady Zion says,<br/>'The brutality done to me be done to Babylon!'<br/>And Jerusalem says,<br/>'The blood spilled from me be charged to the Chaldeans!'


text:
Then I, God, step in and say,<br/>'I'm on your side, taking up your cause.<br/>I'm your Avenger. You'll get your revenge.<br/>I'll dry up her rivers, plug up her springs.


text:
Babylon will be a pile of rubble,<br/>scavenged by stray dogs and cats,<br/>A dumping ground for garbage,<br/>a godforsaken ghost town.'


text:
I'll fix them a meal, all right—a banquet, in fact.<br/>They'll drink themselves falling-down drunk.<br/>Dead drunk, they'll sleep—and sleep, and sleep...<br/>and they'll never wake up." God's Decree.


text:
"I'll haul these 'lions' off to the slaughterhouse<br/>like the lambs, rams, and goats,<br/>never to be heard of again.


text:
"Babylon is finished—<br/>the pride of the whole earth is flat on her face.<br/>What a comedown for Babylon,<br/>to end up inglorious in the sewer!


text:
Her towns stink with decay and rot,<br/>the land empty and bare and sterile.<br/>No one lives in these towns anymore.<br/>Travelers give them a wide berth.


text:
I'll bring doom on the glutton god-Bel in Babylon.<br/>I'll make him vomit up all he gulped down.<br/>No more visitors stream into this place,<br/>admiring and gawking at the wonders of Babylon.<br/>The wonders of Babylon are no more.


text:
Run for your lives, my dear people!<br/>Run, and don't look back!<br/>Get out of this place while you can,<br/>this place torched by God's raging anger.


text:
Don't lose hope. Don't ever give up<br/>when the rumors pour in hot and heavy.<br/>One year it's this, the next year it's that—<br/>rumors of violence, rumors of war.


text:
Trust me, the time is coming<br/>when I'll put the no-gods of Babylon in their place.<br/>I'll show up the whole country as a sickening fraud,<br/>with dead bodies strewn all over the place.


text:
Heaven and earth, angels and people,<br/>will throw a victory party over Babylon<br/>When the avenging armies from the north<br/>descend on her." God's Decree!


text:
"Babylon must fall—<br/>compensation for the war dead in Israel.<br/>Babylonians will be killed<br/>because of all that Babylonian killing.


text:
But you exiles who have escaped a Babylonian death,<br/>get out! And fast!<br/>Remember God in your long and distant exile.<br/>Keep Jerusalem alive in your memory."


text:
How we've been humiliated, taunted and abused,<br/>kicked around for so long that we hardly know who we are!<br/>And we hardly know what to think—<br/>our old Sanctuary, God's house, desecrated by strangers.


text:
"I know, but trust me: The time is coming"<br/>—God's Decree—<br/>"When I will bring doom on her no-god idols,<br/>and all over this land her wounded will groan.


text:
Even if Babylon climbed a ladder to the moon<br/>and pulled up the ladder so that no one could get to her,<br/>That wouldn't stop me.<br/>I'd make sure my avengers would reach her."<br/>God's Decree.


text:
God is taking his wrecking bar to Babylon.<br/>We'll be hearing the last of her noise—<br/>Death throes like the crashing of waves,<br/>death rattles like the roar of cataracts.


text:
The avenging destroyer is about to enter Babylon:<br/>Her soldiers are taken, her weapons are trashed.<br/>Indeed, God is a God who evens things out.<br/>All end up with their just deserts.


text:
"I'll get them drunk, the whole lot of them—<br/>princes, sages, governors, soldiers.<br/>Dead drunk, they'll sleep—and sleep and sleep...<br/>and never wake up." The King's Decree.<br/>His name? God-of-the-Angel-Armies!


text:
God-of-the-Angel-Armies speaks:<br/>"The city walls of Babylon—those massive walls!—<br/>will be flattened.<br/>And those city gates—huge gates!—<br/>will be set on fire.<br/>The harder you work at this empty life,<br/>the less you are.<br/>Nothing comes of ambition like this<br/>but ashes."


text:
Jeremiah the prophet gave a job to Seraiah son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, when Seraiah went with Zedekiah king of Judah to Babylon. It was in the fourth year of Zedekiah's reign. Seraiah was in charge of travel arrangements.


text:
Read, 'You, O God, said that you would destroy this place so that nothing could live here, neither human nor animal—a wasteland to top all wastelands, an eternal nothing.'


text:
"When you've finished reading the page, tie a stone to it, throw it into the River Euphrates, and watch it sink.


text:
Then say, 'That's how Babylon will sink to the bottom and stay there after the disaster I'm going to bring upon her.' "


text:
Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he started out as king. He was king in Jerusalem for eleven years. His mother's name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah. Her hometown was Libnah.


text:
The source of all this doom to Jerusalem and Judah was God's anger. God turned his back on them as an act of judgment.<br/>Zedekiah revolted against the king of Babylon.


text:
Nebuchadnezzar set out for Jerusalem with a full army. He set up camp and sealed off the city by building siege mounds around it.


text:
He arrived on the ninth year and tenth month of Zedekiah's reign. The city was under siege for nineteen months (until the eleventh year of Zedekiah).


text:
Then the Babylonians broke through the city walls. Under cover of the night darkness, the entire Judean army fled through an opening in the wall (it was the gate between the two walls above the King's Garden). They slipped through the lines of the Babylonians who surrounded the city and headed for the Jordan into the Arabah Valley,


text:
but the Babylonians were in full pursuit. They caught up with them in the Plains of Jericho. But by then Zedekiah's army had deserted and was scattered.


text:
The Babylonians captured Zedekiah and marched him off to the king of Babylon at Riblah in Hamath, who tried and sentenced him on the spot.


text:
The king of Babylon then killed Zedekiah's sons right before his eyes. The summary murder of his sons was the last thing Zedekiah saw, for they then blinded him. The king of Babylon followed that up by killing all the officials of Judah.


text:
Securely handcuffed, Zedekiah was hauled off to Babylon. The king of Babylon threw him in prison, where he stayed until the day he died.


text:
In the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon on the seventh day of the fifth month, Nebuzaradan, the king of Babylon's chief deputy, arrived in Jerusalem.


text:
He burned the Temple of God to the ground, went on to the royal palace, and then finished off the city. He burned the whole place down.


text:
The Babylonians broke up the bronze pillars, the bronze washstands, and the huge bronze basin (the Sea) that were in the Temple of God, and hauled the bronze off to Babylon.


text:
They also took the various bronze-crafted liturgical accessories, as well as the gold and silver censers and sprinkling bowls, used in the services of Temple worship.


text:
The amount of bronze they got from the two pillars, the Sea, the twelve bronze bulls that supported the Sea, and the ten washstands that Solomon had made for the Temple of God was enormous. They couldn't weigh it all!


text:
Each pillar stood twenty-seven feet high with a circumference of eighteen feet. The pillars were hollow, the bronze a little less than an inch thick.


text:
Each pillar was topped with an ornate capital of bronze pomegranates and filigree, which added another seven and a half feet to its height.


text:
There were ninety-six pomegranates evenly spaced—in all, a hundred pomegranates worked into the filigree.


text:
the chief remaining army officer, seven of the king's counselors who happened to be in the city, the chief recruiting officer for the army, and sixty men of standing from among the people who were still there.


text:
745 men from Judah were taken off by Nebuzaradan, the king's chief deputy, in Nebuchadnezzar's twenty-third year.<br/>The total number of exiles was 4,600.


text:
When Jehoiachin king of Judah had been in exile for thirty-seven years, Evil-Merodach became king in Babylon and let Jehoiachin out of prison. This release took place on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month.


text:
The king treated him most courteously and gave him preferential treatment beyond anything experienced by the political prisoners held in Babylon.


text:
Oh, oh, oh...<br/>How empty the city, once teeming with people.<br/>A widow, this city, once in the front rank of nations,<br/>once queen of the ball, she's now a drudge in the kitchen.


text:
She cries herself to sleep each night, tears soaking her pillow.<br/>No one's left among her lovers to sit and hold her hand.<br/>Her friends have all dumped her.


text:
After years of pain and hard labor, Judah has gone into exile.<br/>She camps out among the nations, never feels at home.<br/>Hunted by all, she's stuck between a rock and a hard place.


text:
Zion's roads weep, empty of pilgrims headed to the feasts.<br/>All her city gates are deserted, her priests in despair.<br/>Her virgins are sad. How bitter her fate.


text:
Her enemies have become her masters. Her foes are living it up<br/>because God laid her low, punishing her repeated rebellions.<br/>Her children, prisoners of the enemy, trudge into exile.


text:
All beauty has drained from Daughter Zion's face.<br/>Her princes are like deer famished for food,<br/>chased to exhaustion by hunters.


text:
Jerusalem remembers the day she lost everything,<br/>when her people fell into enemy hands, and not a soul there to help.<br/>Enemies looked on and laughed, laughed at her helpless silence.


text:
Jerusalem, who outsinned the whole world, is an outcast.<br/>All who admired her despise her now that they see beneath the surface.<br/>Miserable, she groans and turns away in shame.


text:
She played fast and loose with life, she never considered tomorrow,<br/>and now she's crashed royally, with no one to hold her hand:<br/>"Look at my pain, O God! And how the enemy cruelly struts."


text:
The enemy reached out to take all her favorite things. She watched<br/>as pagans barged into her Sanctuary, those very people for whom<br/>you posted orders: keep out: this assembly off-limits.


text:
All the people groaned, so desperate for food, so desperate to stay alive<br/>that they bartered their favorite things for a bit of breakfast:<br/>"O God, look at me! Worthless, cheap, abject!


text:
"And you passersby, look at me! Have you ever seen anything like this?<br/>Ever seen pain like my pain, seen what he did to me,<br/>what God did to me in his rage?


text:
"He struck me with lightning, skewered me from head to foot,<br/>then he set traps all around so I could hardly move.<br/>He left me with nothing—left me sick, and sick of living.


text:
"He wove my sins into a rope<br/>and harnessed me to captivity's yoke.<br/>I'm goaded by cruel taskmasters.


text:
"The Master piled up my best soldiers in a heap,<br/>then called in thugs to break their fine young necks.<br/>The Master crushed the life out of fair virgin Judah.


text:
"For all this I weep, weep buckets of tears,<br/>and not a soul within miles around cares for my soul.<br/>My children are wasted, my enemy got his way."


text:
Zion reached out for help, but no one helped.<br/>God ordered Jacob's enemies to surround him,<br/>and now no one wants anything to do with Jerusalem.


text:
"God has right on his side. I'm the one who did wrong.<br/>Listen everybody! Look at what I'm going through!<br/>My fair young women, my fine young men, all herded into exile!


text:
"I called to my friends; they betrayed me.<br/>My priests and my leaders only looked after themselves,<br/>trying but failing to save their own skins.


text:
"O God, look at the trouble I'm in! My stomach in knots,<br/>my heart wrecked by a life of rebellion.<br/>Massacres in the streets, starvation in the houses.


text:
"Oh, listen to my groans. No one listens, no one cares.<br/>When my enemies heard of the trouble you gave me, they cheered.<br/>Bring on Judgment Day! Let them get what I got!


text:
"Take a good look at their evil ways and give it to them!<br/>Give them what you gave me for my sins.<br/>Groaning in pain, body and soul, I've had all I can take."


text:
Oh, oh, oh...<br/>How the Master has cut down Daughter Zion<br/>from the skies, dashed Israel's glorious city to earth,<br/>in his anger treated his favorite as throwaway junk.


text:
The Master, without a second thought, took Israel in one gulp.<br/>Raging, he smashed Judah's defenses,<br/>made hash of her king and princes.


text:
His anger blazing, he knocked Israel flat,<br/>broke Israel's arm and turned his back just as the enemy approached,<br/>came on Jacob like a wildfire from every direction.


text:
Like an enemy, he aimed his bow, bared his sword,<br/>and killed our young men, our pride and joy.<br/>His anger, like fire, burned down the homes in Zion.


text:
The Master became the enemy. He had Israel for supper.<br/>He chewed up and spit out all the defenses.<br/>He left Daughter Judah moaning and groaning.


text:
He plowed up his old trysting place, trashed his favorite rendezvous.<br/>God wiped out Zion's memories of feast days and Sabbaths,<br/>angrily sacked king and priest alike.


text:
God abandoned his altar, walked away from his holy Temple<br/>and turned the fortifications over to the enemy.<br/>As they cheered in God's Temple, you'd have thought it was a feast day!


text:
God drew up plans to tear down the walls of Daughter Zion.<br/>He assembled his crew, set to work and went at it.<br/>Total demolition! The stones wept!


text:
Her city gates, iron bars and all, disappeared in the rubble:<br/>her kings and princes off to exile—no one left to instruct or lead;<br/>her prophets useless—they neither saw nor heard anything from God.


text:
The elders of Daughter Zion sit silent on the ground.<br/>They throw dust on their heads, dress in rough penitential burlap—<br/>the young virgins of Jerusalem, their faces creased with the dirt.


text:
My eyes are blind with tears, my stomach in a knot.<br/>My insides have turned to jelly over my people's fate.<br/>Babies and children are fainting all over the place,


text:
Calling to their mothers, "I'm hungry! I'm thirsty!"<br/>then fainting like dying soldiers in the streets,<br/>breathing their last in their mothers' laps.


text:
How can I understand your plight, dear Jerusalem?<br/>What can I say to give you comfort, dear Zion?<br/>Who can put you together again? This bust-up is past understanding.


text:
Your prophets courted you with sweet talk.<br/>They didn't face you with your sin so that you could repent.<br/>Their sermons were all wishful thinking, deceptive illusions.


text:
Astonished, passersby can't believe what they see.<br/>They rub their eyes, they shake their heads over Jerusalem.<br/>Is this the city voted "Most Beautiful" and "Best Place to Live"?


text:
But now your enemies gape, slack-jawed.<br/>Then they rub their hands in glee: "We've got them!<br/>We've been waiting for this! Here it is!"


text:
God did carry out, item by item, exactly what he said he'd do.<br/>He always said he'd do this. Now he's done it—torn the place down.<br/>He's let your enemies walk all over you, declared them world champions!


text:
Give out heart-cries to the Master, dear repentant Zion.<br/>Let the tears roll like a river, day and night,<br/>and keep at it—no time-outs. Keep those tears flowing!


text:
As each night watch begins, get up and cry out in prayer.<br/>Pour your heart out face to face with the Master.<br/>Lift high your hands. Beg for the lives of your children<br/>who are starving to death out on the streets.


text:
"Look at us, God. Think it over. Have you ever treated anyone like this?<br/>Should women eat their own babies, the very children they raised?<br/>Should priests and prophets be murdered in the Master's own Sanctuary?


text:
"Boys and old men lie in the gutters of the streets,<br/>my young men and women killed in their prime.<br/>Angry, you killed them in cold blood, cut them down without mercy.


text:
"You invited, like friends to a party, men to swoop down in attack<br/>so that on the big day of God's wrath no one would get away.<br/>The children I loved and reared—gone, gone, gone."


text:
He knocked me from the path and ripped me to pieces.<br/>When he finished, there was nothing left of me.


text:
I'll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness,<br/>the taste of ashes, the poison I've swallowed.


text:
"You lost your temper with us, holding nothing back.<br/>You chased us and cut us down without mercy.


text:
They never quit, these enemies of mine, dreaming up mischief,<br/>hatching out malice, day after day after day.


text:
Oh, oh, oh...<br/>How gold is treated like dirt,<br/>the finest gold thrown out with the garbage,<br/>Priceless jewels scattered all over,<br/>jewels loose in the gutters.


text:
And the people of Zion, once prized,<br/>far surpassing their weight in gold,<br/>Are now treated like cheap pottery,<br/>like everyday pots and bowls mass-produced by a potter.


text:
Even wild jackals nurture their babies,<br/>give them their breasts to suckle.<br/>But my people have turned cruel to their babies,<br/>like an ostrich in the wilderness.


text:
Babies have nothing to drink.<br/>Their tongues stick to the roofs of their mouths.<br/>Little children ask for bread<br/>but no one gives them so much as a crust.


text:
People used to the finest cuisine<br/>forage for food in the streets.<br/>People used to the latest in fashions<br/>pick through the trash for something to wear.


text:
The evil guilt of my dear people<br/>was worse than the sin of Sodom—<br/>The city was destroyed in a flash,<br/>and no one around to help.


text:
The splendid and sacred nobles<br/>once glowed with health.<br/>Their bodies were robust and ruddy,<br/>their beards like carved stone.


text:
But now they are smeared with soot,<br/>unrecognizable in the street,<br/>Their bones sticking out,<br/>their skin dried out like old leather.


text:
Better to have been killed in battle<br/>than killed by starvation.<br/>Better to have died of battle wounds<br/>than to slowly starve to death.


text:
Nice and kindly women<br/>boiled their own children for supper.<br/>This was the only food in town<br/>when my dear people were broken.


text:
God let all his anger loose, held nothing back.<br/>He poured out his raging wrath.<br/>He set a fire in Zion<br/>that burned it to the ground.


text:
The kings of the earth couldn't believe it.<br/>World rulers were in shock,<br/>Watching old enemies march in big as you please,<br/>right through Jerusalem's gates.


text:
Because of the sins of her prophets<br/>and the evil of her priests,<br/>Who exploited good and trusting people,<br/>robbing them of their lives,


text:
These prophets and priests blindly grope their way through the streets,<br/>grimy and stained from their dirty lives,<br/>Wasted by their wasted lives,<br/>shuffling from fatigue, dressed in rags.


text:
People yell at them, "Get out of here, dirty old men!<br/>Get lost, don't touch us, don't infect us!"<br/>They have to leave town. They wander off.<br/>Nobody wants them to stay here.<br/>Everyone knows, wherever they wander,<br/>that they've been kicked out of their own hometown.


text:
God himself scattered them.<br/>No longer does he look out for them.<br/>He has nothing to do with the priests;<br/>he cares nothing for the elders.


text:
We watched and watched,<br/>wore our eyes out looking for help. And nothing.<br/>We mounted our lookouts and looked<br/>for the help that never showed up.


text:
They tracked us down, those hunters.<br/>It wasn't safe to go out in the street.<br/>Our end was near, our days numbered.<br/>We were doomed.


text:
They came after us faster than eagles in flight,<br/>pressed us hard in the mountains, ambushed us in the desert.


text:
Our king, our life's breath, the anointed of God,<br/>was caught in their traps—<br/>Our king under whose protection<br/>we always said we'd live.


text:
Celebrate while you can, O Edom!<br/>Live it up in Uz!<br/>For it won't be long before you drink this cup, too.<br/>You'll find out what it's like to drink God's wrath,<br/>Get drunk on God's wrath<br/>and wake up with nothing, stripped naked.


text:
And that's it for you, Zion. The punishment's complete.<br/>You won't have to go through this exile again.<br/>But Edom, your time is coming:<br/>He'll punish your evil life, put all your sins on display.


text:
When I was thirty years of age, I was living with the exiles on the Kebar River. On the fifth day of the fourth month, the sky opened up and I saw visions of God.


text:
that God's Word came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, on the banks of the Kebar River in the country of Babylon. God's hand came upon him that day.)


text:
I looked: I saw an immense dust storm come from the north, an immense cloud with lightning flashing from it, a huge ball of fire glowing like bronze.


text:
Within the fire were what looked like four creatures vibrant with life. Each had the form of a human being,


text:
Their legs were as sturdy and straight as columns, but their feet were hoofed like those of a calf and sparkled from the fire like burnished bronze.


text:
with the wings touching one another. They turned neither one way nor the other; they went straight forward.


text:
Their faces looked like this: In front a human face, on the right side the face of a lion, on the left the face of an ox, and in back the face of an eagle.


text:
So much for the faces. The wings were spread out with the tips of one pair touching the creature on either side; the other pair of wings covered its body.


text:
Each creature went straight ahead. Wherever the spirit went, they went. They didn't turn as they went.


text:
The four creatures looked like a blazing fire, or like fiery torches. Tongues of fire shot back and forth between the creatures, and out of the fire, bolts of lightning.


text:
As I watched the four creatures, I saw something that looked like a wheel on the ground beside each of the four-faced creatures.


text:
This is what the wheels looked like: They were identical wheels, sparkling like diamonds in the sun. It looked like they were wheels within wheels, like a gyroscope.


text:
When the living creatures went, the wheels went; when the living creatures lifted off, the wheels lifted off.


text:
Wherever the spirit went, they went, the wheels sticking right with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.


text:
When the creatures went, the wheels went; when the creatures stopped, the wheels stopped; when the creatures lifted off, the wheels lifted off, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.


text:
Over the heads of the living creatures was something like a dome, shimmering like a sky full of cut glass, vaulted over their heads.


text:
Under the dome one set of wings was extended toward the others, with another set of wings covering their bodies.


text:
When they moved I heard their wings—it was like the roar of a great waterfall, like the voice of The Strong God, like the noise of a battlefield. When they stopped, they folded their wings.


text:
Above the dome there was something that looked like a throne, sky-blue like a sapphire, with a humanlike figure towering above the throne.


text:
From what I could see, from the waist up he looked like burnished bronze and from the waist down like a blazing fire. Brightness everywhere!


text:
The way a rainbow springs out of the sky on a rainy day—that's what it was like. It turned out to be the Glory of God!<br/>When I saw all this, I fell to my knees, my face to the ground. Then I heard a voice.


text:
The moment I heard the voice, the Spirit entered me and put me on my feet. As he spoke to me, I listened.


text:
He said, "Son of man, I'm sending you to the family of Israel, a rebellious nation if there ever was one. They and their ancestors have fomented rebellion right up to the present.


text:
They're a hard case, these people to whom I'm sending you—hardened in their sin. Tell them, 'This is the Message of God, the Master.'


text:
They are a defiant bunch. Whether or not they listen, at least they'll know that a prophet's been here.


text:
But don't be afraid of them, son of man, and don't be afraid of anything they say. Don't be afraid when living among them is like stepping on thorns or finding scorpions in your bed. Don't be afraid of their mean words or their hard looks. They're a bunch of rebels.


text:
"Only take care, son of man, that you don't rebel like these rebels. Open your mouth and eat what I give you."


text:
He unrolled the scroll. On both sides, front and back, were written lamentations and mourning and doom.


text:
He told me, "Son of man, eat what you see. Eat this book. Then go and speak to the family of Israel."


text:
saying, "Son of man, eat this book that I am giving you. Make a full meal of it!"<br/>So I ate it. It tasted so good—just like honey.


text:
Look, I'm not sending you to a people who speak a hard-to-learn language with words you can hardly pronounce.


text:
If I had sent you to such people, their ears would have perked up and they would have listened immediately.


text:
"But it won't work that way with the family of Israel. They won't listen to you because they won't listen to me. They are, as I said, a hard case, hardened in their sin.


text:
I'll make your face as hard as rock, harder than granite. Don't let them intimidate you. Don't be afraid of them, even though they're a bunch of rebels."


text:
Then he said, "Son of man, get all these words that I'm giving you inside you. Listen to them obediently. Make them your own.


text:
And now go. Go to the exiles, your people, and speak. Tell them, 'This is the Message of God, the Master.' Speak your piece, whether they listen or not."


text:
Then the Spirit picked me up. Behind me I heard a great commotion—"Blessed be the Glory of God in his Sanctuary!"


text:
—the wings of the living creatures beating against each other, the whirling wheels, the rumble of a great earthquake.


text:
The Spirit lifted me and took me away. I went bitterly and angrily. I didn't want to go. But God had me in his grip.


text:
I arrived among the exiles who lived near the Kebar River at Tel Aviv. I came to where they were living and sat there for seven days, appalled.


text:
"Son of man, I've made you a watchman for the family of Israel. Whenever you hear me say something, warn them for me.


text:
If I say to the wicked, 'You are going to die,' and you don't sound the alarm warning them that it's a matter of life or death, they will die and it will be your fault. I'll hold you responsible.


text:
But if you warn the wicked and they keep right on sinning anyway, they'll most certainly die for their sin, but you won't die. You'll have saved your life.


text:
"And if the righteous turn back from living righteously and take up with evil when I step in and put them in a hard place, they'll die. If you haven't warned them, they'll die because of their sins, and none of the right things they've done will count for anything—and I'll hold you responsible.


text:
But if you warn these righteous people not to sin and they listen to you, they'll live because they took the warning—and again, you'll have saved your life."


text:
So I got up and went out on the plain. I couldn't believe my eyes: the Glory of God! Right there! It was like the Glory I had seen at the Kebar River. I fell to the ground, prostrate.


text:
And then something odd: "Son of man: They'll tie you hand and foot with ropes so you can't leave the house.


text:
I'll make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so you won't be able to talk and tell the people what they're doing wrong, even though they are a bunch of rebels.


text:
"But then when the time is ripe, I'll free your tongue and you'll say, 'This is what God, the Master, says:...' From then on it's up to them. They can listen or not listen, whichever they like. They are a bunch of rebels!


text:
Then make a model of a military siege against the brick: Build siege walls, construct a ramp, set up army camps, lay in battering rams around it.


text:
Then get an iron skillet and place it upright between you and the city—an iron wall. Face the model: The city shall be under siege and you shall be the besieger. This is a sign to the family of Israel.


text:
"Next lie on your left side and place the sin of the family of Israel on yourself. You will bear their sin for as many days as you lie on your side.


text:
The number of days you bear their sin will match the number of years of their sin, namely, 390. For 390 days you will bear the sin of the family of Israel.


text:
"Then, after you have done this, turn over and lie down on your right side and bear the sin of the family of Judah. Your assignment this time is to lie there for forty days, a day for each year of their sin.


text:
Look straight at the siege of Jerusalem. Roll up your sleeve, shake your bare arm, and preach against her.


text:
"I will tie you up with ropes, tie you so you can't move or turn over until you have finished the days of the siege.


text:
"Next I want you to take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, dried millet and spelt, and mix them in a bowl to make a flat bread. This is your food ration for the 390 days you lie on your side.


text:
Eat the bread as you would a muffin. Bake the muffins out in the open where everyone can see you, using dried human dung for fuel."


text:
God said, "This is what the people of Israel are going to do: Among the pagan nations where I will drive them, they will eat foods that are strictly taboo to a holy people."


text:
I said, "God, my Master! Never! I've never contaminated myself with food like that. Since my youth I've never eaten anything forbidden by law, nothing found dead or violated by wild animals. I've never taken a single bite of forbidden food."


text:
Then he said to me, "Son of man, I'm going to cut off all food from Jerusalem. The people will live on starvation rations, worrying where the next meal's coming from, scrounging for the next drink of water.


text:
Famine conditions. People will look at one another, see nothing but skin and bones, and shake their heads. This is what sin does."


text:
"Now, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a straight razor, shaving your head and your beard. Then, using a set of balancing scales, divide the hair into thirds.


text:
When the days of the siege are over, take one-third of the hair and burn it inside the city. Take another third, chop it into bits with the sword and sprinkle it around the city. The final third you'll throw to the wind. Then I'll go after them with a sword.


text:
Take some of them and throw them into the fire—burn them up. From them, fire will spread to the whole family of Israel.


text:
"This is what God, the Master, says: This means Jerusalem. I set her at the center of the world, all the nations ranged around her.


text:
But she rebelled against my laws and ordinances, rebelled far worse than the nations ranged around her—sheer wickedness!—refused my guidance, ignored my directions.


text:
"Therefore this is what God, the Master, says: You've been more headstrong and willful than any of the nations around you, refusing my guidance, ignoring my directions. You've sunk to the gutter level of those around you.


text:
"Therefore this is what God, the Master, says: I'm setting myself against you—yes, against you, Jerusalem. I'm going to punish you in full sight of the nations.


text:
Because of your disgusting no-god idols, I'm going to do something to you that I've never done before and will never do again:


text:
turn families into cannibals—parents eating children, children eating parents! Punishment indeed. And whoever's left over I'll throw to the winds.


text:
"Therefore, as sure as I am the living God—Decree of God, the Master—because you've polluted my Sanctuary with your obscenities and disgusting no-god idols, I'm pulling out. Not an ounce of pity will I show you.


text:
A third of your people will die of either disease or hunger inside the city, a third will be killed outside the city, and a third will be thrown to the winds and chased by killers.


text:
"Only then will I calm down and let my anger cool. Then you'll know that I was serious about this all along, that I'm a jealous God and not to be trifled with.


text:
When I finish my angry punishment and searing rebukes, you'll be reduced to an object of ridicule and mockery, turned into a horror story circulating among the surrounding nations. I, God, have spoken.


text:
"When I shoot my lethal famine arrows at you, I'll shoot to kill. Then I'll step up the famine and cut off food supplies.


text:
Famine and more famine—and then I'll send in the wild animals to finish off your children. Epidemic disease, unrestrained murder, death—and I will have sent it! I, God, have spoken."


text:
: 'O Mountains of Israel, listen to the Message of God, the Master. God, the Master, speaks to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and the valleys: I'm about to destroy your sacred god and goddess shrines.


text:
I'll level your altars, bust up your sun-god pillars, and kill your people as they bow down to your no-god idols.


text:
I'll stack the dead bodies of Israelites in front of your idols and then scatter your bones around your shrines.


text:
Every place where you've lived, the towns will be torn down and the pagan shrines demolished—altars busted up, idols smashed, all your custom-made sun-god pillars in ruins.


text:
In the foreign countries where they're taken as prisoners of war, they'll remember me. They'll realize how devastated I was by their betrayals, by their voracious lust for gratifying themselves in their idolatries. They'll be disgusted with their evil ways, disgusting to God in the way they've lived.


text:
" 'This is what God, the Master, says: Clap your hands, stamp your feet, yell out, "No, no, no!" because of all the evil obscenities rife in Israel. They're going to be killed, dying of hunger, dying of disease—


text:
death everywhere you look, people dropping like flies, people far away dying, people nearby dying, and whoever's left in the city starving to death. Why? Because I'm angry, furiously angry.


text:
They'll realize that I am God when they see their people's corpses strewn over and around all their ruined sex-and-religion shrines on the bare hills and in the lush fertility groves, in all the places where they indulged their sensual rites.


text:
I'll bring my hand down hard on them, demolish the country wherever they live, turn it into wasteland from one end to the other, from the wilderness to Riblah. Then they'll know that I am God!' "


text:
"You, son of man—God, the Master, has this Message for the land of Israel:<br/>" 'Endtime.<br/>The end of business as usual for everyone.


text:
It's all over. The end is upon you.<br/>I've launched my anger against you.<br/>I've issued my verdict on the way you live.<br/>I'll make you pay for your disgusting obscenities.


text:
I won't look the other way,<br/>I won't feel sorry for you.<br/>I'll make you pay for the way you've lived:<br/>Your disgusting obscenities will boomerang on you,<br/>and you'll realize that I am God.'


text:
This is your fate, you who live in this land.<br/>Time's up.<br/>It's zero hour.<br/>No dragging of feet now,<br/>no bargaining for more time.


text:
Soon now I'll pour my wrath on you,<br/>pay out my anger against you,<br/>Render my verdict on the way you've lived,<br/>make you pay for your disgusting obscenities.


text:
I won't look the other way,<br/>I won't feel sorry for you.<br/>I'll make you pay for the way you've lived.<br/>Your disgusting obscenities will boomerang on you.<br/>Then you'll realize<br/>that it is I, God, who has hit you.


text:
" 'Judgment Day!<br/>Fate has caught up with you.<br/>The scepter outsized and pretentious,<br/>pride bursting all bounds,


text:
Violence strutting,<br/>brandishing the evil scepter.<br/>But there's nothing to them,<br/>and nothing will be left of them.


text:
Time's up.<br/>Countdown: five, four, three, two...<br/>Buyer, don't crow; seller, don't worry:<br/>Judgment wrath has turned the world topsy-turvy.


text:
The bottom has dropped out of buying and selling.<br/>It will never be the same again.<br/>But don't fantasize an upturn in the market.<br/>The country is bankrupt because of its sins,<br/>and it's not going to get any better.


text:
" 'The trumpet signals the call to battle:<br/>"Present arms!"<br/>But no one marches into battle.<br/>My wrath has them paralyzed!


text:
On the open roads you're killed,<br/>or else you go home and die of hunger and disease.<br/>Either get murdered out in the country<br/>or die of sickness or hunger in town.


text:
Survivors run for the hills.<br/>They moan like doves in the valleys,<br/>Each one moaning<br/>for his own sins.


text:
They dress in rough burlap—<br/>sorry scarecrows,<br/>Shifty and shamefaced,<br/>with their heads shaved bald.


text:
" 'They throw their money into the gutters.<br/>Their hard-earned cash stinks like garbage.<br/>They find that it won't buy a thing<br/>they either want or need on Judgment Day.<br/>They tripped on money<br/>and fell into sin.


text:
Proud and pretentious with their jewels,<br/>they deck out their vile and vulgar no-gods in finery.<br/>I'll make those god-obscenities a stench in their nostrils.


text:
I'll give away their religious junk—<br/>strangers will pick it up for free,<br/>the godless spit on it and make jokes.


text:
I'll turn my face so I won't have to look<br/>as my treasured place and people are violated,<br/>As violent strangers walk in<br/>and desecrate place and people—


text:
I'll bring in the dregs of humanity<br/>to move into their houses.<br/>I'll put a stop to the boasting and strutting<br/>of the high-and-mighty,<br/>And see to it that there'll be nothing holy<br/>left in their holy places.


text:
Disaster on the heels of disaster,<br/>one rumor after another.<br/>They clamor for the prophet to tell them what's up,<br/>but nobody knows anything.<br/>Priests don't have a clue;<br/>the elders don't know what to say.


text:
The king holds his head in despair;<br/>the prince is devastated.<br/>The common people are paralyzed.<br/>Gripped by fear, they can't move.<br/>I'll deal with them where they are,<br/>judge them on their terms.<br/>They'll know that I am God.' "


text:
In the sixth year, in the sixth month and the fifth day, while I was sitting at home meeting with the leaders of Judah, it happened that the hand of my Master, God, gripped me.


text:
When I looked, I was astonished. What I saw looked like a man—from the waist down like fire and from the waist up like highly burnished bronze.


text:
He reached out what looked like a hand and grabbed me by the hair. The Spirit swept me high in the air and carried me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the Temple's inside court where the image of the sex goddess that makes God so angry had been set up.


text:
Right before me was the Glory of the God of Israel, exactly like the vision I had seen out on the plain.


text:
He said to me, "Son of man, look north." I looked north and saw it: Just north of the entrance loomed the altar of the sex goddess, Asherah, that makes God so angry.


text:
Then he said, "Son of man, do you see what they're doing? Outrageous obscenities! And doing them right here! It's enough to drive me right out of my own Temple. But you're going to see worse yet."


text:
I entered and looked. I couldn't believe my eyes: Painted all over the walls were pictures of reptiles and animals and monsters—the whole pantheon of Egyptian gods and goddesses—being worshiped by Israel.


text:
In the middle of the room were seventy of the leaders of Israel, with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan standing in the middle. Each held his censer with the incense rising in a fragrant cloud.


text:
He said, "Son of man, do you see what the elders are doing here in the dark, each one before his favorite god-picture? They tell themselves, 'God doesn't see us. God has forsaken the country.' "


text:
He took me to the entrance at the north gate of the Temple of God. I saw women sitting there, weeping for Tammuz, the Babylonian fertility god.


text:
Finally, he took me to the inside court of the Temple of God. There between the porch and the altar were about twenty-five men. Their backs were to God's Temple. They were facing east, bowing in worship to the sun.


text:
He said, "Have you seen enough, son of man? Isn't it bad enough that Judah engages in these outrageous obscenities? They fill the country with violence and now provoke me even further with their obscene gestures.


text:
That's it. They have an angry God on their hands! From now on, no mercy. They can shout all they want, but I'm not listening."


text:
Six men came down the road from the upper gate that faces north, each carrying his lethal weapon. With them was a man dressed in linen with a writing case slung from his shoulder. They entered and stood by the bronze altar.


text:
The Glory of the God of Israel ascended from his usual place above the cherubim-angels, moved to the threshold of the Temple, and called to the man with the writing case who was dressed in linen:


text:
"Go through the streets of Jerusalem and put a mark on the forehead of everyone who is in anguish over the outrageous obscenities being done in the city."


text:
I listened as he went on to address the executioners: "Follow him through the city and kill. Feel sorry for no one. Show no compassion.


text:
Kill old men and women, young men and women, mothers and children. But don't lay a hand on anyone with the mark. Start at my Temple."<br/>They started with the leaders in front of the Temple.


text:
He told the executioners, "Desecrate the Temple. Fill it with corpses. Then go out and continue the killing."


text:
So they went out and struck the city.<br/>While the massacre went forward, I was left alone. I fell on my face in prayer: "Oh, oh, God, my Master! Are you going to kill everyone left in Israel in this pouring out of your anger on Jerusalem?"


text:
He said, "The guilt of Israel and Judah is enormous. The land is swollen with murder. The city is bloated with injustice. They all say, 'God has forsaken the country. He doesn't see anything we do.'


text:
Well, I do see, and I'm not feeling sorry for any of them. They're going to pay for what they've done."


text:
Just then, the man dressed in linen and carrying the writing case came back and reported, "I've done what you told me."


text:
When I next looked, oh! Above the dome over the heads of the cherubim-angels was what looked like a throne, sky-blue, like a sapphire!


text:
God said to the man dressed in linen, "Enter the place of the wheels under the cherubim-angels. Fill your hands with burning coals from beneath the cherubim and scatter them over the city."<br/>I watched as he entered.


text:
The cherubim were standing on the south side of the Temple when the man entered. A cloud filled the inside courtyard.


text:
Then the Glory of God ascended from the cherubim and moved to the threshold of the Temple. The cloud filled the Temple. Court and Temple were both filled with the blazing presence of the Glory of God.


text:
And the sound! The wings of the cherubim were audible all the way to the outer court—the sound of the voice was like The Strong God in thunder.


text:
When God commanded the man dressed in linen, "Take fire from among the wheels, from between the cherubim," he went in and stood beside a wheel.


text:
One of the cherubim reached into the fire, took some coals, and put them in the hands of the man dressed in linen. He took them and went out.


text:
And then I saw four wheels beside the cherubim, one beside each cherub. The wheels radiating were sparkling like diamonds in the sun.


text:
When they moved, they went in any of the four directions but in a perfectly straight line. Where the cherubim went, the wheels went straight ahead.


text:
The cherubim were full of eyes in their backs, hands, and wings. The wheels likewise were full of eyes.


text:
Each of the cherubim had four faces: the first, of an angel; the second, a human; the third, a lion; the fourth, an eagle.


text:
When the cherubim moved, the wheels beside them moved. When the cherubim spread their wings to take off from the ground, the wheels stayed right with them.


text:
When the cherubim stopped, the wheels stopped. When the cherubim rose, the wheels rose, because the spirit of the living creatures was also in the wheels.


text:
I watched as the cherubim spread their wings and left the ground, the wheels right with them. They stopped at the entrance of the east gate of the Temple. The Glory of the God of Israel was above them.


text:
These were the same living creatures I had seen previously beneath the God of Israel at the Kebar River. I recognized them as cherubim.


text:
Then the Spirit picked me up and took me to the gate of the Temple that faces east. There were twenty-five men standing at the gate. I recognized the leaders, Jaazaniah son of Azzur and Pelatiah son of Benaiah.


text:
God said, "Son of man, these are the men who draw up blueprints for sin, who think up new programs for evil in this city.


text:
They say, 'We can make anything happen here. We're the best. We're the choice pieces of meat in the soup pot.'


text:
Then the Spirit of God came upon me and told me what to say: "This is what God says: 'That's a fine public speech, Israel, but I know what you are thinking.


text:
"Therefore this is what God, the Master, says: 'The corpses that you've piled in the streets are the meat and this city is the soup pot, and you're not even in the pot! I'm throwing you out!


text:
You'll be killed in battle. I'll carry out judgment on you at the borders of Israel. Then you'll realize that I am God.


text:
This city will not be your soup pot and you won't be the choice pieces of meat in it either. Hardly. I will carry out judgment on you at the borders of Israel


text:
and you'll realize that I am God, for you haven't followed my statutes and ordinances. Instead of following my ways, you've sunk to the level of the laws of the nations around you.' "


text:
Even while I was preaching, Pelatiah son of Benaiah died. I fell down, face to the ground, and prayed loudly, "O Master, God! Will you completely wipe out what's left of Israel?"


text:
"Son of man, your brothers—I mean the whole people of Israel who are in exile with you—are the people of whom the citizens of Jerusalem are saying, 'They're in the far country, far from God. This land has been given to us to own.'


text:
"Well, tell them this: 'This is your Message from God, the Master. True, I sent you to the far country and scattered you through other lands. All the same, I've provided you a temporary sanctuary in the countries where you've gone.


text:
I will gather you back from those countries and lands where you've been scattered and give you back the land of Israel.


text:
I'll give you a new heart. I'll put a new spirit in you. I'll cut out your stone heart and replace it with a red-blooded, firm-muscled heart.


text:
Then you'll obey my statutes and be careful to obey my commands. You'll be my people! I'll be your God!


text:
" 'But not those who are self-willed and addicted to their rotten images and obscene idols! I'll see that they're paid in full for what they've done.' Decree of God, the Master."


text:
Then the cherubim spread their wings, with the wheels beside them and the Glory of the God of Israel hovering over them.


text:
Then, still in the vision given me by the Spirit of God, the Spirit took me and carried me back to the exiles in Babylon. And then the vision left me.


text:
"Son of man, you're living with a bunch of rebellious people. They have eyes but don't see a thing, they have ears but don't hear a thing. They're rebels all.


text:
So, son of man, pack up your exile duffel bags. Leave in broad daylight with everyone watching and go off, as if into exile. Maybe then they'll understand what's going on, rebels though they are.


text:
You'll take up your baggage while they watch, a bundle of the bare necessities of someone going into exile, and toward evening leave, just like a person going off into exile.


text:
In full sight of the people, put the bundle on your shoulder and walk out into the night. Cover your face so you won't have to look at what you'll never see again. I'm using you as a sign for the family of Israel."


text:
I did exactly as he commanded me. I got my stuff together and brought it out in the street where everyone could see me, bundled it up the way someone being taken off into exile would, and then, as the sun went down, made a hole in the wall of the house with my hands. As it grew dark and as they watched, I left, throwing my bundle across my shoulders.


text:
Tell them, 'God, the Master, says that this Message especially concerns the prince in Jerusalem—Zedekiah—but includes all the people of Israel.'


text:
"Also tell them, 'I am drawing a picture for you. As I am now doing, it will be done to all the people of Israel. They will go into exile as captives.'


text:
"The prince will put his bundle on his shoulders in the dark and leave. He'll dig through the wall of the house, covering his face so he won't have to look at the land he'll never see again.


text:
But I'll make sure he gets caught and is taken to Babylon. Blinded, he'll never see that land in which he'll die.


text:
I'll scatter to the four winds those who helped him escape, along with his troops, and many will die in battle.


text:
"I'll permit a few of them to escape the killing, starvation, and deadly sickness so that they can confess among the foreign countries all the disgusting obscenities they've been involved in. They will realize that I am God."


text:
Tell the people of this land, everyone living in Jerusalem and Israel, God's Message: 'You'll eat your meals shaking in your boots and drink your water in terror because your land is going to be stripped bare as punishment for the brutality rampant in it.


text:
All the cities and villages will be emptied out and the fields destroyed. Then you'll realize that I am God.' "


text:
"Son of man, what's this proverb making the rounds in the land of Israel that says, 'Everything goes on the same as ever; all the prophetic warnings are false alarms'?


text:
"Tell them, 'God, the Master, says, This proverb's going to have a short life!'<br/>"Tell them, 'Time's about up. Every warning is about to come true.


text:
I, God, am doing the speaking. What I say happens. None of what I say is on hold. What I say, I'll do—and soon, you rebels!' Decree of God the Master."


text:
"Son of man, do you hear what Israel is saying: that the alarm the prophet raises is for a long time off, that he's preaching about the far-off future?


text:
Well, tell them, 'God, the Master, says, "Nothing of what I say is on hold. What I say happens." ' Decree of God, the Master."


text:
"Son of man, preach against the prophets of Israel who are making things up out of their own heads and calling it 'prophesying.'<br/>"Preach to them the real thing. Tell them, 'Listen to God's Message!'


text:
God, the Master, pronounces doom on the empty-headed prophets who do their own thing and know nothing of what's going on!


text:
They haven't lifted a finger to repair the defenses of the city and have risked nothing to help Israel stand on God's Day of Judgment.


text:
All they do is fantasize comforting illusions and preach lying sermons. They say 'God says...' when God hasn't so much as breathed in their direction. And yet they stand around thinking that something they said is going to happen.


text:
"Haven't you fantasized sheer nonsense? Aren't your sermons tissues of lies, saying 'God says...' when I've done nothing of the kind?


text:
Therefore—and this is the Message of God, the Master, remember—I'm dead set against prophets who substitute illusions for visions and use sermons to tell lies.


text:
I'm going to ban them from the council of my people, remove them from membership in Israel, and outlaw them from the land of Israel. Then you'll realize that I am God, the Master.


text:
"The fact is that they've lied to my people. They've said, 'No problem; everything's just fine,' when things are not at all fine. When people build a wall, they're right behind them slapping on whitewash.


text:
Tell those who are slapping on the whitewash, 'When a torrent of rain comes and the hailstones crash down and the hurricane sweeps in


text:
and the wall collapses, what's the good of the whitewash that you slapped on so liberally, making it look so good?'


text:
"And that's exactly what will happen. I, God, the Master, say so: 'I'll let the hurricane of my wrath loose, a torrent of my hailstone-anger.


text:
I'll make that wall you've slapped with whitewash collapse. I'll level it to the ground so that only the foundation stones will be left. And in the ruin you'll all die. You'll realize then that I am God.


text:
" 'I'll dump my wrath on that wall, all of it, and on those who plastered it with whitewash. I will say to them, There is no wall, and those who did such a good job of whitewashing it wasted their time,


text:
those prophets of Israel who preached to Jerusalem and announced all their visions telling us things were just fine when they weren't at all fine. Decree of God, the Master.'


text:
"And the women prophets—son of man, take your stand against the women prophets who make up stuff out of their own minds. Oppose them.


text:
Say 'Doom' to the women who sew magic bracelets and head scarves to suit every taste, devices to trap souls. Say, 'Will you kill the souls of my people, use living souls to make yourselves rich and popular?


text:
You have profaned me among my people just to get ahead yourselves, used me to make yourselves look good—killing souls who should never have died and coddling souls who shouldn't live. You've lied to people who love listening to lies.'


text:
"Therefore God says, 'I am against all the devices and techniques you use to hunt down souls. I'll rip them out of your hands. I'll free the souls you're trying to catch.


text:
I'll rip your magic bracelets and scarves to shreds and deliver my people from your influence so they'll no longer be victimized by you. That's how you'll come to realize that I am God.


text:
" 'Because you've confounded and confused good people, unsuspecting and innocent people, with your lies, and because you've made it easy for others to persist in evil so that it wouldn't even dawn on them to turn to me so I could save them,


text:
as of now you're finished. No more delusion-mongering from you, no more sermonic lies. I'm going to rescue my people from your clutches. And you'll realize that I am God.' "


text:
"Son of Man, these people have installed idols in their hearts. They have embraced the wickedness that will ruin them. Why should I even bother with their prayers?


text:
Therefore tell them, 'The Message of God, the Master: All in Israel who install idols in their hearts and embrace the wickedness that will ruin them and still have the gall to come to a prophet, be on notice: I, God, will step in and personally answer them as they come dragging along their mob of idols.


text:
I am ready to go to work on the hearts of the house of Israel, all of whom have left me for their idols.'


text:
"Therefore, say to the house of Israel: 'God, the Master, says, Repent! Turn your backs on your no-god idols. Turn your backs on all your outrageous obscenities.


text:
To every last person from the house of Israel, including any of the resident aliens who live in Israel—all who turn their backs on me and embrace idols, who install the wickedness that will ruin them at the center of their lives and then have the gall to go to the prophet to ask me questions—I, God, will step in and give the answer myself.


text:
I'll oppose those people to their faces, make an example of them—a warning lesson—and get rid of them so you will realize that I am God.


text:
" 'If a prophet is deceived and tells these idolaters the lies they want to hear, I, God, get blamed for those lies. He won't get by with it. I'll grab him by the scruff of the neck and get him out of there.


text:
so that the house of Israel will never again wander off my paths and make themselves filthy in their rebellions, but will rather be my people, just as I am their God. Decree of God, the Master.' "


text:
"Son of man, when a country sins against me by living faithlessly and I reach out and destroy its food supply by bringing on a famine, wiping out humans and animals alike,


text:
even if Noah, Daniel, and Job—the Big Three—were alive at the time, it wouldn't do the population any good. Their righteousness would only save their own lives." Decree of God, the Master.


text:
"Or, if I make wild animals go through the country so that everyone has to leave and the country becomes wilderness and no one dares enter it anymore because of the wild animals,


text:
even if these three men were living there, as sure as I am the living God, neither their sons nor daughters would be rescued, but only those three, and the country would revert to wilderness.


text:
"Or, if I bring war on that country and give the order, 'Let the killing begin!' leaving both people and animals dead,


text:
even if those three men were alive at the time, as sure as I am the living God, neither sons nor daughters would be rescued, but only these three.


text:
"Or, if I visit a deadly disease on that country, pouring out my lethal anger, killing both people and animals,


text:
and Noah, Daniel, and Job happened to be alive at the time, as sure as I am the living God, not a son, not a daughter, would be rescued. Only these three would be delivered because of their righteousness.


text:
"Now then, that's the picture," says God, the Master, "once I've sent my four catastrophic judgments on Jerusalem—war, famine, wild animals, disease—to kill off people and animals alike. But look!


text:
Believe it or not, there'll be survivors. Some of their sons and daughters will be brought out. When they come out to you and their salvation is right in your face, you'll see for yourself the life they've been saved from. You'll know that this severe judgment I brought on Jerusalem was worth it, that it had to be.


text:
Yes, when you see in detail the kind of lives they've been living, you'll feel much better. You'll see the reason behind all that I've done in Jerusalem." Decree of God, the Master.


text:
"Son of man, how would you compare the wood of a vine with the branches of any tree you'd find in the forest?


text:
"I don't think so. At best it's good for fuel. Look at it: a flimsy piece of vine, thrown in the fire and then rescued—the ends burned off and the middle charred. Now is it good for anything?


text:
"Hardly. When it was whole it wasn't good for anything. Half-burned is no improvement. What's it good for?


text:
"So here's the Message of God, the Master: Like the wood of the vine I selected from among the trees of the forest and used as fuel for the fire, just so I'll treat those who live in Jerusalem.


text:
I am dead set against them. Even though at one time they got out of the fire charred, the fire's going to burn them up. When I take my stand against them, you'll realize that I am God.


text:
I'll turn this country into a wilderness because they've been faithless." Decree of God, the Master.


text:
Say this: 'The Message of God, the Master, to Jerusalem: You were born and bred among Canaanites. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.


text:
" 'On the day you were born your umbilical cord was not cut, you weren't bathed and cleaned up, you weren't rubbed with salt, you weren't wrapped in a baby blanket.


text:
No one cared a fig for you. No one did one thing to care for you tenderly in these ways. You were thrown out into a vacant lot and left there, dirty and unwashed—a newborn nobody wanted.


text:
" 'And then I came by. I saw you all miserable and bloody. Yes, I said to you, lying there helpless and filthy, "Live!


text:
Grow up like a plant in the field!" And you did. You grew up. You grew tall and matured as a woman, full-breasted, with flowing hair. But you were naked and vulnerable, fragile and exposed.


text:
" 'I came by again and saw you, saw that you were ready for love and a lover. I took care of you, dressed you and protected you. I promised you my love and entered the covenant of marriage with you. I, God, the Master, gave my word. You became mine.


text:
I dressed you in a colorful gown and put leather sandals on your feet. I gave you linen blouses and a fashionable wardrobe of expensive clothing.


text:
You were provided with everything precious and beautiful: with exquisite clothes and elegant food, garnished with honey and oil. You were absolutely stunning. You were a queen!


text:
You became world-famous, a legendary beauty brought to perfection by my adornments. Decree of God, the Master.


text:
" 'But your beauty went to your head and you became a common whore, grabbing anyone coming down the street and taking him into your bed.


text:
You took your fine dresses and made "tents" of them, using them as brothels in which you practiced your trade. This kind of thing should never happen, never.


text:
" 'And then you took all that fine jewelry I gave you, my gold and my silver, and made pornographic images of them for your brothels.


text:
You decorated your beds with fashionable silks and cottons, and perfumed them with my aromatic oils and incense.


text:
And then you set out the wonderful foods I provided—the fresh breads and fruits, with fine herbs and spices, which were my gifts to you—and you served them as delicacies in your whorehouses. That's what happened, says God, the Master.


text:
" 'And then you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had given birth to as my children, and you killed them, sacrificing them to idols. Wasn't it bad enough that you had become a whore?


text:
" 'Not once during these years of outrageous obscenities and whorings did you remember your infancy, when you were naked and exposed, a blood-smeared newborn.


text:
" 'And then to top off all your evil acts, you built your bold brothels in every town square. Doom! Doom to you, says God, the Master!


text:
At every major intersection you built your bold brothels and exposed your sluttish sex, spreading your legs for everyone who passed by.


text:
You fornicated with the Egyptians, seeking them out in their sex orgies. The more promiscuous you became, the angrier I got.


text:
Finally, I intervened, reduced your borders and turned you over to the rapacity of your enemies. Even the Philistine women—can you believe it?—were shocked at your sluttish life.


text:
" 'You went on to fornicate with the Assyrians. Your appetite was insatiable. But still you weren't satisfied.


text:
You built your bold brothels at every major intersection, opened up your whorehouses in every neighborhood, but you were different from regular whores in that you wouldn't accept a fee.


text:
And men commonly pay their whores. But you pay your lovers! You bribe men from all over to come to bed with you!


text:
You're just the opposite of the regular whores who get paid for sex. Instead, you pay men for their favors! You even pervert whoredom!


text:
I, God, the Master, say, Because you've been unrestrained in your promiscuity, stripped down for every lover, flaunting your sex, and because of your pornographic idols and all the slaughtered children you offered to them,


text:
therefore, because of all this, I'm going to get all your lovers together, all those you've used for your own pleasure, the ones you loved and the ones you loathed. I'll assemble them as a courtroom of spectators around you. In broad daylight I'll strip you naked before them—they'll see what you really look like.


text:
Then I'll sentence you to the punishment for an adulterous woman and a murderous woman. I'll give you a taste of my wrath!


text:
" 'I'll gather all your lovers around you and turn you over to them. They'll tear down your bold brothels and sex shrines. They'll rip off your clothes, take your jewels, and leave you naked and exposed. Then


text:
They'll burn down your houses. A massive judgment—with all the women watching!<br/>" 'I'll have put a full stop to your whoring life—no more paying lovers to come to your bed!


text:
" 'Because you didn't remember what happened when you were young but made me angry with all this behavior, I'll make you pay for your waywardness. Didn't you just exponentially compound your outrageous obscenities with all your sluttish ways?


text:
You're the daughter of your mother, who couldn't stand her husband and children. And you're a true sister of your sisters, who couldn't stand their husbands and children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite.


text:
" 'Your older sister is Samaria. She lived to the north of you with her daughters. Your younger sister is Sodom, who lived to the south of you with her daughters.


text:
Haven't you lived just like they did? Haven't you engaged in outrageous obscenities just like they did? In fact, it didn't take you long to catch up and pass them!


text:
As sure as I am the living God!—Decree of God, the Master—your sister Sodom and her daughters never even came close to what you and your daughters have done.


text:
" 'The sin of your sister Sodom was this: She lived with her daughters in the lap of luxury—proud, gluttonous, and lazy. They ignored the oppressed and the poor.


text:
" 'And Samaria. Samaria didn't sin half as much as you. You've committed far more obscenities than she ever did. Why, you make your two sisters look good in comparison with what you've done!


text:
Face it, your sisters look mighty good compared with you. Because you've outsinned them so completely, you've actually made them look righteous. Aren't you ashamed? But you're going to have to live with it. What a reputation to carry into history: outsinning your two sisters!


text:
" 'But I'm going to reverse their fortunes, the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters and the fortunes of Samaria and her daughters. And—get this—your fortunes right along with them!


text:
Still, you're going to have to live with your shame. And by facing and accepting your shame, you're going to provide some comfort to your two sisters.


text:
Your sisters, Sodom with her daughters and Samaria with her daughters, will become what they were before, and you will become what you were before.


text:
Remember the days when you were putting on airs, acting so high and mighty, looking down on sister Sodom?


text:
That was before your evil ways were exposed. And now you're the butt of contempt, despised by the Edomite women, the Philistine women, and everybody else around.


text:
But you have to face it, to accept the shame of your obscene and vile life. Decree of God, the Master.


text:
" 'God, the Master, says, I'll do to you just as you have already done, you who have treated my oath with contempt and broken the covenant.


text:
All the same, I'll remember the covenant I made with you when you were young and I'll make a new covenant with you that will last forever.


text:
You'll remember your sorry past and be properly contrite when you receive back your sisters, both the older and the younger. I'll give them to you as daughters, but not as participants in your covenant.


text:
You'll remember your past life and face the shame of it, but when I make atonement for you, make everything right after all you've done, it will leave you speechless.' " Decree of God, the Master.


text:
Say, 'God, the Master, says:<br/>" 'A great eagle<br/>with a huge wingspan and long feathers,<br/>In full plumage and bright colors,<br/>came to Lebanon<br/>And took the top off a cedar,


text:
broke off the top branch,<br/>Took it to a land of traders,<br/>and set it down in a city of shopkeepers.


text:
Then he took a cutting from the land<br/>and planted it in good, well-watered soil,<br/>like a willow on a riverbank.


text:
It sprouted into a flourishing vine,<br/>low to the ground.<br/>Its branches grew toward the eagle<br/>and the roots became established—<br/>A vine putting out shoots,<br/>developing branches.


text:
" 'There was another great eagle<br/>with a huge wingspan and thickly feathered.<br/>This vine sent out its roots toward him<br/>from the place where it was planted.<br/>Its branches reached out to him<br/>so he could water it<br/>from a long distance.


text:
It had been planted<br/>in good, well-watered soil,<br/>And it put out branches and bore fruit,<br/>and became a noble vine.


text:
" 'God, the Master, says,<br/>Will it thrive?<br/>Won't he just pull it up by the roots<br/>and leave the grapes to rot<br/>And the branches to shrivel up,<br/>a withered, dead vine?<br/>It won't take much strength<br/>or many hands to pull it up.


text:
Even if it's transplanted,<br/>will it thrive?<br/>When the hot east wind strikes it,<br/>won't it shrivel up?<br/>Won't it dry up and blow away<br/>from the place where it was planted?' "


text:
"Tell this house of rebels, 'Do you get it? Do you know what this means?'<br/>"Tell them, 'The king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and took its king and its leaders back to Babylon.


text:
He took one of the royal family and made a covenant with him, making him swear his loyalty. The king of Babylon took all the top leaders into exile


text:
to make sure that this kingdom stayed weak—didn't get any big ideas of itself—and kept the covenant with him so that it would have a future.


text:
" 'But he rebelled and sent emissaries to Egypt to recruit horses and a big army. Do you think that's going to work? Are they going to get by with this? Does anyone break a covenant and get off scot-free?


text:
" 'As sure as I am the living God, this king who broke his pledge of loyalty and his covenant will die in that country, in Babylon.


text:
Pharaoh with his big army—all those soldiers!—won't lift a finger to fight for him when Babylon sets siege to the city and kills everyone inside.


text:
Because he broke his word and broke the covenant, even though he gave his solemn promise, because he went ahead and did all these things anyway, he won't escape.


text:
" 'Therefore, God, the Master, says, As sure as I am the living God, because the king despised my oath and broke my covenant, I'll bring the consequences crashing down on his head.


text:
I'll send out a search party and catch him. I'll take him to Babylon and have him brought to trial because of his total disregard for me.


text:
All his elite soldiers, along with the rest of the army, will be killed in battle, and whoever is left will be scattered to the four winds. Then you'll realize that I, God, have spoken.


text:
" 'God, the Master, says, I personally will take a shoot from the top of the towering cedar, a cutting from the crown of the tree, and plant it on a high and towering mountain,


text:
on the high mountain of Israel. It will grow, putting out branches and fruit—a majestic cedar. Birds of every sort and kind will live under it. They'll build nests in the shade of its branches.


text:
All the trees of the field will recognize that I, God, made the great tree small and the small tree great, made the green tree turn dry and the dry tree sprout green branches. I, God, said it—and I did it.' "


text:
"What do you people mean by going around the country repeating the saying,<br/>The parents ate green apples,<br/>The children got stomachache?


text:
Every soul—man, woman, child—belongs to me, parent and child alike. You die for your own sin, not another's.


text:
doesn't eat at the pagan shrines,<br/>doesn't worship the idols so popular in Israel,<br/>doesn't seduce a neighbor's spouse,<br/>doesn't indulge in casual sex,


text:
doesn't bully anyone,<br/>doesn't pile up bad debts,<br/>doesn't steal,<br/>doesn't refuse food to the hungry,<br/>doesn't refuse clothing to the ill-clad,


text:
doesn't exploit the poor,<br/>doesn't live by impulse and greed,<br/>doesn't treat one person better than another,


text:
But lives by my statutes and faithfully<br/>honors and obeys my laws.<br/>This person who lives upright and well<br/>shall live a full and true life.<br/>Decree of God, the Master.


text:
"But if this person has a child who turns violent and murders and goes off and does any of these things,


text:
even though the parent has done none of them—<br/>eats at the pagan shrines,<br/>seduces his neighbor's spouse,


text:
bullies the weak,<br/>steals,<br/>piles up bad debts,<br/>admires idols,<br/>commits outrageous obscenities,


text:
exploits the poor<br/>"—do you think this person, the child, will live? Not a chance! Because he's done all these vile things, he'll die. And his death will be his own fault.


text:
"Now look: Suppose that this child has a child who sees all the sins done by his parent. The child sees them, but doesn't follow in the parent's footsteps—


text:
doesn't eat at the pagan shrines,<br/>doesn't worship the popular idols of Israel,<br/>doesn't seduce his neighbor's spouse,


text:
doesn't bully anyone,<br/>doesn't refuse to loan money,<br/>doesn't steal,<br/>doesn't refuse food to the hungry,<br/>doesn't refuse to give clothes to the ill-clad,


text:
doesn't live by impulse and greed,<br/>doesn't exploit the poor.<br/>He does what I say;<br/>he performs my laws and lives by my statutes.<br/>"This person will not die for the sins of the parent; he will live truly and well.


text:
But the parent will die for what the parent did, for the sins of—<br/>oppressing the weak,<br/>robbing brothers and sisters,<br/>doing what is dead wrong in the community.


text:
"Do you need to ask, 'So why does the child not share the guilt of the parent?'<br/>"Isn't it plain? It's because the child did what is fair and right. Since the child was careful to do what is lawful and right, the child will live truly and well.


text:
The soul that sins is the soul that dies. The child does not share the guilt of the parent, nor the parent the guilt of the child. If you live upright and well, you get the credit; if you live a wicked life, you're guilty as charged.


text:
"But a wicked person who turns his back on that life of sin and keeps all my statutes, living a just and righteous life, he'll live, really live. He won't die.


text:
Do you think I take any pleasure in the death of wicked men and women? Isn't it my pleasure that they turn around, no longer living wrong but living right—really living?


text:
"The same thing goes for a good person who turns his back on an upright life and starts sinning, plunging into the same vile obscenities that the wicked person practices. Will this person live? I don't keep a list of all the things this person did right, like money in the bank he can draw on. Because of his defection, because he accumulates sin, he'll die.


text:
"Do I hear you saying, 'That's not fair! God's not fair!'?<br/>"Listen, Israel. I'm not fair? You're the ones who aren't fair!


text:
If a good person turns away from his good life and takes up sinning, he'll die for it. He'll die for his own sin.


text:
Likewise, if a bad person turns away from his bad life and starts living a good life, a fair life, he will save his life.


text:
Because he faces up to all the wrongs he's committed and puts them behind him, he will live, really live. He won't die.


text:
"And yet Israel keeps on whining, 'That's not fair! God's not fair.'<br/>"I'm not fair, Israel? You're the ones who aren't fair.


text:
"The upshot is this, Israel: I'll judge each of you according to the way you live. So turn around! Turn your backs on your rebellious living so that sin won't drag you down.


text:
Clean house. No more rebellions, please. Get a new heart! Get a new spirit! Why would you choose to die, Israel?


text:
Say:<br/>What a lioness was your mother<br/>among lions!<br/>She crouched in a pride of young lions.<br/>Her cubs grew large.


text:
She reared one of her cubs to maturity,<br/>a robust young lion.<br/>He learned to hunt.<br/>He ate men.


text:
Nations sounded the alarm.<br/>He was caught in a trap.<br/>They took him with hooks<br/>and dragged him to Egypt.


text:
When the lioness saw she was luckless,<br/>that her hope for that cub was gone,<br/>She took her other cub<br/>and made him a strong young lion.


text:
He rampaged through their defenses,<br/>left their cities in ruins.<br/>The country and everyone in it<br/>was terrorized by the roars of the lion.


text:
The nations got together to hunt him.<br/>Everyone joined the hunt.<br/>They set out their traps<br/>and caught him.


text:
They put a wooden collar on him<br/>and took him to the king of Babylon.<br/>No more would that voice be heard<br/>disturbing the peace in the mountains of Israel!


text:
Here's another way to put it:<br/>Your mother was like a vine in a vineyard,<br/>transplanted alongside streams of water,<br/>Luxurious in branches and grapes<br/>because of the ample water.


text:
It grew sturdy branches<br/>fit to be carved into a royal scepter.<br/>It grew high, reaching into the clouds.<br/>Its branches filled the horizon,<br/>and everyone could see it.


text:
Then it was ripped up in a rage<br/>and thrown to the ground.<br/>The hot east wind shriveled it up<br/>and stripped its fruit.<br/>The sturdy branches dried out,<br/>fit for nothing but kindling.


text:
Good for nothing but making fires,<br/>campfires in the desert.<br/>Not a hint now of those sturdy branches<br/>fit for use as a royal scepter!<br/>(This is a sad song, a text for singing the blues.)


text:
In the seventh year, the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month, some of the leaders of Israel came to ask for guidance from God. They sat down before me.


text:
"Son of man, talk with the leaders of Israel. Tell them, 'God, the Master, says, "Have you come to ask me questions? As sure as I am the living God, I'll not put up with questions from you. Decree of God, the Master." '


text:
"Son of man, why don't you do it? Yes, go ahead. Hold them accountable. Confront them with the outrageous obscenities of their parents.


text:
Tell them that God, the Master, says:<br/>" 'On the day I chose Israel, I revealed myself to them in the country of Egypt, raising my hand in a solemn oath to the people of Jacob, in which I said, "I am God, your personal God."


text:
On the same day that I raised my hand in the solemn oath, I promised them that I would take them out of the country of Egypt and bring them into a country that I had searched out just for them, a country flowing with milk and honey, a jewel of a country.


text:
" 'At that time I told them, "Get rid of all the vile things that you've become addicted to. Don't make yourselves filthy with the Egyptian no-god idols. I alone am God, your God."


text:
" 'But they rebelled against me, wouldn't listen to a word I said. None got rid of the vile things they were addicted to. They held on to the no-gods of Egypt as if for dear life. I seriously considered inflicting my anger on them in force right there in Egypt.


text:
Then I thought better of it. I acted out of who I was, not by how I felt. And I acted in a way that would evoke honor, not blasphemy, from the nations around them, nations who had seen me reveal myself by promising to lead my people out of Egypt.


text:
I also gave them my weekly holy rest days, my "Sabbaths," a kind of signpost erected between me and them to show them that I, God, am in the business of making them holy.


text:
" 'But Israel rebelled against me in the desert. They didn't follow my statutes. They despised my laws for living well and obediently in the ways I had set out. And they totally desecrated my holy Sabbaths. I seriously considered unleashing my anger on them right there in the desert.


text:
But I thought better of it and acted out of who I was, not by what I felt, so that I might be honored and not blasphemed by the nations who had seen me bring them out.


text:
But I did lift my hand in a solemn oath there in the desert and promise them that I would not bring them into the country flowing with milk and honey that I had chosen for them, that jewel among all lands.


text:
I canceled my promise because they despised my laws for living obediently, wouldn't follow my statutes, and went ahead and desecrated my holy Sabbaths. They preferred living by their no-god idols.


text:
" 'Then I addressed myself to their children in the desert: "Don't do what your parents did. Don't take up their practices. Don't make yourselves filthy with their no-god idols.


text:
Keep my Sabbaths as holy rest days, signposts between me and you, signaling that I am God, your God."


text:
" 'But the children also rebelled against me. They neither followed my statutes nor kept my laws for living upright and well. And they desecrated my Sabbaths. I seriously considered dumping my anger on them, right there in the desert.


text:
" 'But I did lift my hand in solemn oath there in the desert, and swore that I would scatter them all over the world, disperse them every which way


text:
because they didn't keep my laws nor live by my statutes. They desecrated my Sabbaths and remained addicted to the no-god idols of their parents.


text:
Since they were determined to live bad lives, I myself gave them statutes that could not produce goodness and laws that did not produce life.


text:
I abandoned them. Filthy in the gutter, they perversely sacrificed their firstborn children in the fire. The very horror should have shocked them into recognizing that I am God.'


text:
"Therefore, speak to Israel, son of man. Tell them that God says, 'As if that wasn't enough, your parents further insulted me by betraying me.


text:
When I brought them into that land that I had solemnly promised with my upraised hand to give them, every time they saw a hill with a sex-and-religion shrine on it or a grove of trees where the sacred whores practiced, they were there, buying into the whole pagan system.


text:
"Therefore, say to Israel, 'The Message of God, the Master: You're making your lives filthy by copying the ways of your parents. In repeating their vile practices, you've become whores yourselves.


text:
In burning your children as sacrifices, you've become as filthy as your no-god idols—as recently as today!<br/>" 'Am I going to put up with questions from people like you, Israel? As sure as I am the living God, I, God, the Master, refuse to be called into question by you!


text:
" 'What you're secretly thinking is never going to happen. You're thinking, "We're going to be like everybody else, just like the other nations. We're going to worship gods we can make and control."


text:
' "As sure as I am the living God, says God, the Master, think again! With a mighty show of strength and a terrifying rush of anger, I will be King over you!


text:
I'll bring you back from the nations, collect you out of the countries to which you've been scattered, with a mighty show of strength and a terrifying rush of anger.


text:
I'll bring you to the desert of nations and haul you into court, where you'll be face to face with judgment.


text:
I'll scrutinize and search every person as you arrive, and I'll bring you under the bond of the covenant.


text:
I'll cull out the rebels and traitors. I'll lead them out of their exile, but I won't bring them back to Israel.<br/>" 'Then you'll realize that I am God.


text:
" 'But you, people of Israel, this is the Message of God, the Master, to you: Go ahead, serve your no-god idols! But later, you'll think better of it and quit throwing filth and mud on me with your pagan offerings and no-god idols.


text:
For on my holy mountain, the high mountain of Israel, I, God, the Master, tell you that the entire people of Israel will worship me. I'll receive them there with open arms. I'll demand your best gifts and offerings, all your holy sacrifices.


text:
What's more, I'll receive you as the best kind of offerings when I bring you back from all the lands and countries in which you've been scattered. I'll demonstrate in the eyes of the world that I am The Holy.


text:
When I return you to the land of Israel, the land that I solemnly promised with upraised arm to give to your parents, you'll realize that I am God.


text:
Then and there you'll remember all that you've done, the way you've lived that has made you so filthy—and you'll loathe yourselves.


text:
" 'But, dear Israel, you'll also realize that I am God when I respond to you out of who I am, not by what I feel about the evil lives you've lived, the corrupt history you've compiled. Decree of God, the Master.' "


text:
"Son of man, face south. Let the Message roll out against the south. Prophesy against the wilderness forest of the south.


text:
"Tell the forest of the south, 'Listen to the Message of God! God, the Master, says, I'll set a fire in you that will burn up every tree, dead trees and live trees alike. Nobody will put out the fire. The whole country from south to north will be blackened by it.


text:
"Son of man, now face Jerusalem and let the Message roll out against the Sanctuary. Prophesy against the land of Israel.


text:
Say, 'God's Message: I'm against you. I'm pulling my sword from its sheath and killing both the wicked and the righteous.


text:
Because I'm treating everyone the same, good and bad, everyone from south to north is going to feel my sword!


text:
"When they ask you, 'Why all this groaning, this carrying on?' say, 'Because of the news that's coming. It'll knock the breath out of everyone. Hearts will stop cold, knees turn to rubber. Yes, it's coming. No stopping it. Decree of God, the Master.' "


text:
"Son of man, prophesy. Tell them, 'The Master says:<br/>" 'A sword! A sword!<br/>razor-sharp and polished,


text:
Sharpened to kill,<br/>polished to flash like lightning!<br/>" 'My child, you've despised the scepter of Judah<br/>by worshiping every tree-idol.


text:
" 'The sword is made to glisten,<br/>to be held and brandished.<br/>It's sharpened and polished,<br/>ready to be brandished by the killer.'


text:
"Yell out and wail, son of man.<br/>The sword is against my people!<br/>The princes of Israel<br/>and my people—abandoned to the sword!<br/>Wring your hands!<br/>Tear out your hair!


text:
" 'Testing comes.<br/>Why have you despised discipline?<br/>You can't get around it.<br/>Decree of God, the Master.'


text:
"So, prophesy, son of man!<br/>Clap your hands. Get their attention.<br/>Tell them that the sword's coming down<br/>once, twice, three times.<br/>It's a sword to kill,<br/>a sword for a massacre,<br/>A sword relentless,<br/>a sword inescapable—


text:
People collapsing right and left,<br/>going down like dominoes.<br/>I've stationed a murderous sword<br/>at every gate in the city,<br/>Flashing like lightning,<br/>brandished murderously.


text:
"Son of man, lay out two roads for the sword of the king of Babylon to take. Start them from the same place. Place a signpost at the beginning of each road.


text:
Post one sign to mark the road of the sword to Rabbah of the Ammonites. Post the other to mark the road to Judah and Fort Jerusalem.


text:
The king of Babylon stands at the fork in the road and he decides by divination which of the two roads to take. He draws straws, he throws god-dice, he examines a goat liver.


text:
He opens his right hand: The omen says, 'Head for Jerusalem!' So he's on his way with battering rams, roused to kill, sounding the battle cry, pounding down city gates, building siege works.


text:
"To the Judah leaders, who themselves have sworn oaths, it will seem like a false divination, but he will remind them of their guilt, and so they'll be captured.


text:
"So this is what God, the Master, says: 'Because your sin is now out in the open so everyone can see what you've been doing, you'll be taken captive.


text:
God says, Take your royal crown off your head. No more "business as usual." The underdog will be promoted and the top dog will be demoted.


text:
Ruins, ruins, ruins! I'll turn the whole place into ruins. And ruins it will remain until the one comes who has a right to it. Then I'll give it to him.'


text:
"But, son of man, your job is to prophesy. Tell them, 'This is the Message from God, the Master, against the Ammonites and against their cruel taunts:<br/>" 'A sword! A sword!<br/>Bared to kill,<br/>Sharp as a razor,<br/>flashing like lightning.


text:
Despite false sword propaganda<br/>circulated in Ammon,<br/>The sword will sever Ammonite necks,<br/>for whom it's punishment payday.


text:
Return the sword to the sheath! I'll judge you in your home country,<br/>in the land where you grew up.


text:
I'll empty out my wrath on you,<br/>breathe hot anger down your neck.<br/>I'll give you to vicious men<br/>skilled in torture.


text:
You'll end up as stove-wood.<br/>Corpses will litter your land.<br/>Not so much as a memory will be left of you.<br/>I, God, have said so.' "


text:
"Son of man, are you going to judge this bloody city or not? Come now, are you going to judge her? Do it! Face her with all her outrageous obscenities.


text:
Tell her, 'This is what God, the Master, says: You're a city murderous at the core, just asking for punishment. You're a city obsessed with no-god idols, making yourself filthy.


text:
In all your killing, you've piled up guilt. In all your idol-making, you've become filthy. You've forced a premature end to your existence. I'll put you on exhibit as the scarecrow of the nations, the world's worst joke.


text:
You're a community that's insolent to parents, abusive to outsiders, oppressive against orphans and widows.


text:
You have people spreading lies and spilling blood, flocking to the hills to the sex shrines and fornicating unrestrained.


text:
Murder is for hire, usury is rampant, extortion is commonplace.<br/>" 'And you've forgotten me. Decree of God, the Master.


text:
" 'Now look! I've clapped my hands, calling everyone's attention to your rapacious greed and your bloody brutalities.


text:
Can you stick with it? Will you be able to keep at this once I start dealing with you?<br/>" 'I, God, have spoken. I'll put an end to this.


text:
I'll throw you to the four winds. I'll scatter you all over the world. I'll put a full stop to your filthy living.


text:
You will be defiled, spattered with your own mud in the eyes of the nations. And you'll recognize that I am God.' "


text:
"Son of man, the people of Israel are slag to me, the useless byproduct of refined copper, tin, iron, and lead left at the smelter—a worthless slag heap.


text:
So tell them, 'God, the Master, has spoken: Because you've all become worthless slag, you're on notice: I'll assemble you in Jerusalem.


text:
As men gather silver, copper, iron, lead, and tin into a furnace and blow fire on it to melt it down, so in my wrath I'll gather you and melt you down.


text:
As silver is melted down, you'll be melted down. That should get through to you. Then you'll recognize that I, God, have let my wrath loose on you.' "


text:
"Son of man, tell her, 'You're a land that during the time I was angry with you got no rain, not so much as a spring shower.


text:
The leaders among you became desperate, like roaring, ravaging lions killing indiscriminately. They grabbed and looted, leaving widows in their wake.


text:
" 'Your priests violated my law and desecrated my holy things. They can't tell the difference between sacred and secular. They tell people there's no difference between right and wrong. They're contemptuous of my holy Sabbaths, profaning me by trying to pull me down to their level.


text:
Your preachers cover up for the politicians by pretending to have received visions and special revelations. They say, "This is what God, the Master, says..." when God hasn't said so much as one word.


text:
Extortion is rife, robbery is epidemic, the poor and needy are abused, outsiders are kicked around at will, with no access to justice.'


text:
"I looked for someone to stand up for me against all this, to repair the defenses of the city, to take a stand for me and stand in the gap to protect this land so I wouldn't have to destroy it. I couldn't find anyone. Not one.


text:
So I'll empty out my wrath on them, burn them to a crisp with my hot anger, serve them with the consequences of all they've done. Decree of God, the Master."


text:
They became whores in Egypt, whores from a young age. Their breasts were fondled, their young bosoms caressed.


text:
The older sister was named Oholah, the younger was Oholibah. They were my daughters, and they gave birth to sons and daughters.<br/>"Oholah is Samaria and Oholibah is Jerusalem.


text:
"Oholah started whoring while she was still mine. She lusted after Assyrians as lovers: military men


text:
smartly uniformed in blue, ambassadors and governors, good-looking young men mounted on fine horses.


text:
Her lust was unrestrained. She was a whore to the Assyrian elite. She compounded her filth with the idols of those to whom she gave herself in lust.


text:
She never slowed down. The whoring she began while young in Egypt she continued, sleeping with men who played with her breasts and spent their lust on her.


text:
They ripped off her clothes, took away her children, and then, the final indignity, killed her. Among women her name became Shame—history's judgment on her.


text:
"Her sister Oholibah saw all this, but she became even worse than her sister in lust and whoring, if you can believe it.


text:
She also went crazy with lust for Assyrians: ambassadors and governors, military men smartly dressed and mounted on fine horses—the Assyrian elite.


text:
But Oholibah surpassed her sister. When she saw figures of Babylonians carved in relief on the walls and painted red,


text:
fancy belts around their waists, elaborate turbans on their heads, all of them looking important—famous Babylonians!—


text:
The Babylonians came on the run, fornicated with her, made her dirty inside and out. When they had thoroughly debased her, she lost interest in them.


text:
Then she went public with her fornication. She exhibited her sex to the world.<br/>"I turned my back on her just as I had on her sister.


text:
But that didn't slow her down. She went at her whoring harder than ever. She remembered when she was young, just starting out as a whore in Egypt.


text:
That whetted her appetite for more virile, vulgar, and violent lovers—stallions obsessive in their lust.


text:
She longed for the sexual prowess of her youth back in Egypt, where her firm young breasts were caressed and fondled.


text:
" 'Therefore, Oholibah, this is the Message from God, the Master: I will incite your old lovers against you, lovers you got tired of and left in disgust. I'll bring them against you from every direction,


text:
Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod, Shoa, and Koa, and all Assyrians—good-looking young men, ambassadors and governors, elite officers and celebrities—all of them mounted on fine, spirited horses.


text:
They'll come down on you out of the north, armed to the teeth, bringing chariots and troops from all sides. I'll turn over the task of judgment to them. They'll punish you according to their rules.


text:
I'll stand totally and relentlessly against you as they rip into you furiously. They'll mutilate you, cutting off your ears and nose, killing at random. They'll enslave your children—and anybody left over will be burned.


text:
I'll put a stop to your sluttish sex, the whoring life you began in Egypt. You won't look on whoring with fondness anymore. You won't think back on Egypt with stars in your eyes.


text:
" 'A Message from God, the Master: I'm at the point of abandoning you to those you hate, to those by whom you're repulsed.


text:
They'll treat you hatefully, leave you publicly naked, your whore's body exposed in the cruel glare of the sun. Your sluttish lust


text:
will be exposed. Your lust has brought you to this condition because you whored with pagan nations and made yourself filthy with their no-god idols.


text:
" 'This is the Message of God, the Master:<br/>" 'You'll drink your sister's cup,<br/>a cup canyon-deep and ocean-wide.<br/>You'll be shunned and taunted<br/>as you drink from that cup, full to the brim.


text:
You'll be falling-down-drunk and the tears will flow<br/>as you drink from that cup titanic with terror:<br/>It's the cup of your sister Samaria.


text:
You'll drink it dry,<br/>then smash it to bits and eat the pieces,<br/>and end up tearing at your breasts.<br/>I've given the word—<br/>Decree of God, the Master.


text:
" 'Therefore God, the Master, says, Because you've forgotten all about me, pushing me into the background, you now must pay for what you've done—pay for your sluttish sex and whoring life.' "


text:
Then God said to me, "Son of man, will you confront Oholah and Oholibah with what they've done? Make them face their outrageous obscenities,


text:
obscenities ranging from adultery to murder. They committed adultery with their no-god idols, sacrificed the children they bore me in order to feed their idols!


text:
The same day that they sacrificed their children to their idols, they walked into my Sanctuary and defiled it. That's what they did—in my house!


text:
"Furthermore, they even sent out invitations by special messenger to men far away—and, sure enough, they came. They bathed themselves, put on makeup and provocative lingerie.


text:
The crowd gathered, jostling and pushing, a drunken rabble. They adorned the sisters with bracelets on their arms and tiaras on their heads.


text:
"I said, 'She's burned out on sex!' but that didn't stop them. They kept banging on her doors night and day


text:
as men do when they're after a whore. That's how they used Oholah and Oholibah, the worn-out whores.


text:
"Righteous men will pronounce judgment on them, giving out sentences for adultery and murder. That was their lifework: adultery and murder."


text:
" 'I'll put an end to sluttish sex in this country so that all women will be well warned and not copy you.


text:
You'll pay the price for all your obsessive sex. You'll pay in full for your promiscuous affairs with idols. And you'll realize that I am God, the Master.' "


text:
Put chunks of meat into it,<br/>all the choice pieces—loin and brisket.<br/>Pick out the best soup bones


text:
from the best of the sheep in the flock.<br/>Pile wood beneath the pot.<br/>Bring it to a boil<br/>and cook the soup.


text:
" 'God, the Master, says:<br/>" 'Doom to the city of murder,<br/>to the pot thick with scum,<br/>thick with a filth that can't be scoured.<br/>Empty the pot piece by piece;<br/>don't bother who gets what.


text:
" 'The blood from murders<br/>has stained the whole city;<br/>Blood runs bold on the street stones,<br/>with no one bothering to wash it off—


text:
" 'Therefore, this is what God, the Master, says:<br/>" 'Doom to the city of murder!<br/>I, too, will pile on the wood.


text:
Stack the wood high,<br/>light the match,<br/>Cook the meat, spice it well, pour out the broth,<br/>and then burn the bones.


text:
Then I'll set the empty pot on the coals<br/>and heat it red-hot so the bronze glows,<br/>So the germs are killed<br/>and the corruption is burned off.


text:
" 'Your encrusted filth is your filthy sex. I wanted to clean you up, but you wouldn't let me. I'll make no more attempts at cleaning you up until my anger quiets down.


text:
I, God, have said it, and I'll do it. I'm not holding back. I've run out of compassion. I'm not changing my mind. You're getting exactly what's coming to you. Decree of God, the Master.' "


text:
"Son of man, I'm about to take from you the delight of your life—a real blow, I know. But, please, no tears.


text:
Keep your grief to yourself. No public mourning. Get dressed as usual and go about your work—none of the usual funeral rituals."


text:
I preached to the people in the morning. That evening my wife died. The next morning I did as I'd been told.


text:
'Tell the family of Israel, This is what God, the Master, says: I will desecrate my Sanctuary, your proud impregnable fort, the delight of your life, your heart's desire. The children you left behind will be killed.


text:
You'll get dressed as usual and go about your work. No tears. But your sins will eat away at you from within and you'll groan among yourselves.


text:
Ezekiel will be your example. The way he did it is the way you'll do it.<br/>" 'When this happens you'll recognize that I am God, the Master.' ' '


text:
"And you, son of man: The day I take away the people's refuge, their great joy, the delight of their life, what they've most longed for, along with all their children


text:
You'll break your silence and start talking again, talking to the survivor. Again, you'll be an example for them. And they'll recognize that I am God."


text:
Listen to the Message of God, the Master. This is what God has to say: Because you cheered when my Sanctuary was desecrated and the land of Judah was devastated and the people of Israel were taken into exile,


text:
I'm giving you over to the people of the east. They'll move in and make themselves at home, eating the food right off your tables and drinking your milk.


text:
I'll turn your capital, Rabbah, into pasture for camels and all your villages into corrals for flocks. Then you'll realize that I am God.


text:
"God, the Master, says, Because you clapped and cheered, venting all your malicious contempt against the land of Israel,


text:
I'll step in and hand you out as loot—first come, first served. I'll cross you off the roster of nations. There'll be nothing left of you. And you'll realize that I am God."


text:
I'll lay wide open the flank of Moab by exposing its lovely frontier villages to attack: Beth-jeshimoth, Baal-meon, and Kiriathaim.


text:
I'll lump Moab in with Ammon and give them to the people of the east for the taking. Ammon won't be heard from again.


text:
"God, the Master, says: Because Edom reacted against the people of Judah in spiteful revenge and was so criminally vengeful against them,


text:
therefore I, God, the Master, will oppose Edom and kill the lot of them, people and animals both. I'll waste it—corpses stretched from Teman to Dedan.


text:
I'll use my people Israel to bring my vengeance down on Edom. My wrath will fuel their action. And they'll realize it's my vengeance. Decree of God the Master."


text:
"God, the Master, says: Because the Philistines were so spitefully vengeful—all those centuries of stored-up malice!—and did their best to destroy Judah,


text:
therefore I, God, the Master, will oppose the Philistines and cut down the Cretans and anybody else left along the seacoast.


text:
Huge acts of vengeance, massive punishments! When I bring vengeance, they'll realize that I am God."


text:
"Son of man, Tyre cheered when they got the news of Jerusalem, exclaiming,<br/>" 'Good! The gateway city is smashed!<br/>Now all her business comes my way.<br/>She's in ruins<br/>and I'm in clover.'


text:
"Therefore, God, the Master, has this to say:<br/>" 'I'm against you, Tyre,<br/>and I'll bring many nations surging against you,<br/>as the waves of the sea surging against the shore.


text:
They'll smash the city walls of Tyre<br/>and break down her towers.<br/>I'll wash away the soil<br/>and leave nothing but bare rock.


text:
She'll be an island of bare rock in the ocean,<br/>good for nothing but drying fishnets.<br/>Yes, I've said so.' Decree of God, the Master.<br/>'She'll be loot, free pickings for the nations!


text:
"God, the Master, says: Look! Out of the north I'm bringing Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, a king's king, down on Tyre. He'll come with chariots and horses and riders—a huge army.


text:
He'll massacre your surrounding villages and lay siege to you. He'll build siege ramps against your walls. A forest of shields will advance against you!


text:
You'll be covered with dust from his horde of horses—a thundering herd of war horses pouring through the breaches, pulling chariots. Oh, it will be an earthquake of an army and a city in shock!


text:
Horses will stampede through the streets. Your people will be slaughtered and your huge pillars strewn like matchsticks.


text:
The invaders will steal and loot—all that wealth, all that stuff! They'll knock down your fine houses and dump the stone and timber rubble into the sea.


text:
I'll reduce you to an island of bare rock, good for nothing but drying fishnets. You'll never be rebuilt. I, God, have said so. Decree of God, the Master.


text:
"This is the Message of God, the Master, to Tyre: Won't the ocean islands shake at the crash of your collapse, at the groans of your wounded, at your mayhem and massacre?


text:
"All up and down the coast, the princes will come down from their thrones, take off their royal robes and fancy clothes, and wrap themselves in sheer terror. They'll sit on the ground, shaken to the core, horrified at you.


text:
Then they'll begin chanting a funeral song over you:<br/>" 'Sunk! Sunk to the bottom of the sea,<br/>famous city on the sea!<br/>Power of the seas,<br/>you and your people,<br/>Intimidating everyone<br/>who lived in your shadows.


text:
But now the islands are shaking<br/>at the sound of your crash,<br/>Ocean islands in tremors<br/>from the impact of your fall.'


text:
"The Message of God, the Master: 'When I turn you into a wasted city, a city empty of people, a ghost town, and when I bring up the great ocean deeps and cover you,


text:
then I'll push you down among those who go to the grave, the long, long dead. I'll make you live there, in the grave in old ruins, with the buried dead. You'll never see the land of the living again.


text:
I'll introduce you to the terrors of death and that'll be the end of you. They'll send out search parties for you, but you'll never be found. Decree of God, the Master.' "


text:
Tell Tyre, gateway to the sea, merchant to the world, trader among the far-off islands, 'This is what God, the Master, says:<br/>" 'You boast, Tyre:<br/>"I'm the perfect ship—stately, handsome."


text:
They made your oars<br/>from sturdy Bashan oaks.<br/>Cypress from Cyprus inlaid with ivory<br/>was used for the decks.


text:
Your sail and flag were of colorful<br/>embroidered linen from Egypt.<br/>Your purple deck awnings<br/>also came from Cyprus.


text:
Ship's carpenters<br/>were old salts from Byblos.<br/>All the ships of the sea and their sailors<br/>clustered around you to barter for your goods.


text:
" 'Your army was composed of soldiers<br/>from Paras, Lud, and Put,<br/>Elite troops in uniformed splendor.<br/>They put you on the map!


text:
Your city police were imported from<br/>Arvad, Helech, and Gammad.<br/>They hung their shields from the city walls,<br/>a final, perfect touch to your beauty.


text:
" 'Tarshish carried on business with you because of your great wealth. They worked for you, trading in silver, iron, tin, and lead for your products.


text:
" 'The people of Rhodes did business with you. Many far-off islands traded with you in ivory and ebony.


text:
" 'Edom did business with you because of all your goods. They traded for your products with agate, purple textiles, embroidered cloth, fine linen, coral, and rubies.


text:
" 'Judah and Israel did business with you. They traded for your products with premium wheat, millet, honey, oil, and balm.


text:
" 'Damascus, attracted by your vast array of products and well-stocked warehouses, carried on business with you, trading in wine from Helbon and wool from Zahar.


text:
" 'Traders from Sheba and Raamah in South Arabia carried on business with you in premium spices, precious stones, and gold.


text:
" 'The great Tarshish ships were your freighters, importing and exporting. Oh, it was big business for you, trafficking the seaways!


text:
" 'Your sailors row mightily,<br/>taking you into the high seas.<br/>Then a storm out of the east<br/>shatters your ship in the ocean deep.


text:
Everything sinks—your rich goods and products,<br/>sailors and crew, ship's carpenters and soldiers,<br/>Sink to the bottom of the sea.<br/>Total shipwreck.


text:
They cry out in grief,<br/>a choir of bitter lament over you.<br/>They smear their faces with ashes,


text:
" 'As you crisscrossed the seas with your products,<br/>you satisfied many peoples.<br/>Your worldwide trade<br/>made earth's kings rich.


text:
And now you're battered to bits by the waves,<br/>sunk to the bottom of the sea,<br/>And everything you've bought and sold<br/>has sunk to the bottom with you.


text:
Everyone on shore looks on in terror.<br/>The hair of kings stands on end,<br/>their faces drawn and haggard!


text:
The buyers and sellers of the world<br/>throw up their hands:<br/>This horror can't happen!<br/>Oh, this has happened!' "


text:
"Son of man, tell the prince of Tyre, 'This is what God, the Master, says:<br/>" 'Your heart is proud,<br/>going around saying, "I'm a god.<br/>I sit on God's divine throne,<br/>ruling the sea"—<br/>You, a mere mortal,<br/>not even close to being a god,<br/>A mere mortal<br/>trying to be a god.


text:
Your sharp intelligence<br/>made you world-wealthy.<br/>You piled up gold and silver<br/>in your banks.


text:
You used your head well,<br/>worked good deals, made a lot of money.<br/>But the money has gone to your head,<br/>swelled your head—what a big head!


text:
" 'Therefore, God, the Master, says:<br/>" 'Because you're acting like a god,<br/>pretending to be a god,


text:
I'm giving fair warning: I'm bringing strangers down on you,<br/>the most vicious of all nations.<br/>They'll pull their swords and make hash<br/>of your reputation for knowing it all.<br/>They'll puncture the balloon<br/>of your god-pretensions.


text:
Will you protest to your assassins,<br/>"You can't do that! I'm a god"?<br/>To them you're a mere mortal.<br/>They're killing a man, not a god.


text:
"Son of man, raise a funeral song over the king of Tyre. Tell him, A Message from God, the Master:<br/>"You had everything going for you.


text:
You were in Eden, God's garden.<br/>You were dressed in splendor,<br/>your robe studded with jewels:<br/>Carnelian, peridot, and moonstone,<br/>beryl, onyx, and jasper,<br/>Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald,<br/>all in settings of engraved gold.<br/>A robe was prepared for you<br/>the same day you were created.


text:
You were the anointed cherub.<br/>I placed you on the mountain of God.<br/>You strolled in magnificence<br/>among the stones of fire.


text:
From the day of your creation<br/>you were sheer perfection...<br/>and then imperfection—evil!—was detected in you.


text:
In much buying and selling<br/>you turned violent, you sinned!<br/>I threw you, disgraced, off the mountain of God.<br/>I threw you out—you, the anointed angel-cherub.<br/>No more strolling among the gems of fire for you!


text:
Your beauty went to your head.<br/>You corrupted wisdom<br/>by using it to get worldly fame.<br/>I threw you to the ground,<br/>sent you sprawling before an audience of kings<br/>and let them gloat over your demise.


text:
By sin after sin after sin,<br/>by your corrupt ways of doing business,<br/>you defiled your holy places of worship.<br/>So I set a fire around and within you.<br/>It burned you up. I reduced you to ashes.<br/>All anyone sees now<br/>when they look for you is ashes,<br/>a pitiful mound of ashes.


text:
All who once knew you<br/>now throw up their hands:<br/>'This can't have happened!<br/>This has happened!' "


text:
Say, 'Message from God, the Master:<br/>" 'Look! I'm against you, Sidon.<br/>I intend to be known for who I truly am among you.'<br/>They'll know that I am God<br/>when I set things right<br/>and reveal my holy presence.


text:
I'll order an epidemic of disease there,<br/>along with murder and mayhem in the streets.<br/>People will drop dead right and left,<br/>as war presses in from every side.<br/>Then they'll realize that I mean business,<br/>that I am God.


text:
"No longer will Israel have to put up with<br/>their thistle-and-thorn neighbors<br/>Who have treated them so contemptuously.<br/>And they also will realize that I am God."


text:
God, the Master, says, "When I gather Israel from the peoples among whom they've been scattered and put my holiness on display among them with all the nations looking on, then they'll live in their own land that I gave to my servant Jacob.


text:
They'll live there in safety. They'll build houses. They'll plant vineyards, living in safety. Meanwhile, I'll bring judgment on all the neighbors who have treated them with such contempt. And they'll realize that I am God."


text:
Tell him, 'God, the Master, says:<br/>" 'Watch yourself, Pharaoh, king of Egypt.<br/>I'm dead set against you,<br/>You lumbering old dragon,<br/>lolling and flaccid in the Nile,<br/>Saying, "It's my Nile.<br/>I made it. It's mine."


text:
I'll set hooks in your jaw;<br/>I'll make the fish of the Nile stick to your scales.<br/>I'll pull you out of the Nile,<br/>with all the fish stuck to your scales.


text:
Then I'll drag you out into the desert,<br/>you and all the Nile fish sticking to your scales.<br/>You'll lie there in the open, rotting in the sun,<br/>meat to the wild animals and carrion birds.


text:
Everybody living in Egypt<br/>will realize that I am God.<br/>" 'Because you've been a flimsy reed crutch to Israel


text:
so that when they gripped you, you splintered and cut their hand, and when they leaned on you, you broke and sent them sprawling


text:
and turn the country into an empty desert so they'll realize that I am God.<br/>" 'Because you said, "It's my Nile. I made it. It's all mine,"


text:
therefore I am against you and your rivers. I'll reduce Egypt to an empty, desolate wasteland all the way from Migdol in the north to Syene and the border of Ethiopia in the south.


text:
Not a human will be seen in it, nor will an animal move through it. It'll be just empty desert, empty for forty years.


text:
" 'I'll make Egypt the most desolate of all desolations. For forty years I'll make her cities the most wasted of all wasted cities. I'll scatter Egyptians to the four winds, send them off every which way into exile.


text:
" 'But,' says God, the Master, 'that's not the end of it. After the forty years, I'll gather up the Egyptians from all the places where they've been scattered.


text:
I'll put things back together again for Egypt. I'll bring her back to Pathros where she got her start long ago. There she'll start over again from scratch.


text:
She'll take her place at the bottom of the ladder and there she'll stay, never to climb that ladder again, never to be a world power again.


text:
Never again will Israel be tempted to rely on Egypt. All she'll be to Israel is a reminder of old sin. Then Egypt will realize that I am God, the Master.' "


text:
In the twenty-seventh year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, God's Message came to me:


text:
"Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, has worn out his army against Tyre. They've worked their fingers to the bone and have nothing to show for it.


text:
"Therefore, God, the Master, says, 'I'm giving Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. He'll haul away its wealth, pick the place clean. He'll pay his army with Egyptian plunder.


text:
He's been working for me all these years without pay. This is his pay: Egypt. Decree of God, the Master.


text:
" 'And then I'll stir up fresh hope in Israel—the dawn of deliverance!—and I'll give you, Ezekiel, bold and confident words to speak. And they'll realize that I am God.' "


text:
" 'Doomsday!'<br/>Time's up!<br/>God's big day of judgment is near.<br/>Thick clouds are rolling in.<br/>It's doomsday for the nations.


text:
Death will rain down on Egypt.<br/>Terror will paralyze Ethiopia<br/>When they see the Egyptians killed,<br/>their wealth hauled off,<br/>their foundations demolished,


text:
And Ethiopia, Put, Lud, Arabia, Libya<br/>—all of Egypt's old allies—<br/>killed right along with them.


text:
" 'God says:<br/>" 'Egypt's allies will fall<br/>and her proud strength will collapse—<br/>From Migdol in the north to Syene in the south,<br/>a great slaughter in Egypt!<br/>Decree of God, the Master.


text:
" 'When that happens, I'll send out messengers by ship to sound the alarm among the easygoing Ethiopians. They'll be terrorized. Egypt's doomed! Judgment's coming!


text:
" 'God, the Master, says:<br/>" 'I'll put a stop to Egypt's arrogance.<br/>I'll use Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to do it.


text:
He and his army, the most brutal of nations,<br/>shall be used to destroy the country.<br/>They'll brandish their swords<br/>and fill Egypt with corpses.


text:
I'll dry up the Nile<br/>and sell off the land to a bunch of crooks.<br/>I'll hire outsiders to come in<br/>and waste the country, strip it clean.<br/>I, God, have said so.


text:
" 'And now this is what God, the Master, says:<br/>" 'I'll smash all the no-god idols;<br/>I'll topple all those huge statues in Memphis.<br/>The prince of Egypt will be gone for good,<br/>and in his place I'll put fear—fear throughout Egypt!


text:
A dark day for Tahpanhes<br/>when I shatter Egypt,<br/>When I break Egyptian power<br/>and put an end to her arrogant oppression!<br/>She'll disappear in a cloud of dust,<br/>her cities hauled off as exiles.


text:
"Son of man, I've broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt. And look! It hasn't been set. No splint has been put on it so the bones can knit and heal, so he can use a sword again.


text:
"Therefore, God, the Master, says, I am dead set against Pharaoh king of Egypt and will go ahead and break his other arm—both arms broken! There's no way he'll ever swing a sword again.


text:
I'll make the arms of the king of Babylon strong and put my sword in his hand, but I'll break the arms of Pharaoh and he'll groan like one who is mortally wounded.


text:
I'll make the arms of the king of Babylon strong, but the arms of Pharaoh shall go limp. The Egyptians will realize that I am God when I place my sword in the hand of the king of Babylon. He'll wield it against Egypt


text:
"Son of man, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt, that pompous old goat:<br/>" 'Who do you, astride the world,<br/>think you really are?


text:
Look! Assyria was a Big Tree, huge as a Lebanon cedar,<br/>beautiful limbs offering cool shade,<br/>Skyscraper high,<br/>piercing the clouds.


text:
The waters gave it drink,<br/>the primordial deep lifted it high,<br/>Gushing out rivers around<br/>the place where it was planted,<br/>And then branching out in streams<br/>to all the trees in the forest.


text:
It was immense,<br/>dwarfing all the trees in the forest—<br/>Thick boughs, long limbs,<br/>roots delving deep into earth's waters.


text:
All the birds of the air<br/>nested in its boughs.<br/>All the wild animals<br/>gave birth under its branches.<br/>All the mighty nations<br/>lived in its shade.


text:
It was stunning in its majesty—<br/>the reach of its branches!<br/>the depth of its water-seeking roots!


text:
Not a cedar in God's garden came close to it.<br/>No pine tree was anything like it.<br/>Mighty oaks looked like bushes<br/>growing alongside it.<br/>Not a tree in God's garden<br/>was in the same class of beauty.


text:
I made it beautiful,<br/>a work of art in limbs and leaves,<br/>The envy of every tree in Eden,<br/>every last tree in God's garden.' "


text:
Therefore, God, the Master, says, " 'Because it skyscrapered upwards, piercing the clouds, swaggering and proud of its stature,


text:
Outsiders, unbelievably brutal, felled it across the mountain ranges. Its branches were strewn through all the valleys, its leafy boughs clogging all the streams and rivers. Because its shade was gone, everybody walked off. No longer a tree—just a log.


text:
" 'That marks the end of the "big tree" nations. No more trees nourished from the great deep, no more cloud-piercing trees, no more earth– born trees taking over. They're all slated for death—back to earth, right along with men and women, for whom it's "dust to dust."


text:
" 'The Message of God, the Master: On the day of the funeral of the Big Tree, I threw the great deep into mourning. I stopped the flow of its rivers, held back great seas, and wrapped the Lebanon mountains in black. All the trees of the forest fainted and fell.


text:
I made the whole world quake when it crashed, and threw it into the underworld to take its place with all else that gets buried. All the trees of Eden and the finest and best trees of Lebanon, well-watered, were relieved


text:
—they had descended to the underworld with it—along with everyone who had lived in its shade and all who had been killed.


text:
" 'Which of the trees of Eden came anywhere close to you in splendor and size? But you're slated to be cut down to take your place in the underworld with the trees of Eden, to be a dead log stacked with all the other dead logs, among the other uncircumcised who are dead and buried.<br/>" 'This means Pharaoh, the pompous old goat.<br/>" 'Decree of God, the Master.' "


text:
"Son of man, sing a funeral lament over Pharaoh king of Egypt. Tell him:<br/>" 'You think you're a young lion<br/>prowling through the nations.<br/>You're more like a dragon in the ocean,<br/>snorting and thrashing about.


text:
" 'God, the Master, says:<br/>" 'I'm going to throw my net over you<br/>—many nations will get in on this operation—<br/>and haul you out with my dragnet.


text:
I'll dump you on the ground<br/>out in an open field<br/>And bring in all the crows and vultures<br/>for a sumptuous carrion lunch.<br/>I'll invite wild animals from all over the world<br/>to gorge on your guts.


text:
The country, right up to the mountains,<br/>will be drenched with your blood,<br/>your blood filling every ditch and channel.


text:
When I blot you out,<br/>I'll pull the curtain on the skies<br/>and shut out the stars.<br/>I'll throw a cloud across the sun<br/>and turn off the moonlight.


text:
I'll turn out every light in the sky above you<br/>and put your land in the dark.<br/>Decree of God, the Master.


text:
I'll shock people with you.<br/>Kings will take one look and shudder.<br/>I'll shake my sword<br/>and they'll shake in their boots.<br/>On the day you crash, they'll tremble,<br/>thinking, "That could be me!"


text:
I'll use the swords of champions<br/>to lay your pride low,<br/>Use the most brutal of nations<br/>to knock Egypt off her high horse,<br/>to puncture that hot-air pomposity.


text:
I'll destroy all their livestock<br/>that graze along the river.<br/>Neither human foot nor animal hoof<br/>will muddy those waters anymore.


text:
I'll clear their springs and streams,<br/>make their rivers flow clean and smooth.<br/>Decree of God, the Master.


text:
When I turn Egypt back to the wild<br/>and strip her clean of all her abundant produce,<br/>When I strike dead all who live there,<br/>then they'll realize that I am God.'


text:
"This is a funeral song. Chant it.<br/>Daughters of the nations, chant it.<br/>Chant it over Egypt for the death of its pomp."<br/>Decree of God, the Master.


text:
"Son of man, lament over Egypt's pompous ways.<br/>Send her on her way.<br/>Dispatch Egypt<br/>and her proud daughter nations<br/>To the underworld,<br/>down to the country of the dead and buried.


text:
Say, 'You think you're so high and mighty?<br/>Down! Take your place with the heathen in that unhallowed grave!'


text:
"She'll be dumped in with those killed in battle. The sword is bared. Drag her off in all her proud pomp!


text:
All the big men and their helpers down among the dead and buried will greet them: 'Welcome to the grave of the heathen! Join the ranks of the victims of war!'


text:
Their graves are in the deepest part of the underworld, a congregation of graves, all killed in battle, these people who terrorized the land of the living.


text:
"Elam is there in all her pride, a cemetery—all killed in battle, dumped in her heathen grave with the dead and buried, these people who terrorized the land of the living. They carry their shame with them, along with the others in the grave.


text:
They turned Elam into a resort for the pompous dead, landscaped with heathen graves, slaughtered in battle. They once terrorized the land of the living. Now they carry their shame down with the others in deep earth. They're in the section set aside for the slain in battle.


text:
"Meshech-tubal is there in all her pride, a cemetery in uncircumcised ground, dumped in with those slaughtered in battle—just deserts for terrorizing the land of the living. Now they carry their shame down with the others in deep earth. They're in the section set aside for the slain.


text:
They're segregated from the heroes, the old-time giants who entered the grave in full battle dress, their swords placed under their heads and their shields covering their bones, those heroes who spread terror through the land of the living.


text:
"And you, Egypt, will be dumped in a heathen grave, along with all the rest, in the section set aside for the slain.


text:
"Edom is there, with her kings and princes. In spite of her vaunted greatness, she is dumped in a heathen grave with the others headed for the grave.


text:
"The princes of the north are there, the whole lot of them, and all the Sidonians who carry their shame to their graves—all that terror they spread with their brute power!—dumped in unhallowed ground with those killed in battle, carrying their shame with the others headed for deep earth.


text:
"Pharaoh will see them all and, pompous old goat that he is, take comfort in the company he'll keep—Pharaoh and his slaughtered army. Decree of God, the Master.


text:
"I used him to spread terror in the land of the living and now I'm dumping him in heathen ground with those killed by the sword—Pharaoh and all his pomp. Decree of God, the Master."


text:
"Son of man, speak to your people. Tell them: 'If I bring war on this land and the people take one of their citizens and make him their watchman,


text:
then if anyone hears the sound of the trumpet and ignores it and war comes and takes him off, it's his own fault.


text:
He heard the alarm, he ignored it—it's his own fault. If he had listened, he would have saved his life.


text:
" 'But if the watchman sees war coming and doesn't blow the trumpet, warning the people, and war comes and takes anyone off, I'll hold the watchman responsible for the bloodshed of any unwarned sinner.'


text:
"You, son of man, are the watchman. I've made you a watchman for Israel. The minute you hear a message from me, warn them.


text:
If I say to the wicked, 'Wicked man, wicked woman, you're on the fast track to death!' and you don't speak up and warn the wicked to change their ways, the wicked will die unwarned in their sins and I'll hold you responsible for their bloodshed.


text:
But if you warn the wicked to change their ways and they don't do it, they'll die in their sins well-warned and at least you will have saved your own life.


text:
"Son of man, speak to Israel. Tell them: 'You've said, "Our rebellions and sins are weighing us down. We're wasting away. How can we go on living?" '


text:
"Tell them, 'As sure as I am the living God, I take no pleasure from the death of the wicked. I want the wicked to change their ways and live. Turn your life around! Reverse your evil ways! Why die, Israel?'


text:
"There's more, son of man. Tell your people: 'A good person's good life won't save him when he decides to rebel, and a bad person's bad life won't prevent him from repenting of his rebellion. A good person who sins can't expect to live when he chooses to sin.


text:
It's true that I tell good people, "Live! Be alive!" But if they trust in their good deeds and turn to evil, that good life won't amount to a hill of beans. They'll die for their evil life.


text:
" 'On the other hand, if I tell a wicked person, "You'll die for your wicked life," and he repents of his sin and starts living a righteous and just life


text:
—being generous to the down-and-out, restoring what he had stolen, cultivating life-nourishing ways that don't hurt others—he'll live. He won't die.


text:
None of his sins will be kept on the books. He's doing what's right, living a good life. He'll live.


text:
And when a wicked person turns away from his wicked life and starts living a just and righteous life, he'll come alive.


text:
" 'Still, you keep on saying, "The Master's way isn't fair." We'll see, Israel. I'll decide on each of you exactly according to how you live.' "


text:
In the twelfth year of our exile, on the fifth day of the tenth month, a survivor from Jerusalem came to me and said, "The city's fallen."


text:
The evening before the survivor arrived, the hand of God had been on me and restored my speech. By the time he arrived in the morning I was able to speak. I could talk again.


text:
"Son of man, those who are living in the ruins back in Israel are saying, 'Abraham was only one man and he owned the whole country. But there are lots of us. Our ownership is even more certain.'


text:
"So tell them, 'God the Master says, You eat flesh that contains blood, you worship no-god idols, you murder at will—and you expect to own this land?


text:
You rely on the sword, you engage in obscenities, you indulge in sex at random—anyone, anytime. And you still expect to own this land?'


text:
"Tell them this, Ezekiel: 'The Message of God, the Master. As sure as I am the living God, those who are still alive in the ruins will be killed. Anyone out in the field I'll give to wild animals for food. Anyone hiding out in mountain forts and caves will die of disease.


text:
I'll make this country an empty wasteland—no more arrogant bullying! Israel's mountains will become dangerously desolate. No one will dare pass through them.'


text:
"They'll realize that I am God when I devastate the country because of all the obscenities they've practiced.


text:
"As for you, son of man, you've become quite the talk of the town. Your people meet on street corners and in front of their houses and say, 'Let's go hear the latest news from God.'


text:
They show up, as people tend to do, and sit in your company. They listen to you speak, but don't do a thing you say. They flatter you with compliments, but all they care about is making money and getting ahead.


text:
To them you're merely entertainment—a country singer of sad love songs, playing a guitar. They love to hear you talk, but nothing comes of it.


text:
"But when all this happens—and it is going to happen!—they'll realize that a prophet was among them."


text:
"Son of man, prophesy against the shepherd-leaders of Israel. Yes, prophesy! Tell those shepherds, 'God, the Master, says: Doom to you shepherds of Israel, feeding your own mouths! Aren't shepherds supposed to feed sheep?


text:
You drink the milk, you make clothes from the wool, you roast the lambs, but you don't feed the sheep.


text:
You don't build up the weak ones, don't heal the sick, don't doctor the injured, don't go after the strays, don't look for the lost. You bully and badger them.


text:
And now they're scattered every which way because there was no shepherd—scattered and easy pickings for wolves and coyotes.


text:
Scattered—my sheep!—exposed and vulnerable across mountains and hills. My sheep scattered all over the world, and no one out looking for them!


text:
As sure as I am the living God—Decree of God, the Master—because my sheep have been turned into mere prey, into easy meals for wolves because you shepherds ignored them and only fed yourselves,


text:
" 'Watch out! I'm coming down on the shepherds and taking my sheep back. They're fired as shepherds of my sheep. No more shepherds who just feed themselves! I'll rescue my sheep from their greed. They're not going to feed off my sheep any longer!


text:
As shepherds go after their flocks when they get scattered, I'm going after my sheep. I'll rescue them from all the places they've been scattered to in the storms.


text:
I'll bring them back from foreign peoples, gather them from foreign countries, and bring them back to their home country. I'll feed them on the mountains of Israel, along the streams, among their own people.


text:
I'll lead them into lush pasture so they can roam the mountain pastures of Israel, graze at leisure, feed in the rich pastures on the mountains of Israel.


text:
I'll go after the lost, I'll collect the strays, I'll doctor the injured, I'll build up the weak ones and oversee the strong ones so they're not exploited.


text:
" 'And as for you, my dear flock, I'm stepping in and judging between one sheep and another, between rams and goats.


text:
Aren't you satisfied to feed in good pasture without taking over the whole place? Can't you be satisfied to drink from the clear stream without muddying the water with your feet?


text:
Why do the rest of my sheep have to make do with grass that's trampled down and water that's been muddied?


text:
" 'Therefore, God, the Master, says: I myself am stepping in and making things right between the plump sheep and the skinny sheep.


text:
Because you forced your way with shoulder and rump and butted at all the weaker animals with your horns till you scattered them all over the hills,


text:
I'll come in and save my dear flock, no longer let them be pushed around. I'll step in and set things right between one sheep and another.


text:
" 'I'll appoint one shepherd over them all: my servant David. He'll feed them. He'll be their shepherd.


text:
" 'I'll make a covenant of peace with them. I'll banish fierce animals from the country so the sheep can live safely in the wilderness and sleep in the forest.


text:
I'll make them and everything around my hill a blessing. I'll send down plenty of rain in season—showers of blessing!


text:
The trees in the orchards will bear fruit, the ground will produce, they'll feel content and safe on their land, and they'll realize that I am God when I break them out of their slavery and rescue them from their slave masters.


text:
" 'No longer will they be exploited by outsiders and ravaged by fierce beasts. They'll live safe and sound, fearless and free.


text:
I'll give them rich gardens, lavish in vegetables—no more living half-starved, no longer taunted by outsiders.


text:
" 'They'll know, beyond doubting, that I, God, am their God, that I'm with them and that they, the people Israel, are my people. Decree of God, the Master:


text:
You are my dear flock,<br/>the flock of my pasture, my human flock,<br/>And I am your God.<br/>Decree of God, the Master.' "


text:
Tell them, 'God, the Master, says:<br/>" 'I'm coming down hard on you, Mount Seir.<br/>I'm stepping in and turning you to a pile of rubble.


text:
I'll reduce your towns to piles of rocks.<br/>There'll be nothing left of you.<br/>Then you'll realize that I am God.


text:
" 'I'm doing this because you've kept this age-old grudge going against Israel: You viciously attacked them when they were already down, looking their final punishment in the face.


text:
Therefore, as sure as I am the living God, I'm lining you up for a real bloodbath. Since you loved blood so much, you'll be chased by rivers of blood.


text:
I'll blanket your mountains with corpses. Massacred bodies will cover your hills and fill up your valleys and ditches.


text:
I'll reduce you to ruins and all your towns will be ghost towns—population zero. Then you'll realize that I am God.


text:
" 'Because you said, "These two nations, these two countries, are mine. I'm taking over" (even though God is right there watching, right there listening),


text:
I'll turn your hate-bloated anger and rage right back on you. You'll know I mean business when I bring judgment on you.


text:
You'll realize then that I, God, have overheard all the vile abuse you've poured out against the mountains of Israel, saying, "They're roadkill and we're going to eat them up."


text:
You've strutted around, talking so big, insolently pitting yourselves against me. And I've heard it all.


text:
Since you danced in the streets, thinking it was so wonderful when Israel's inheritance was demolished, I'll give you the same treatment: demolition. Mount Seir demolished—yes, every square inch of Edom. Then they'll realize that I am God!'


text:
"And now, son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel. Say, 'Mountains of Israel, listen to God's Message.


text:
now here is a prophecy in the name of God, the Master: Because nations came at you from all sides, ripping and plundering, hauling pieces of you off every which way, and you've become the butt of cheap gossip and jokes,


text:
therefore, Mountains of Israel, listen to the Message of God, the Master. My Message to mountains and hills, to ditches and valleys, to the heaps of rubble and the emptied towns that are looted for plunder and turned into jokes by all the surrounding nations:


text:
Therefore, says God, the Master, now I'm speaking in a fiery rage against the rest of the nations, but especially against Edom, who in an orgy of violence and shameless insolence robbed me of my land, grabbed it for themselves.'


text:
"Therefore prophesy over the land of Israel, preach to the mountains and hills, to every ditch and valley: 'The Message of God, the Master: Look! Listen! I'm angry—and I care. I'm speaking to you because you've been humiliated among the nations.


text:
Therefore I, God, the Master, am telling you that I've solemnly sworn that the nations around you are next. It's their turn to be humiliated.


text:
" 'But you, Mountains of Israel, will burst with new growth, putting out branches and bearing fruit for my people Israel. My people are coming home!


text:
I'll see to it that your population grows all over Israel, that the towns fill up with people, that the ruins are rebuilt.


text:
I'll make this place teem with life—human and animal. The country will burst into life, life, and more life, your towns and villages full of people just as in the old days. I'll treat you better than I ever have. And you'll realize that I am God.


text:
I'll put people over you—my own people Israel! They'll take care of you and you'll be their inheritance. Never again will you be a harsh and unforgiving land to them.


text:
" 'God, the Master, says: Because you have a reputation of being a land that eats people alive and makes women barren,


text:
I'm now telling you that you'll never eat people alive again nor make women barren. Decree of God, the Master.


text:
And I'll never again let the taunts of outsiders be heard over you nor permit nations to look down on you. You'll no longer be a land that makes women barren. Decree of God, the Master.' "


text:
"Son of man, when the people of Israel lived in their land, they polluted it by the way they lived. I poured out my anger on them because of the polluted blood they poured out on the ground.


text:
And so I got thoroughly angry with them polluting the country with their wanton murders and dirty gods.


text:
I kicked them out, exiled them to other countries. I sentenced them according to how they had lived.


text:
Wherever they went, they gave me a bad name. People said, 'These are God's people, but they got kicked off his land.'


text:
I suffered much pain over my holy reputation, which the people of Israel blackened in every country they entered.


text:
"Therefore, tell Israel, 'Message of God, the Master: I'm not doing this for you, Israel. I'm doing it for me, to save my character, my holy name, which you've blackened in every country where you've gone.


text:
I'm going to put my great and holy name on display, the name that has been ruined in so many countries, the name that you blackened wherever you went. Then the nations will realize who I really am, that I am God, when I show my holiness through you so that they can see it with their own eyes.


text:
" 'For here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to take you out of these countries, gather you from all over, and bring you back to your own land.


text:
I'll give you a new heart, put a new spirit in you. I'll remove the stone heart from your body and replace it with a heart that's God-willed, not self-willed.


text:
I'll put my Spirit in you and make it possible for you to do what I tell you and live by my commands.


text:
" 'I'll pull you out of that stinking pollution. I'll give personal orders to the wheat fields, telling them to grow bumper crops. I'll send no more famines.


text:
I'll make sure your fruit trees and field crops flourish. Other nations won't be able to hold you in contempt again because of famine.


text:
" 'And then you'll think back over your terrible lives—the evil, the shame—and be thoroughly disgusted with yourselves, realizing how badly you've lived—all those obscenities you've carried out.


text:
" 'I'm not doing this for you. Get this through your thick heads! Shame on you. What a mess you made of things, Israel!


text:
" 'Message of God, the Master: On the day I scrub you clean from all your filthy living, I'll also make your cities livable. The ruins will be rebuilt.


text:
The neglected land will be worked again, no longer overgrown with weeds and thistles, worthless in the eyes of passersby.


text:
People will exclaim, "Why, this weed patch has been turned into a Garden of Eden! And the ruined cities, smashed into oblivion, are now thriving!"


text:
The nations around you that are still in existence will realize that I, God, rebuild ruins and replant empty waste places. I, God, said so, and I'll do it.


text:
" 'Message of God, the Master: Yet again I'm going to do what Israel asks. I'll increase their population as with a flock of sheep.


text:
Like the milling flocks of sheep brought for sacrifices in Jerusalem during the appointed feasts, the ruined cities will be filled with flocks of people. And they'll realize that I am God.' "


text:
God grabbed me. God's Spirit took me up and sat me down in the middle of an open plain strewn with bones.


text:
He led me around and among them—a lot of bones! There were bones all over the plain—dry bones, bleached by the sun.


text:
God, the Master, told the dry bones, "Watch this: I'm bringing the breath of life to you and you'll come to life.


text:
I'll attach sinews to you, put meat on your bones, cover you with skin, and breathe life into you. You'll come alive and you'll realize that I am God!"


text:
I prophesied just as I'd been commanded. As I prophesied, there was a sound and, oh, rustling! The bones moved and came together, bone to bone.


text:
I kept watching. Sinews formed, then muscles on the bones, then skin stretched over them. But they had no breath in them.


text:
He said to me, "Prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, son of man. Tell the breath, 'God, the Master, says, Come from the four winds. Come, breath. Breathe on these slain bodies. Breathe life!' "


text:
So I prophesied, just as he commanded me. The breath entered them and they came alive! They stood up on their feet, a huge army.


text:
Then God said to me, "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Listen to what they're saying: 'Our bones are dried up, our hope is gone, there's nothing left of us.'


text:
"Therefore, prophesy. Tell them, 'God, the Master, says: I'll dig up your graves and bring you out alive—O my people! Then I'll take you straight to the land of Israel.


text:
I'll breathe my life into you and you'll live. Then I'll lead you straight back to your land and you'll realize that I am God. I've said it and I'll do it. God's Decree.' "


text:
"You, son of man: Take a stick and write on it, 'For Judah, with his Israelite companions.' Then take another stick and write on it, 'For Joseph—Ephraim's stick, together with all his Israelite companions.'


text:
tell them, 'God, the Master, says, Watch me! I'll take the Joseph stick that is in Ephraim's hand, with the tribes of Israel connected with him, and lay the Judah stick on it. I'll make them into one stick. I'm holding one stick.'


text:
Tell them, 'God, the Master, says, Watch me! I'm taking the Israelites out of the nations in which they've been exiled. I'll gather them in from all directions and bring them back home.


text:
I'll make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel, and give them one king—one king over all of them. Never again will they be divided into two nations, two kingdoms.


text:
Never again will they pollute their lives with their no-god idols and all those vile obscenities and rebellions. I'll save them out of all their old sinful haunts. I'll clean them up. They'll be my people! I'll be their God!


text:
My servant David will be king over them. They'll all be under one shepherd.<br/>" 'They'll follow my laws and keep my statutes.


text:
They'll live in the same land I gave my servant Jacob, the land where your ancestors lived. They and their children and their grandchildren will live there forever, and my servant David will be their prince forever.


text:
I'll make a covenant of peace with them that will hold everything together, an everlasting covenant. I'll make them secure and place my holy place of worship at the center of their lives forever.


text:
" 'The nations will realize that I, God, make Israel holy when my holy place of worship is established at the center of their lives forever.' "


text:
"Son of man, confront Gog from the country of Magog, head of Meshech and Tubal. Prophesy against him.


text:
I'm going to turn you around, put hooks in your jaws, and drag you off with your whole army, your horses and riders in full armor—all those shields and bucklers and swords—fighting men armed to the teeth!


text:
" 'Get ready to fight, you and the whole company that's been called out. Take charge and wait for orders.


text:
After a long time, you'll be given your orders. In the distant future you'll arrive at a country that has recovered from a devastating war. People from many nations will be gathered there on the mountains of Israel, for a long time now a wasteland. These people have been brought back from many countries and now live safe and secure.


text:
You'll rise like a thunderstorm and roll in like clouds and cover the land, you and the massed troops with you.


text:
" 'Message of God, the Master: At that time you'll start thinking things over and cook up an evil plot.


text:
You'll say, "I'm going to invade a country without defenses, attack an unsuspecting, carefree people going about their business—no gates to their cities, no locks on their doors.


text:
And I'm going to plunder the place, march right in and clean them out, this rebuilt country risen from the ashes, these returned exiles and their booming economy centered down at the navel of the earth."


text:
" 'Sheba and Dedan and Tarshish, traders all out to make a fast buck, will say, "So! You've opened a new market for plunder! You've brought in your troops to get rich quick!" '


text:
"Therefore, son of man, prophesy! Tell Gog, 'A Message from God, the Master: When my people Israel are established securely, will you make your move?


text:
Will you come down out of the far north, you and that mob of armies, charging out on your horses like a tidal wave across the land,


text:
and invade my people Israel, covering the country like a cloud? When the time's ripe, I'll unleash you against my land in such a way that the nations will recognize me, realize that through you, Gog, in full view of the nations, I am putting my holiness on display.


text:
" 'A Message of God, the Master: Years ago when I spoke through my servants, the prophets of Israel, wasn't it you I was talking about? Year after year they prophesied that I would bring you against them.


text:
And when the day comes, Gog, you will attack that land of Israel. Decree of God, the Master. My raging anger will erupt.


text:
Fueled by blazing jealousy, I tell you that then there will be an earthquake that rocks the land of Israel.


text:
Fish and birds and wild animals—even ants and beetles!—and every human being will tremble and shake before me. Mountains will disintegrate, terraces will crumble.


text:
I'll order all-out war against you, Gog—Decree of God, the Master—Gog killing Gog on all the mountains of Israel.


text:
I'll deluge Gog with judgment: disease and massacre, torrential rain and hail, volcanic lava pouring down on you and your mobs of troops and people.


text:
" 'I'll show you how great I am, how holy I am. I'll make myself known all over the world. Then you'll realize that I am God.'


text:
"Son of man, prophesy against Gog. Say, 'A Message of God, the Master: I'm against you, Gog, head of Meshech and Tubal.


text:
I'm going to turn you around and drag you out, drag you out of the far north and down on the mountains of Israel.


text:
On the mountains of Israel you'll be slaughtered, you and all your troops and the people with you. I'll serve you up as a meal to carrion birds and scavenging animals.


text:
"I'll set fire to Magog and the far-off islands, where people are so seemingly secure. And they'll realize that I am God.


text:
"I'll reveal my holy name among my people Israel. Never again will I let my holy name be dragged in the mud. Then the nations will realize that I, God, am The Holy in Israel.


text:
"People will come out of the cities of Israel and make a huge bonfire of the weapons of war, piling on shields large and small, bows and arrows, clubs and spears, a fire they'll keep going for seven years.


text:
They won't need to go into the woods to get fuel for the fire. There'll be plenty of weapons to keep it going. They'll strip those who stripped them. They'll rob those who robbed them. Decree of God, the Master.


text:
"At that time I'll set aside a burial ground for Gog in Israel at Traveler's Rest, just east of the sea. It will obstruct the route of travelers, blocking their way, the mass grave of Gog and his mob of an army. They'll call the place Gog's Mob.


text:
All the people will turn out to help with the burials. It will be a big day for the people when it's all done and I'm given my due.


text:
Men will be hired full-time for the cleanup burial operation and will go through the country looking for defiling, decomposing corpses. At the end of seven months, there'll be an all-out final search.


text:
Anyone who sees a bone will mark the place with a stick so the buriers can get it and bury it in the mass burial site, Gog's Mob.


text:
"Son of man, God, the Master, says: Call the birds! Call the wild animals! Call out, 'Gather and come, gather around my sacrificial meal that I'm preparing for you on the mountains of Israel. You'll eat meat and drink blood.


text:
You'll eat off the bodies of great heroes and drink the blood of famous princes as if they were so many rams and lambs, goats and bulls, the choicest grain-fed animals of Bashan.


text:
At the sacrificial meal I'm fixing for you, you'll eat fat till you're stuffed and drink blood till you're drunk.


text:
At the table I set for you, you'll stuff yourselves with horses and riders, heroes and fighters of every kind.' Decree of God, the Master.


text:
"I'll put my glory on display among the nations and they'll all see the judgment I execute, see me at work handing out judgment.


text:
And the nations will get the message that it was because of their sins that Israel went into exile. They were disloyal to me and I turned away from them. I turned them over to their enemies and they were all killed.


text:
I treated them as their polluted and sin-sated lives deserved. I turned away from them, refused to look at them.


text:
"But now I will return Jacob back from exile, I'll be compassionate with all the people of Israel, and I'll be zealous for my holy name.


text:
Eventually the memory will fade, the memory of their shame over their betrayals of me when they lived securely in their own land, safe and unafraid.


text:
Once I've brought them back from foreign parts, gathered them in from enemy territories, I'll use them to demonstrate my holiness with all the nations watching.


text:
Then they'll realize for sure that I am their God, for even though I sent them off into exile, I will gather them back to their own land, leaving not one soul behind.


text:
After I've poured my Spirit on Israel, filled them with my life, I'll no longer turn away. I'll look them full in the face. Decree of God, the Master."


text:
In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year on the tenth of the month—it was the fourteenth year after the city fell—God touched me and brought me here.


text:
He brought me in divine vision to the land of Israel and set me down on a high mountain. To the south there were buildings that looked like a city.


text:
He took me there and I met a man deeply tanned, like bronze. He stood at the entrance holding a linen cord and a measuring stick.


text:
The man said to me, "Son of man, look and listen carefully. Pay close attention to everything I'm going to show you. That's why you've been brought here. And then tell Israel everything you see."


text:
First I saw a wall around the outside of the Temple complex. The measuring stick in the man's hand was about ten feet long. He measured the thickness of the wall: about ten feet. The height was also about ten feet.


text:
He measured the depth of the outside threshold of the gate complex: ten feet. There were alcoves flanking the gate corridor, each ten feet square, each separated by a wall seven and a half feet thick. The inside threshold of the gate complex that led to the porch facing into the Temple courtyard was ten feet deep.


text:
Inside this east gate complex were three alcoves on each side. Each room was the same size and the separating walls were identical.


text:
He measured the outside entrance to the gate complex: fifteen feet wide and nineteen and a half feet deep.


text:
He measured the width of the gate complex from the outside edge of the alcove roof on one side to the outside edge of the alcove roof on the other: thirty-seven and a half feet from one top edge to the other.


text:
He measured the inside walls of the gate complex: ninety feet to the porch leading into the courtyard.


text:
The distance from the entrance of the gate complex to the far end of the porch was seventy-five feet.


text:
The alcoves and their connecting walls inside the gate complex were topped by narrow windows all the way around. The porch also. All the windows faced inward. The doorjambs between the alcoves were decorated with palm trees.


text:
The man then led me to the outside courtyard and all its rooms. A paved walkway had been built connecting the courtyard gates. Thirty rooms lined the courtyard.


text:
The walkway was the same length as the gateways. It flanked them and ran their entire length. This was the walkway for the outside courtyard.


text:
He measured the distance from the front of the entrance gateway across to the entrance of the inner court: one hundred fifty feet.<br/>Then he took me to the north side.


text:
Here was another gate complex facing north, exiting the outside courtyard. He measured its length and width.


text:
It had three alcoves on each side. Its gateposts and porch were the same as in the first gate: eighty-seven and a half feet by forty-three and three-quarters feet.


text:
The windows and palm trees were identical to the east gateway. Seven steps led up to it, and its porch faced inward.


text:
Opposite this gate complex was a gate complex to the inside courtyard, on the north as on the east. The distance between the two was one hundred seventy-five feet.


text:
Then he took me to the south side, to the south gate complex. He measured its gateposts and its porch. It was the same size as the others.


text:
It also had seven steps up to it. Its porch opened onto the outside courtyard, with palm trees decorating its gateposts on both sides.


text:
Opposite to it, the gate complex for the inner court faced south. He measured the distance across the courtyard from gate to gate: one hundred seventy-five feet.


text:
He led me into the inside courtyard through the south gate complex. He measured it and found it the same as the outside ones.


text:
Its alcoves, connecting walls, and vestibule were the same. The gate complex and porch, windowed all around, measured eighty-seven and a half by forty-three and three-quarters feet.


text:
The vestibule of each of the gate complexes leading to the inside courtyard was forty-three and three-quarters by eight and three-quarters feet.


text:
Each vestibule faced the outside courtyard. Palm trees were carved on its doorposts. Eight steps led up to it.


text:
He then took me to the inside courtyard on the east and measured the gate complex. It was identical to the others—


text:
alcoves, connecting walls, and vestibule all the same. The gate complex and vestibule had windows all around. It measured eighty-seven and a half by forty-three and three-quarters feet.


text:
Its porch faced the outside courtyard. There were palm trees on the doorposts on both sides. And it had eight steps.


text:
The alcoves, connecting walls, and vestibule with its windows: eighty-seven and a half by forty-three and three-quarters feet.


text:
Its porch faced the outside courtyard. There were palm trees on its doorposts on both sides. And it had eight steps.


text:
There was a room with a door at the vestibule of the gate complex where the burnt offerings were cleaned.


text:
Two tables were placed within the vestibule, one on either side, on which the animals for burnt offerings, sin offerings, and guilt offerings were slaughtered.


text:
—four tables inside and four tables outside, eight tables in all for slaughtering the sacrificial animals.


text:
The four tables used for the burnt offerings were thirty-one and a half inches square and twenty-one inches high. The tools for slaughtering the sacrificial animals and other sacrifices were kept there.


text:
Meat hooks, three inches long, were fastened to the walls. The tables were for the sacrificial animals.


text:
Right where the inside gate complex opened onto the inside courtyard there were two rooms, one at the north gate facing south and the one at the south gate facing north.


text:
And the room facing north is for the priests who are in charge of the altar. These priests are the sons of Zadok, the only sons of Levi permitted to come near to God to serve him."


text:
He measured the inside courtyard: a hundred seventy-five feet square. The altar was in front of the Temple.


text:
He led me to the porch of the Temple and measured the gateposts of the porch: eight and three-quarters feet high on both sides.


text:
The entrance to the gate complex was twenty-one feet wide and its connecting walls were four and a half feet thick. The vestibule itself was thirty-five feet wide and twenty-one feet deep. Ten steps led up to the porch. Columns flanked the gateposts.


text:
He brought me into the Temple itself and measured the doorposts on each side. Each was ten and a half feet thick.


text:
The entrance was seventeen and a half feet wide. The walls on each side were eight and three-quarters feet thick.<br/>He also measured the Temple Sanctuary: seventy feet by thirty-five feet.


text:
He went further in and measured the doorposts at the entrance: Each was three and a half feet thick. The entrance itself was ten and a half feet wide, and the entrance walls were twelve and a quarter feet thick.


text:
He measured the inside Sanctuary, thirty-five feet square, set at the end of the main Sanctuary. He told me, "This is The Holy of Holies."


text:
He measured the wall of the Temple. It was ten and a half feet thick. The side rooms around the Temple were seven feet wide.


text:
There were three floors of these side rooms, thirty rooms on each of the three floors. There were supporting beams around the Temple wall to hold up the side rooms, but they were freestanding, not attached to the wall itself.


text:
The side rooms around the Temple became wider from first floor to second floor to third floor. A staircase went from the bottom floor, through the middle, and then to the top floor.


text:
I observed that the Temple had a ten-and-a-half-foot-thick raised base around it, which provided a foundation for the side rooms.


text:
The outside walls of the side rooms were eight and three-quarters feet thick. The open area between the side rooms of the Temple


text:
There were two entrances to the side rooms from the open area, one placed on the north side, the other on the south. There were eight and three-quarters feet of open space all around.


text:
The house that faced the Temple courtyard to the west was one hundred twenty-two and a half feet wide, with eight-and-three-quarters-foot-thick walls. The length of the wall and building was one hundred fifty-seven and a half feet.


text:
He measured the Temple: one hundred seventy-five feet long. The Temple courtyard and the house, including its walls, measured a hundred seventy-five feet.


text:
The breadth of the front of the Temple and the open area to the east was a hundred seventy-five feet.


text:
He measured the length of the house facing the courtyard at the back of the Temple, including the shelters on each side: one hundred seventy-five feet. The main Sanctuary, the inner Sanctuary, and the vestibule facing the courtyard


text:
were paneled with wood, and had window frames and door frames in all three sections. From floor to windows the walls were paneled.


text:
Above the outside entrance to the inner Sanctuary and on the walls at regular intervals all around the inner Sanctuary and the main Sanctuary,


text:
angel-cherubim and palm trees were carved in alternating sequence.<br/>Each angel-cherub had two faces:


text:
a human face toward the palm tree on the right and the face of a lion toward the palm tree on the left. They were carved around the entire Temple.


text:
The cherubim-palm tree motif was carved from floor to door height on the wall of the main Sanctuary.


text:
The main Sanctuary had a rectangular doorframe. In front of the Holy Place was something that looked like


text:
an altar of wood, five and a quarter feet high and three and a half feet square. Its corners, base, and sides were of wood. The man said to me, "This is the table that stands before God."


text:
Each door had two leaves: two hinged leaves for each door, one set swinging inward and the other set outward.


text:
The doors of the main Sanctuary were carved with angel-cherubim and palm trees. There was a canopy of wood in front of the vestibule outside.


text:
The man led me north into the outside courtyard and brought me to the rooms that are in front of the open space and the house facing north.


text:
The length of the house on the north was one hundred seventy-five feet, and its width eighty-seven and a half feet.


text:
Across the thirty-five feet that separated the inside courtyard from the paved walkway at the edge of the outside courtyard, the rooms rose level by level for three stories.


text:
In front of the rooms on the inside was a hallway seventeen and a half feet wide and one hundred seventy-five feet long. Its entrances were from the north.


text:
The upper rooms themselves were narrower, their galleries being wider than on the first and second floors of the building.


text:
The rooms on the third floor had no pillars like the pillars in the outside courtyard and were smaller than the rooms on the first and second floors.


text:
There was an outside wall parallel to the rooms and the outside courtyard. It fronted the rooms for eighty-seven and a half feet.


text:
The row of rooms facing the outside courtyard was eighty-seven and a half feet long. The row on the side nearest the Sanctuary was one hundred seventy-five feet long.


text:
On the south side along the length of the courtyard's outside wall and fronting on the Temple courtyard were rooms


text:
with a walkway in front of them. These were just like the rooms on the north—same exits and dimensions—with the main entrance from the east leading to the hallway and the doors to the rooms the same as those on the north side.


text:
Then he said to me, "The north and south rooms adjacent to the open area are holy rooms where the priests who come before God eat the holy offerings. There they place the holy offerings—grain offerings, sin offerings, and guilt offerings. These are set-apart rooms, holy space.


text:
After the priests have entered the Sanctuary, they must not return to the outside courtyard and mingle among the people until they change the sacred garments in which they minister and put on their regular clothes."


text:
After he had finished measuring what was inside the Temple area, he took me out the east gate and measured it from the outside.


text:
He measured the wall on all four sides. Each wall was eight hundred seventy-five feet. The walls separated the holy from the ordinary.


text:
Oh! The bright Glory of the God of Israel rivered out of the east sounding like the roar of floodwaters, and the earth itself glowed with the bright Glory.


text:
It looked just like what I had seen when he came to destroy the city, exactly like what I had seen earlier at the Kebar River. And again I fell, face to the ground.


text:
The Spirit put me on my feet and led me to the inside courtyard and—oh! the bright Glory of God filled the Temple!


text:
He said, "Son of man, this is the place for my throne, the place I'll plant my feet. This is the place where I'll live with the Israelites forever. Neither the people of Israel nor their kings will ever again drag my holy name through the mud with their whoring and the no-god idols their kings set up at all the wayside shrines.


text:
When they set up their worship shrines right alongside mine with only a thin wall between them, they dragged my holy name through the mud with their obscene and vile worship. Is it any wonder that I destroyed them in anger?


text:
So let them get rid of their whoring ways and the stinking no-god idols introduced by their kings and I'll move in and live with them forever.


text:
"Son of man, tell the people of Israel all about the Temple so they'll be dismayed by their wayward lives. Get them to go over the layout.


text:
That will bring them up short. Show them the whole plan of the Temple, its ins and outs, the proportions, the regulations, and the laws. Draw a picture so they can see the design and meaning and live by its design and intent.


text:
"This is the law of the Temple: As it radiates from the top of the mountain, everything around it becomes holy ground. Yes, this is law, the meaning, of the Temple.


text:
"These are the dimensions of the altar, using the long (twenty-one-inch) ruler. The gutter at its base is twenty-one inches


text:
deep and twenty-one inches wide, with a four-inch lip around its edge.<br/>"The height of the altar is three and a half feet from the base to the first ledge and twenty inches wide. From the first ledge to the second ledge it is seven feet high and twenty-one inches wide.


text:
The altar hearth is another seven feet high. Four horns stick upward from the hearth twenty-one inches high.


text:
The upper ledge is also square, twenty-four and a half feet on each side, with a ten-and-a-half-inch lip and a twenty-one-inch-wide gutter all the way around.<br/>"The steps of the altar ascend from the east."


text:
Then the man said to me, "Son of man, God, the Master, says: 'These are the ordinances for conduct at the altar when it is built, for sacrificing burnt offerings and sprinkling blood on it.


text:
" 'For a sin offering, give a bull to the priests, the Levitical priests who are from the family of Zadok who come into my presence to serve me.


text:
Take some of its blood and smear it on the four horns of the altar that project from the four corners of the top ledge and all around the lip. That's to purify the altar and make it fit for the sacrifice.


text:
Then take the bull for the sin offerings and burn it in the place set aside for this in the courtyard outside the Sanctuary.


text:
" 'On the second day, offer a male goat without blemish for a sin offering. Purify the altar the same as you purified it for the bull.


text:
Then, when you have purified it, offer a bull without blemish and a ram without blemish from the flock.


text:
" 'For seven days, prepare a goat for a sin offering daily, and also a bull and a ram from the flock, animals without blemish.


text:
For seven days the priests are to get the altar ready for its work, purifying it. This is how you dedicate it.


text:
" 'After these seven days of dedication, from the eighth day on, the priests will present your burnt offerings and your peace offerings. And I'll accept you with pleasure, with delight! Decree of God, the Master.' "


text:
Then the man brought me back to the outside gate complex of the Sanctuary that faces east. But it was shut.


text:
God spoke to me: "This gate is shut and it's to stay shut. No one is to go through it because God, the God of Israel, has gone through it. It stays shut.


text:
Only the prince, because he's the prince, may sit there to eat in the presence of God. He is to enter the gate complex through the porch and leave by the same way."


text:
The man led me through the north gate to the front of the Temple. I looked, and—oh!—the bright Glory of God filling the Temple of God! I fell on my face in worship.


text:
God said to me, "Son of man, get a grip on yourself. Use your eyes, use your ears, pay careful attention to everything I tell you about the ordinances of this Temple of God, the way all the laws work, instructions regarding it and all the entrances and exits of the Sanctuary.


text:
"Tell this bunch of rebels, this family Israel, 'Message of God, the Master: No more of these vile obscenities, Israel,


text:
dragging irreverent and unrepentant outsiders, uncircumcised in heart and flesh, into my Sanctuary, feeding them the sacrificial offerings as if it were the food for a neighborhood picnic. With all your vile obscenities, you've broken trust with me, the solemn covenant I made with you.


text:
You haven't taken care of my holy things. You've hired out the work to foreigners who care nothing for this place, my Sanctuary.


text:
No irreverent and unrepentant aliens, uncircumcised in heart or flesh, not even the ones who live among Israelites, are to enter my Sanctuary.'


text:
"The Levites who walked off and left me, along with everyone else—all Israel—who took up with all the no-god idols, will pay for everything they did wrong.


text:
From now on they'll do only the menial work in the Sanctuary: guard the gates and help out with the Temple chores—and also kill the sacrificial animals for the people and serve them.


text:
Because they acted as priests to the no-god idols and made my people Israel stumble and fall, I've taken an oath to punish them. Decree of God, the Master. Yes, they'll pay for what they've done.


text:
They're fired from the priesthood. No longer will they come into my presence and take care of my holy things. No more access to The Holy Place! They'll have to live with what they've done, carry the shame of their vile and obscene lives.


text:
"But the Levitical priests who descend from Zadok, who faithfully took care of my Sanctuary when everyone else went off and left me, are going to come into my presence and serve me. They are going to carry out the priestly work of offering the solemn sacrifices of worship. Decree of God, the Master.


text:
They're the only ones permitted to enter my Sanctuary. They're the only ones to approach my table and serve me, accompanying me in my work.


text:
"When they enter the gate complex of the inside courtyard, they are to dress in linen. No woolens are to be worn while serving at the gate complex of the inside courtyard or inside the Temple itself.


text:
When they go out into the outside courtyard where the people gather, they must first change out of the clothes they have been serving in, leaving them in the sacred rooms where they change to their everyday clothes, so that they don't trivialize their holy work by the way they dress.


text:
"They are to neither shave their heads nor let their hair become unkempt, but must keep their hair trimmed and neat.


text:
"Their job is to teach my people the difference between the holy and the common, to show them how to discern between unclean and clean.


text:
"When there's a difference of opinion, the priests will arbitrate. They'll decide on the basis of my judgments, laws, and statutes. They are in charge of making sure the appointed feasts are honored and my Sabbaths kept holy in the ways I've commanded.


text:
"A priest must not contaminate himself by going near a corpse. But when the dead person is his father or mother, son or daughter, brother or unmarried sister, he can approach the dead.


text:
Then, when he returns to the inside courtyard of the Sanctuary to do his priestly work in the Sanctuary, he must first offer a sin offering for himself. Decree of God, the Master.


text:
"As to priests owning land, I am their inheritance. Don't give any land in Israel to them. I am their 'land,' their inheritance.


text:
They'll take their meals from the grain offerings, the sin offerings, and the guilt offerings. Everything in Israel offered to God in worship is theirs.


text:
The best of everything grown, plus all special gifts, comes to the priests. All that is given in worship to God goes to them. Serve them first. Serve from your best and your home will be blessed.


text:
"Priests are not to eat any meat from bird or animal unfit for ordinary human consumption, such as carcasses found dead on the road or in the field.


text:
"When you divide up the inheritance of the land, you must set aside part of the land as sacred space for God: approximately seven miles long by six miles wide, all of it holy ground.


text:
Within this rectangle, reserve a seven-hundred-fifty-foot square for the Sanctuary with a seventy-five-foot buffer zone surrounding it.


text:
Mark off within the sacred reserve a section seven miles long by three miles wide. The Sanctuary with its Holy of Holies will be placed there.


text:
This is where the priests will live, those who lead worship in the Sanctuary and serve God there. Their houses will be there along with The Holy Place.


text:
"To the north of the sacred reserve, an area roughly seven miles long and two and a quarter miles wide will be set aside as land for the villages of the Levites who administer the affairs of worship in the Sanctuary.


text:
"To the south of the sacred reserve, measure off a section seven miles long and about a mile and a half wide for the city itself, an area held in common by the whole family of Israel.


text:
"The prince gets the land abutting the seven-mile east and west borders of the central sacred square, extending eastward toward the Jordan and westward toward the Mediterranean.


text:
This is the prince's possession in Israel. My princes will no longer bully my people, running roughshod over them. They'll respect the land as it has been allotted to the tribes.


text:
"This is the Message of God, the Master: 'I've put up with you long enough, princes of Israel! Quit bullying and taking advantage of my people. Do what's just and right for a change.


text:
Every pound must have sixteen ounces. Every gallon must measure four quarts. The ounce is the basic measure for both.


text:
" 'These are the prescribed offerings you are to supply: one-sixtieth part of your wheat, one-sixtieth part of your barley,


text:
one sheep out of every two hundred from the lush pastures of Israel. These will be used for the grain offerings, burnt offerings, and peace offerings for making the atonement sacrifices for the people. Decree of God, the Master.


text:
" 'Everyone in the land must contribute to these special offerings that the prince in Israel will administer.


text:
It's the prince's job to provide the burnt offerings, grain offerings, and drink offerings at the Holy Festivals, the New Moons, and the Sabbaths—all the commanded feasts among the people of Israel. Sin offerings, grain offerings, burnt offerings, and peace offerings for making atonement for the people of Israel are his responsibility.


text:
" 'This is the Message from God, the Master: On the first day of the first month, take an unblemished bull calf and purify the Sanctuary.


text:
The priest is to take blood from the sin offerings and rub it on the doorposts of the Temple, on the four corners of the ledge of the altar, and on the gate entrance to the inside courtyard.


text:
Repeat this ritual on the seventh day of the month for anyone who sins without knowing it. In this way you make atonement for the Temple.


text:
" 'On the fourteenth day of the first month, you will observe the Passover, a feast of seven days. During the feast you will eat bread made without yeast.


text:
" 'On Passover, the prince supplies a bull as a sin offering for himself and all the people of the country.


text:
Each day for each of the seven days of the feast, he will supply seven bulls and seven rams unblemished as a burnt offering to God, and also each day a male goat.


text:
" 'He will supply about five and a half gallons of grain offering and a gallon of oil for each bull and each ram.


text:
" 'On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, and on each of the seven days of the feast, he is to supply the same materials for sin offerings, burnt offerings, grain offerings, and oil.


text:
" 'Message from God, the Master: The gate of the inside courtyard on the east is to be shut on the six working days, but open on the Sabbath. It is also to be open on the New Moon.


text:
The prince will enter through the entrance area of the gate complex and stand at the gateposts as the priests present his burnt offerings and peace offerings while he worships there on the porch. He will then leave, but the gate won't be shut until evening.


text:
On Sabbaths and New Moons, the people are to worship before God at the outside entrance to that gate complex.


text:
" 'The prince supplies for God the burnt offering for the Sabbath—six unblemished lambs and an unblemished ram.


text:
The grain offering to go with the ram is about five and a half gallons plus a gallon of oil, and a handful of grain for each lamb.


text:
He will also supply five and a half gallons of grain offering and a gallon of oil for both ram and bull, and a handful of grain offering for each lamb.


text:
" 'When the prince enters, he will go through the entrance vestibule of the gate complex and leave the same way.


text:
" 'But when the people of the land come to worship God at the commanded feasts, those who enter through the north gate will exit from the south gate, and those who enter though the south gate will exit from the north gate. You don't exit the gate through which you enter, but through the opposite gate.


text:
" 'At the festivals and the commanded feasts, the appropriate grain offering is five and a half gallons, with a gallon of oil for the bull and ram and a handful of grain for each lamb.


text:
" 'When the prince brings a freewill offering to God, whether a burnt offering or a peace offering, the east gate is to be opened for him. He offers his burnt or peace offering the same as he does on the Sabbath. Then he leaves, and after he is out, the gate is shut.


text:
Also, every morning bring a grain offering of about a gallon of grain with a quart or so of oil to moisten it. Presenting this grain offering to God is standard procedure.


text:
" 'A Message from God, the Master: If the prince deeds a gift from his inheritance to one of his sons, it stays in the family.


text:
But if he deeds a gift from his inheritance to a servant, the servant keeps it only until the year of liberation (the Jubilee year). After that, it comes back to the prince. His inheritance is only for his sons. It stays in the family.


text:
The prince must not take the inheritance from any of the people, dispossessing them of their land. He can give his sons only what he himself owns. None of my people are to be run off their land.' "


text:
Then the man brought me through the north gate into the holy chambers assigned to the priests and showed me a back room to the west.


text:
He said, "This is the kitchen where the priests will cook the guilt offering and sin offering and bake the grain offering so that they won't have to do it in the outside courtyard and endanger the unprepared people out there with The Holy."


text:
He proceeded to take me to the outside courtyard and around to each of its four corners. In each corner I observed another court.


text:
In each of the four corners of the outside courtyard were smaller courts sixty by forty-five feet, each the same size.


text:
He said, "These are the kitchens where those who serve in the Temple will cook the sacrifices of the people."


text:
Now he brought me back to the entrance to the Temple. I saw water pouring out from under the Temple porch to the east (the Temple faced east). The water poured from the south side of the Temple, south of the altar.


text:
He then took me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the gate complex on the east. The water was gushing from under the south front of the Temple.


text:
He walked to the east with a measuring tape and measured off fifteen hundred feet, leading me through water that was ankle-deep.


text:
He measured off another fifteen hundred feet, leading me through water that was knee-deep. He measured off another fifteen hundred feet, leading me through water waist-deep.


text:
He measured off another fifteen hundred feet. By now it was a river over my head, water to swim in, water no one could possibly walk through.


text:
He told me, "This water flows east, descends to the Arabah and then into the sea, the sea of stagnant waters. When it empties into those waters, the sea will become fresh.


text:
Wherever the river flows, life will flourish—great schools of fish—because the river is turning the salt sea into fresh water. Where the river flows, life abounds.


text:
Fishermen will stand shoulder to shoulder along the shore from En-gedi all the way north to En-eglaim, casting their nets. The sea will teem with fish of all kinds, like the fish of the Great Mediterranean.


text:
"But the river itself, on both banks, will grow fruit trees of all kinds. Their leaves won't wither, the fruit won't fail. Every month they'll bear fresh fruit because the river from the Sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing."


text:
A Message from God, the Master: "These are the boundaries by which you are to divide up the inheritance of the land for the twelve tribes of Israel, with Joseph getting two parcels.


text:
It is to be divided up equally. I swore in a solemn oath to give it to your ancestors, swore that this land would be your inheritance.


text:
"These are the boundaries of the land:<br/>"The northern boundary runs from the Great Mediterranean Sea along the Hethlon road to where you turn off to the entrance of Hamath, Zedad,


text:
Berothah, and Sibraim, which lies between the territory of Damascus and the territory of Hamath, and on to Hazor-hatticon on the border of Hauran.


text:
The boundary runs from the Sea to Hazor-enon, with the territories of Damascus and Hamath to the north. That is the northern boundary.


text:
"The eastern boundary runs between Damascus and Hauran, down along the Jordan between Gilead and the land of Israel to the Eastern Sea as far as Tamar. This is the eastern boundary.


text:
"The southern boundary runs west from Tamar to the waters of Meribah-kadesh, along the Brook of Egypt, and out to the Great Mediterranean Sea. This is the southern boundary.


text:
"The western boundary is formed by the Great Mediterranean Sea north to where the road turns east toward the entrance to Hamath. This is the western boundary.


text:
Divide it up as your inheritance, and include in it the resident aliens who have made themselves at home among you and now have children. Treat them as if they were born there, just like yourselves. They also get an inheritance among the tribes of Israel.


text:
In whatever tribe the resident alien lives, there he gets his inheritance. Decree of God, the Master.


text:
"These are the tribes:<br/>"Dan: one portion, along the northern boundary, following the Hethlon road that turns off to the entrance of Hamath as far as Hazor-enon so that the territory of Damascus lies to the north alongside Hamath, the northern border stretching from east to west.


text:
"Bordering Judah from east to west is the consecrated area that you will set aside as holy: a square approximately seven by seven miles, with the Sanctuary set at the center.


text:
The consecrated area reserved for God is to be seven miles long and a little less than three miles wide.


text:
"This is how it will be parceled out. The priest will get the area measuring seven miles on the north and south boundaries, with a width of a little more than three miles at the east and west boundaries. The Sanctuary of God will be at the center.


text:
This is for the consecrated priests, the Zadokites who stayed true in their service to me and didn't get off track as the Levites did when Israel wandered off the main road.


text:
This is their special gift, a gift from the land itself, most holy ground, bordering the section of the Levites.


text:
They are not permitted to sell or trade any of it. It's the choice part of the land, to say nothing of being holy to God.


text:
"What's left of the 'sacred square'—each side measures out at seven miles by a mile and a half—is for ordinary use: the city and its buildings with open country around it, but the city at the center.


text:
The remainder of this portion, three miles of countryside to the east and to the west of the sacred precinct, is for farming. It will supply food for the city.


text:
"This dedicated area, set apart for holy purposes, will be a square, seven miles by seven miles, a 'holy square,' which includes the part set aside for the city.


text:
"The rest of this land, the country stretching east to the Jordan and west to the Mediterranean from the seven-mile sides of the 'holy square,' belongs to the prince. His land is sandwiched between the tribal portions north and south, and goes out both east and west from the 'sacred square' with its Temple at the center.


text:
The land set aside for the Levites on one side and the city on the other is in the middle of the territory assigned to the prince. The 'sacred square' is flanked east and west by the prince's land and bordered on the north and south by the territories of Judah and Benjamin respectively.


text:
"And then the rest of the tribes:<br/>"Benjamin: one portion, stretching from the eastern to the western boundary.


text:
"The southern boundary of Gad will run south from Tamar to the waters of Meribah-kadesh, along the Brook of Egypt and then out to the Great Mediterranean Sea.


text:
"This is the land that you are to divide up among the tribes of Israel as their inheritance. These are their portions." Decree of God, the Master.


text:
(the gates of the city are named after the tribes of Israel), three gates: the gate of Reuben, the gate of Judah, the gate of Levi.


text:
"On the east side, measuring 2,250 yards, three gates: the gate of Joseph, the gate of Benjamin, the gate of Dan.


text:
"On the south side, measuring 2,250 yards, three gates: the gate of Simeon, the gate of Issachar, the gate of Zebulun.


text:
"On the west side, measuring 2,250 yards, three gates: the gate of Gad, the gate of Asher, the gate of Naphtali.


text:
"The four sides of the city measure to a total of nearly six miles.<br/>"From now on the name of the city will be Yahweh-Shammah:<br/>"God-Is-There."


text:
It was the third year of King Jehoiakim's reign in Judah when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon declared war on Jerusalem and besieged the city.


text:
The Master handed King Jehoiakim of Judah over to him, along with some of the furnishings from the Temple of God. Nebuchadnezzar took king and furnishings to the country of Babylon, the ancient Shinar. He put the furnishings in the sacred treasury.


text:
The king told Ashpenaz, head of the palace staff, to get some Israelites from the royal family and nobility


text:
—young men who were healthy and handsome, intelligent and well-educated, good prospects for leadership positions in the government, perfect specimens!—and indoctrinate them in the Babylonian language and the lore of magic and fortunetelling.


text:
The king then ordered that they be served from the same menu as the royal table—the best food, the finest wine. After three years of training they would be given positions in the king's court.


text:
The head of the palace staff gave them Babylonian names: Daniel was named Belteshazzar, Hananiah was named Shadrach, Mishael was named Meshach, Azariah was named Abednego.


text:
But Daniel determined that he would not defile himself by eating the king's food or drinking his wine, so he asked the head of the palace staff to exempt him from the royal diet.


text:
but he warned him, "I'm afraid of what my master the king will do. He is the one who assigned this diet and if he sees that you are not as healthy as the rest, he'll have my head!"


text:
But Daniel appealed to a steward who had been assigned by the head of the palace staff to be in charge of Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah:


text:
Then compare us with the young men who eat from the royal menu. Make your decision on the basis of what you see."


text:
At the end of the ten days they looked better and more robust than all the others who had been eating from the royal menu.


text:
So the steward continued to exempt them from the royal menu of food and drink and served them only vegetables.


text:
God gave these four young men knowledge and skill in both books and life. In addition, Daniel was gifted in understanding all sorts of visions and dreams.


text:
At the end of the time set by the king for their training, the head of the royal staff brought them in to Nebuchadnezzar.


text:
When the king interviewed them, he found them far superior to all the other young men. None were a match for Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.<br/>And so they took their place in the king's service.


text:
Whenever the king consulted them on anything, on books or on life, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his kingdom put together.


text:
In the second year of his reign, King Nebuchadnezzar started having dreams that disturbed him deeply. He couldn't sleep.


text:
He called in all the Babylonian magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and fortunetellers to interpret his dreams for him. When they came and lined up before the king,


text:
he said to them, "I had a dream that I can't get out of my mind. I can't sleep until I know what it means."


text:
The fortunetellers, speaking in the Aramaic language, said, "Long live the king! Tell us the dream and we will interpret it."


text:
The king answered the fortunetellers, "This is my decree: If you can't tell me both the dream itself and its interpretation, I'll have you ripped to pieces, limb from limb, and your homes torn down.


text:
But if you tell me both the dream and its interpretation, I'll lavish you with gifts and honors. So go to it: Tell me the dream and its interpretation."


text:
But the king said, "I know what you're up to—you're just playing for time. You know you're up a tree.


text:
You know that if you can't tell me my dream, you're doomed. I see right through you—you're going to cook up some fancy stories and confuse the issue until I change my mind. Nothing doing! First tell me the dream, then I'll know that you're on the up and up with the interpretation and not just blowing smoke in my eyes."


text:
The fortunetellers said, "Nobody anywhere can do what you ask. And no king, great or small, has ever demanded anything like this from any magician, enchanter, or fortuneteller.


text:
What you're asking is impossible unless some god or goddess should reveal it—and they don't hang around with people like us."


text:
That set the king off. He lost his temper and ordered the whole company of Babylonian wise men killed.


text:
When the death warrant was issued, Daniel and his companions were included. They also were marked for execution.


text:
When Arioch, chief of the royal guards, was making arrangements for the execution, Daniel wisely took him aside


text:
and quietly asked what was going on: "Why this all of a sudden?"<br/>After Arioch filled in the background,


text:
He asked them to pray to the God of heaven for mercy in solving this mystery so that the four of them wouldn't be killed along with the whole company of Babylonian wise men.


text:
That night the answer to the mystery was given to Daniel in a vision. Daniel blessed the God of heaven,


text:
He changes the seasons and guides history,<br/>He raises up kings and also brings them down,<br/>he provides both intelligence and discernment,


text:
God of all my ancestors, all thanks! all praise!<br/>You made me wise and strong.<br/>And now you've shown us what we asked for.<br/>You've solved the king's mystery."


text:
So Daniel went back to Arioch, who had been put in charge of the execution. He said, "Call off the execution! Take me to the king and I'll interpret his dream."


text:
Arioch didn't lose a minute. He ran to the king, bringing Daniel with him, and said, "I've found a man from the exiles of Judah who can interpret the king's dream!"


text:
The king asked Daniel (renamed in Babylonian, Belteshazzar), "Are you sure you can do this—tell me the dream I had and interpret it for me?"


text:
Daniel answered the king, "No mere human can solve the king's mystery, I don't care who it is—no wise man, enchanter, magician, diviner.


text:
But there is a God in heaven who solves mysteries, and he has solved this one. He is letting King Nebuchadnezzar in on what is going to happen in the days ahead. This is the dream you had when you were lying on your bed, the vision that filled your mind:


text:
"While you were stretched out on your bed, O king, thoughts came to you regarding what is coming in the days ahead. The Revealer of Mysteries showed you what will happen.


text:
But the interpretation is given through me, not because I'm any smarter than anyone else in the country, but so that you will know what it means, so that you will understand what you dreamed.


text:
"What you saw, O king, was a huge statue standing before you, striking in appearance. And terrifying.


text:
The head of the statue was pure gold, the chest and arms were silver, the belly and hips were bronze,


text:
While you were looking at this statue, a stone cut out of a mountain by an invisible hand hit the statue, smashing its iron-ceramic feet.


text:
Then the whole thing fell to pieces—iron, tile, bronze, silver, and gold, smashed to bits. It was like scraps of old newspapers in a vacant lot in a hot dry summer, blown every which way by the wind, scattered to oblivion. But the stone that hit the statue became a huge mountain, dominating the horizon.


text:
You, O king, are the most powerful king on earth. The God of heaven has given you the works: rule, power, strength, and glory.


text:
He has put you in charge of men and women, wild animals and birds, all over the world—you're the head ruler, you are the head of gold.


text:
But your rule will be taken over by another kingdom, inferior to yours, and that one by a third, a bronze kingdom, but still ruling the whole land,


text:
and after that by a fourth kingdom, iron-like in strength. Just as iron smashes things to bits, breaking and pulverizing, it will bust up the previous kingdoms.


text:
"But then the feet and toes that ended up as a mixture of ceramic and iron will deteriorate into a mongrel kingdom with some remains of iron in it. Just as the toes of the feet were part ceramic and part iron,


text:
"But throughout the history of these kingdoms, the God of heaven will be building a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will this kingdom ever fall under the domination of another. In the end it will crush the other kingdoms and finish them off and come through it all standing strong and eternal.


text:
It will be like the stone cut from the mountain by the invisible hand that crushed the iron, the bronze, the ceramic, the silver, and the gold.<br/>"The great God has let the king know what will happen in the years to come. This is an accurate telling of the dream, and the interpretation is also accurate."


text:
When Daniel finished, King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face in awe before Daniel. He ordered the offering of sacrifices and burning of incense in Daniel's honor.


text:
He said to Daniel, "Your God is beyond question the God of all gods, the Master of all kings. And he solves all mysteries, I know, because you've solved this mystery."


text:
Then the king promoted Daniel to a high position in the kingdom, lavished him with gifts, and made him governor over the entire province of Babylon and the chief in charge of all the Babylonian wise men.


text:
At Daniel's request the king appointed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to administrative posts throughout Babylon, while Daniel governed from the royal headquarters.


text:
King Nebuchadnezzar built a gold statue, ninety feet high and nine feet thick. He set it up on the Dura plain in the province of Babylon.


text:
He then ordered all the important leaders in the province, everybody who was anybody, to the dedication ceremony of the statue.


text:
They all came for the dedication, all the important people, and took their places before the statue that Nebuchadnezzar had erected.


text:
A herald then proclaimed in a loud voice: "Attention, everyone! Every race, color, and creed, listen!


text:
When you hear the band strike up—all the trumpets and trombones, the tubas and baritones, the drums and cymbals—fall to your knees and worship the gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.


text:
The band started to play, a huge band equipped with all the musical instruments of Babylon, and everyone—every race, color, and creed—fell to their knees and worshiped the gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.


text:
You gave strict orders, O king, that when the big band started playing, everyone had to fall to their knees and worship the gold statue,


text:
Well, there are some Jews here—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—whom you have placed in high positions in the province of Babylon. These men are ignoring you, O king. They don't respect your gods and they won't worship the gold statue you set up."


text:
Furious, King Nebuchadnezzar ordered Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to be brought in. When the men were brought in,


text:
Nebuchadnezzar asked, "Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you don't respect my gods and refuse to worship the gold statue that I have set up?


text:
I'm giving you a second chance—but from now on, when the big band strikes up you must go to your knees and worship the statue I have made. If you don't worship it, you will be pitched into a roaring furnace, no questions asked. Who is the god who can rescue you from my power?"


text:
If you throw us in the fire, the God we serve can rescue us from your roaring furnace and anything else you might cook up, O king.


text:
But even if he doesn't, it wouldn't make a bit of difference, O king. We still wouldn't serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up."


text:
Nebuchadnezzar, his face purple with anger, cut off Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He ordered the furnace fired up seven times hotter than usual.


text:
He ordered some strong men from the army to tie them up, hands and feet, and throw them into the roaring furnace.


text:
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, bound hand and foot, fully dressed from head to toe, were pitched into the roaring fire.


text:
Because the king was in such a hurry and the furnace was so hot, flames from the furnace killed the men who carried Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to it,


text:
Suddenly King Nebuchadnezzar jumped up in alarm and said, "Didn't we throw three men, bound hand and foot, into the fire?"<br/>"That's right, O king," they said.


text:
"But look!" he said. "I see four men, walking around freely in the fire, completely unharmed! And the fourth man looks like a son of the gods!"


text:
Nebuchadnezzar went to the door of the roaring furnace and called in, "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the High God, come out here!"<br/>Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego walked out of the fire.


text:
All the important people, the government leaders and king's counselors, gathered around to examine them and discovered that the fire hadn't so much as touched the three men—not a hair singed, not a scorch mark on their clothes, not even the smell of fire on them!


text:
Nebuchadnezzar said, "Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego! He sent his angel and rescued his servants who trusted in him! They ignored the king's orders and laid their bodies on the line rather than serve or worship any god but their own.


text:
"Therefore I issue this decree: Anyone anywhere, of any race, color, or creed, who says anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego will be ripped to pieces, limb from limb, and their houses torn down. There has never been a god who can pull off a rescue like this."


text:
King Nebuchadnezzar to everyone, everywhere—every race, color, and creed: "Peace and prosperity to all!


text:
"His miracles are staggering,<br/>his wonders are surprising.<br/>His kingdom lasts and lasts,<br/>his sovereign rule goes on forever.


text:
When they were all assembled—magicians, enchanters, fortunetellers, witches—I told them the dream. None could tell me what it meant.


text:
"And then Daniel came in. His Babylonian name is Belteshazzar, named after my god, a man full of the divine Holy Spirit. I told him my dream.


text:
" 'Belteshazzar,' I said, 'chief of the magicians, I know that you are a man full of the divine Holy Spirit and that there is no mystery that you can't solve. Listen to this dream that I had and interpret it for me.


text:
" 'This is what I saw as I was stretched out on my bed. I saw a big towering tree at the center of the world.


text:
As I watched, the tree grew huge and strong. Its top reached the sky and it could be seen from the four corners of the earth.


text:
Its leaves were beautiful, its fruit abundant—enough food for everyone! Wild animals found shelter under it, birds nested in its branches, everything living was fed and sheltered by it.


text:
" 'And this also is what I saw as I was stretched out on my bed. I saw a holy watchman descend from heaven,


text:
and call out:<br/>Chop down the tree, lop off its branches,<br/>strip its leaves and scatter its fruit.<br/>Chase the animals from beneath it<br/>and shoo the birds from its branches.


text:
But leave the stump and roots in the ground,<br/>belted with a strap of iron and bronze in the grassy meadow.<br/>Let him be soaked in heaven's dew<br/>and take his meals with the animals that graze.


text:
Let him lose his mind<br/>and get an animal's mind in exchange,<br/>And let this go on<br/>for seven seasons.


text:
The angels announce this decree,<br/>the holy watchmen bring this sentence,<br/>So that everyone living will know<br/>that the High God rules human kingdoms.<br/>He arranges kingdom affairs however he wishes,<br/>and makes leaders out of losers.


text:
" 'This is what I, King Nebuchadnezzar, dreamed. It's your turn, Belteshazzar—interpret it for me. None of the wise men of Babylon could make heads or tails of it, but I'm sure you can do it. You're full of the divine Holy Spirit.' "


text:
At first Daniel, who had been renamed Belteshazzar in Babylon, was upset. The thoughts that came swarming into his mind terrified him.<br/>"Belteshazzar," the king said, "stay calm. Don't let the dream and its interpretation scare you."<br/>"My master," said Belteshazzar, "I wish this dream were about your enemies and its interpretation for your foes.


text:
"The tree you saw that grew so large and sturdy with its top touching the sky, visible from the four corners of the world;


text:
the tree with the luxuriant foliage and abundant fruit, enough for everyone; the tree under which animals took cover and in which birds built nests


text:
—you, O king, are that tree.<br/>"You have grown great and strong. Your royal majesty reaches sky-high, and your sovereign rule stretches to the four corners of the world.


text:
"But the part about the holy angel descending from heaven and proclaiming, 'Chop down the tree, destroy it, but leave stump and roots in the ground belted with a strap of iron and bronze in the grassy meadow; let him be soaked with heaven's dew and take his meals with the grazing animals for seven seasons'


text:
You will be driven away from human company and live with the wild animals. You will graze on grass like an ox. You will be soaked in heaven's dew. This will go on for seven seasons, and you will learn that the High God rules over human kingdoms and that he arranges all kingdom affairs.


text:
"The part about the tree stump and roots being left means that your kingdom will still be there for you after you learn that it is heaven that runs things.


text:
"So, king, take my advice: Make a clean break with your sins and start living for others. Quit your wicked life and look after the needs of the down-and-out. Then you will continue to have a good life."


text:
and boasted, "Look at this, Babylon the great! And I built it all by myself, a royal palace adequate to display my honor and glory!"


text:
The words were no sooner out of his mouth than a voice out of heaven spoke, "This is the verdict on you, King Nebuchadnezzar: Your kingdom is taken from you.


text:
You will be driven out of human company and live with the wild animals. You will eat grass like an ox. The sentence is for seven seasons, enough time to learn that the High God rules human kingdoms and puts whomever he wishes in charge."


text:
It happened at once. Nebuchadnezzar was driven out of human company, ate grass like an ox, and was soaked in heaven's dew. His hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a hawk.


text:
"At the end of the seven years, I, Nebuchadnezzar, looked to heaven. I was given my mind back and I blessed the High God, thanking and glorifying God, who lives forever.<br/>"His sovereign rule lasts and lasts,<br/>his kingdom never declines and falls.


text:
Life on this earth doesn't add up to much,<br/>but God's heavenly army keeps everything going.<br/>No one can interrupt his work,<br/>no one can call his rule into question.


text:
"At the same time that I was given back my mind, I was also given back my majesty and splendor, making my kingdom shine. All the leaders and important people came looking for me. I was reestablished as king in my kingdom and became greater than ever.


text:
And that's why I'm singing—I, Nebuchadnezzar—singing and praising the King of Heaven:<br/>"Everything he does is right,<br/>and he does it the right way.<br/>He knows how to turn a proud person<br/>into a humble man or woman."


text:
Belshazzar, heady with the wine, ordered that the gold and silver chalices his father Nebuchadnezzar had stolen from God's Temple of Jerusalem be brought in so that he and his nobles, his wives and concubines, could drink from them.


text:
When the gold and silver chalices were brought in, the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines, drank wine from them.


text:
They drank the wine and drunkenly praised their gods made of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone.


text:
At that very moment, the fingers of a human hand appeared and began writing on the lamp-illumined, whitewashed wall of the palace. When the king saw the disembodied hand writing away,


text:
He yelled out for the enchanters, the fortunetellers, and the diviners to come. He told these Babylonian magi, "Anyone who can read this writing on the wall and tell me what it means will be famous and rich—purple robe, the great gold chain—and be third-in-command in the kingdom."


text:
One after the other they tried, but could make no sense of it. They could neither read what was written nor interpret it to the king.


text:
So now the king was really frightened. All the blood drained from his face. The nobles were in a panic.


text:
The queen heard of the hysteria among the king and his nobles and came to the banquet hall. She said, "Long live the king! Don't be upset. Don't sit around looking like ghosts.


text:
There is a man in your kingdom who is full of the divine Holy Spirit. During your father's time he was well known for his intellectual brilliance and spiritual wisdom. He was so good that your father, King Nebuchadnezzar, made him the head of all the magicians, enchanters, fortunetellers, and diviners.


text:
There was no one quite like him. He could do anything—interpret dreams, solve mysteries, explain puzzles. His name is Daniel, but he was renamed Belteshazzar by the king. Have Daniel called in. He'll tell you what is going on here."


text:
So Daniel was called in. The king asked him, "Are you the Daniel who was one of the Jewish exiles my father brought here from Judah?


text:
I've heard about you—that you're full of the Holy Spirit, that you've got a brilliant mind, that you are incredibly wise.


text:
The wise men and enchanters were brought in here to read this writing on the wall and interpret it for me. They couldn't figure it out—not a word, not a syllable.


text:
But I've heard that you interpret dreams and solve mysteries. So—if you can read the writing and interpret it for me, you'll be rich and famous—a purple robe, the great gold chain around your neck—and third-in-command in the kingdom."


text:
Daniel answered the king, "You can keep your gifts, or give them to someone else. But I will read the writing for the king and tell him what it means.


text:
"Listen, O king! The High God gave your father Nebuchadnezzar a great kingdom and a glorious reputation.


text:
Because God made him so famous, people from everywhere, whatever their race, color, and creed, were totally intimidated by him. He killed or spared people on whim. He promoted or humiliated people capriciously.


text:
He developed a big head and a hard spirit. Then God knocked him off his high horse and stripped him of his fame.


text:
He was thrown out of human company, lost his mind, and lived like a wild animal. He ate grass like an ox and was soaked by heaven's dew until he learned his lesson: that the High God rules human kingdoms and puts anyone he wants in charge.


text:
Look at you, setting yourself up in competition against the Master of heaven! You had the sacred chalices from his Temple brought into your drunken party so that you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines, could drink from them. You used the sacred chalices to toast your gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone—blind, deaf, and imbecile gods. But you treat with contempt the living God who holds your entire life from birth to death in his hand.


text:
This is what the words mean:<br/>"Mene: God has numbered the days of your rule and they don't add up.


text:
Belshazzar did what he had promised. He robed Daniel in purple, draped the great gold chain around his neck, and promoted him to third-in-charge in the kingdom.


text:
Darius reorganized his kingdom. He appointed one hundred twenty governors to administer all the parts of his realm.


text:
Over them were three vice-regents, one of whom was Daniel. The governors reported to the vice-regents, who made sure that everything was in order for the king.


text:
But Daniel, brimming with spirit and intelligence, so completely outclassed the other vice-regents and governors that the king decided to put him in charge of the whole kingdom.


text:
The vice-regents and governors got together to find some old scandal or skeleton in Daniel's life that they could use against him, but they couldn't dig up anything. He was totally exemplary and trustworthy. They could find no evidence of negligence or misconduct.


text:
So they finally gave up and said, "We're never going to find anything against this Daniel unless we can cook up something religious."


text:
The vice-regents and governors conspired together and then went to the king and said, "King Darius, live forever!


text:
We've convened your vice-regents, governors, and all your leading officials, and have agreed that the king should issue the following decree: For the next thirty days no one is to pray to any god or mortal except you, O king. Anyone who disobeys will be thrown into the lions' den.


text:
"Issue this decree, O king, and make it unconditional, as if written in stone like all the laws of the Medes and the Persians."


text:
When Daniel learned that the decree had been signed and posted, he continued to pray just as he had always done. His house had windows in the upstairs that opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he knelt there in prayer, thanking and praising his God.


text:
They went straight to the king and reminded him of the royal decree that he had signed. "Did you not," they said, "sign a decree forbidding anyone to pray to any god or man except you for the next thirty days? And anyone caught doing it would be thrown into the lions' den?"<br/>"Absolutely," said the king. "Written in stone, like all the laws of the Medes and Persians."


text:
Then they said, "Daniel, one of the Jewish exiles, ignores you, O king, and defies your decree. Three times a day he prays."


text:
At this, the king was very upset and tried his best to get Daniel out of the fix he'd put him in. He worked at it the whole day long.


text:
But then the conspirators were back: "Remember, O king, it's the law of the Medes and Persians that the king's decree can never be changed."


text:
The king caved in and ordered Daniel brought and thrown into the lions' den. But he said to Daniel, "Your God, to whom you are so loyal, is going to get you out of this."


text:
A stone slab was placed over the opening of the den. The king sealed the cover with his signet ring and the signet rings of all his nobles, fixing Daniel's fate.


text:
The king then went back to his palace. He refused supper. He couldn't sleep. He spent the night fasting.


text:
As he approached the den, he called out anxiously, "Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve so loyally, saved you from the lions?"


text:
"My God sent his angel, who closed the mouths of the lions so that they would not hurt me. I've been found innocent before God and also before you, O king. I've done nothing to harm you."


text:
When the king heard these words, he was happy. He ordered Daniel taken up out of the den. When he was hauled up, there wasn't a scratch on him. He had trusted his God.


text:
Then the king commanded that the conspirators who had informed on Daniel be thrown into the lions' den, along with their wives and children. Before they hit the floor, the lions had them in their jaws, tearing them to pieces.


text:
King Darius published this proclamation to every race, color, and creed on earth: Peace to you! Abundant peace!


text:
I decree that Daniel's God shall be worshiped and feared in all parts of my kingdom. He is the living God, world without end. His kingdom never falls. His rule continues eternally.


text:
He is a savior and rescuer. He performs astonishing miracles in heaven and on earth. He saved Daniel from the power of the lions.


text:
From then on, Daniel was treated well during the reign of Darius, and also in the following reign of Cyrus the Persian.


text:
In the first year of the reign of King Belshazzar of Babylon, Daniel had a dream. What he saw as he slept in his bed terrified him—a real nightmare. Then he wrote out his dream:


text:
"The first animal looked like a lion, but it had the wings of an eagle. While I watched, its wings were pulled off. It was then pulled erect so that it was standing on two feet like a man. Then a human heart was placed in it.


text:
"Then I saw a second animal that looked like a bear. It lurched from side to side, holding three ribs in its jaws. It was told, 'Attack! Devour! Fill your belly!'


text:
"Next I saw another animal. This one looked like a panther. It had four birdlike wings on its back. This animal had four heads and was made to rule.


text:
"After that, a fourth animal appeared in my dream. This one was a grisly horror—hideous. It had huge iron teeth. It crunched and swallowed its victims. Anything left over, it trampled into the ground. It was different from the other animals—this one was a real monster. It had ten horns.


text:
"As I was staring at the horns and trying to figure out what they meant, another horn sprouted up, a little horn. Three of the original horns were pulled out to make room for it. There were human eyes in this little horn, and a big mouth speaking arrogantly.


text:
"As I was watching all this,<br/>"Thrones were set in place<br/>and The Old One sat down.<br/>His robes were white as snow,<br/>his hair was white like wool.<br/>His throne was flaming with fire,<br/>its wheels blazing.


text:
A river of fire<br/>poured out of the throne.<br/>Thousands upon thousands served him,<br/>tens of thousands attended him.<br/>The courtroom was called to order,<br/>and the books were opened.


text:
"I kept watching. The little horn was speaking arrogantly. Then, as I watched, the monster was killed and its body cremated in a roaring fire.


text:
The other animals lived on for a limited time, but they didn't really do anything, had no power to rule.


text:
My dream continued.<br/>"I saw a human form, a son of man,<br/>arriving in a whirl of clouds.<br/>He came to The Old One<br/>and was presented to him.


text:
He was given power to rule—all the glory of royalty.<br/>Everyone—race, color, and creed—had to serve him.<br/>His rule would be forever, never ending.<br/>His kingly rule would never be replaced.


text:
So I went up to one of those standing by and asked him the meaning of all this. And he told me, interpreting the dream for me:


text:
But eventually the holy people of the High God will be given the kingdom and have it ever after—yes, forever and ever.'


text:
"But I wanted to know more. I was curious about the fourth animal, the one so different from the others, the hideous monster with the iron teeth and the bronze claws, gulping down what it ripped to pieces and trampling the leftovers into the dirt.


text:
And I wanted to know about the ten horns on its head and the other horn that sprouted up while three of the original horns were removed. This new horn had eyes and a big mouth and spoke arrogantly, dominating the other horns.


text:
But then The Old One intervened and decided things in favor of the people of the High God. In the end, God's holy people took over the kingdom.


text:
"The bystander continued, telling me this: 'The fourth animal is a fourth kingdom that will appear on earth. It will be different from the first three kingdoms, a monster kingdom that will chew up everyone in sight and spit them out.


text:
The ten horns are ten kings, one after another, that will come from this kingdom. But then another king will arrive. He will be different from the earlier kings. He will begin by toppling three kings.


text:
Then he will blaspheme the High God, persecute the followers of the High God, and try to get rid of sacred worship and moral practice. God's holy people will be persecuted by him for a time, two times, half a time.


text:
Then the royal rule and the authority and the glory of all the kingdoms under heaven will be handed over to the people of the High God. Their royal rule will last forever. All other rulers will serve and obey them.'


text:
"And there it ended. I, Daniel, was in shock. I was like a man who had seen a ghost. But I kept it all to myself.


text:
"In King Belshazzar's third year as king, another vision came to me, Daniel. This was now the second vision.


text:
"In the vision, I saw myself in Susa, the capital city of the province Elam, standing at the Ulai Canal.


text:
Looking around, I was surprised to see a ram also standing at the gate. The ram had two huge horns, one bigger than the other, but the bigger horn was the last to appear.


text:
I watched as the ram charged: first west, then north, then south. No beast could stand up to him. He did just as he pleased, strutting as if he were king of the beasts.


text:
"While I was watching this, wondering what it all meant, I saw a billy goat with an immense horn in the middle of its forehead come up out of the west and fly across the whole country, not once touching the ground.


text:
The billy goat approached the double-horned ram that I had earlier seen standing at the gate and, enraged, charged it viciously.


text:
I watched as, mad with rage, it charged the ram and hit it so hard that it broke off its two horns. The ram didn't stand a chance against it. The billy goat knocked the ram to the ground and stomped all over it. Nothing could have saved the ram from the goat.


text:
"Then the billy goat swelled to an enormous size. At the height of its power its immense horn broke off and four other big horns sprouted in its place, pointing to the four points of the compass.


text:
And then from one of these big horns another horn sprouted. It started small, but then grew to an enormous size, facing south and east—toward lovely Palestine.


text:
The horn grew tall, reaching to the stars, the heavenly army, and threw some of the stars to the earth and stomped on them.


text:
It even dared to challenge the power of God, Prince of the Celestial Army! And then it threw out daily worship and desecrated the Sanctuary.


text:
As judgment against their sin, the holy people of God got the same treatment as the daily worship. The horn cast God's Truth aside. High-handed, it took over everything and everyone.


text:
"Then I overheard two holy angels talking. One asked, 'How long is what we see here going to last—the abolishing of daily worship, this devastating judgment against sin, the kicking around of God's holy people and the Sanctuary?'


text:
"The other answered, 'Over the course of 2,300 sacrifices, evening and morning. Then the Sanctuary will be set right again.'


text:
"While I, Daniel, was trying to make sense of what I was seeing, suddenly there was a humanlike figure standing before me.


text:
"Then I heard a man's voice from over by the Ulai Canal calling out, 'Gabriel, tell this man what is going on. Explain the vision to him.'


text:
He came up to me, but when he got close I became terrified and fell facedown on the ground.<br/>"He said, 'Understand that this vision has to do with the time of the end.'


text:
"And then he continued, 'I want to tell you what is going to happen as the judgment days of wrath wind down, for there is going to be an end to all this.


text:
The billy goat stands for the kingdom of the Greeks. The huge horn on its forehead is the first Greek king.


text:
The four horns that sprouted after it was broken off are the four kings that come after him, but without his power.


text:
" 'As their kingdoms cool down<br/>and rebellions heat up,<br/>A king will show up,<br/>hard-faced, a master trickster.


text:
His power will swell enormously.<br/>He'll talk big, high-handedly,<br/>Doing whatever he pleases,<br/>knocking off heroes and holy ones left and right.


text:
He'll plot and scheme to make crime flourish—<br/>and oh, how it will flourish!<br/>He'll think he's invincible<br/>and get rid of anyone who gets in his way.<br/>But when he takes on the Prince of all princes,<br/>he'll be smashed to bits—<br/>but not by human hands.


text:
This vision of the 2,300 sacrifices, evening and morning,<br/>is accurate but confidential.<br/>Keep it to yourself.<br/>It refers to the far future.'


text:
"I, Daniel, walked around in a daze, unwell for days. Then I got a grip on myself and went back to work taking care of the king's affairs. But I continued to be upset by the vision. I couldn't make sense of it.


text:
In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, was meditating on the Scriptures that gave, according to the Word of God to the prophet Jeremiah, the number of years that Jerusalem had to lie in ruins, namely, seventy.


text:
I turned to the Master God, asking for an answer—praying earnestly, fasting from meals, wearing rough penitential burlap, and kneeling in the ashes.


text:
I poured out my heart, baring my soul to God, my God:<br/>" 'O Master, great and august God. You never waver in your covenant commitment, never give up on those who love you and do what you say.


text:
Yet we have sinned in every way imaginable. We've done evil things, rebelled, dodged and taken detours around your clearly marked paths.


text:
We've turned a deaf ear to your servants the prophets, who preached your Word to our kings and leaders, our parents, and all the people in the land.


text:
You have done everything right, Master, but all we have to show for our lives is guilt and shame, the whole lot of us—people of Judah, citizens of Jerusalem, Israel at home and Israel in exile in all the places we've been banished to because of our betrayal of you.


text:
Oh yes, God, we've been exposed in our shame, all of us—our kings, leaders, parents—before the whole world. And deservedly so, because of our sin.


text:
" 'Compassion is our only hope, the compassion of you, the Master, our God, since in our rebellion we've forfeited our rights.


text:
We paid no attention to you when you told us how to live, the clear teaching that came through your servants the prophets.


text:
All of us in Israel ignored what you said. We defied your instructions and did what we pleased. And now we're paying for it: The solemn curse written out plainly in the revelation to God's servant Moses is now doing its work among us, the wages of our sin against you.


text:
You did to us and our rulers what you said you would do: You brought this catastrophic disaster on us, the worst disaster on record—and in Jerusalem!


text:
" 'Just as written in God's revelation to Moses, the catastrophe was total. Nothing was held back. We kept at our sinning, never giving you a second thought, oblivious to your clear warning,


text:
and so you had no choice but to let the disaster loose on us in full force. You, our God, had a perfect right to do this since we persistently and defiantly ignored you.


text:
" 'Master, you are our God, for you delivered your people from the land of Egypt in a show of power—people are still talking about it! We confess that we have sinned, that we have lived bad lives.


text:
Following the lines of what you have always done in setting things right, setting people right, please stop being so angry with Jerusalem, your very own city, your holy mountain. We know it's our fault that this has happened, all because of our sins and our parents' sins, and now we're an embarrassment to everyone around us. We're a blot on the neighborhood.


text:
So listen, God, to this determined prayer of your servant. Have mercy on your ruined Sanctuary. Act out of who you are, not out of what we are.


text:
" 'Turn your ears our way, God, and listen. Open your eyes and take a long look at our ruined city, this city named after you. We know that we don't deserve a hearing from you. Our appeal is to your compassion. This prayer is our last and only hope:


text:
" 'Master, listen to us!<br/>Master, forgive us!<br/>Master, look at us and do something!<br/>Master, don't put us off!<br/>Your city and your people are named after you:<br/>You have a stake in us!'


text:
"While I was pouring out my heart, baring my sins and the sins of my people Israel, praying my life out before my God, interceding for the holy mountain of my God


text:
—while I was absorbed in this praying, the humanlike Gabriel, the one I had seen in an earlier vision, approached me, flying in like a bird about the time of evening worship.


text:
You had no sooner started your prayer when the answer was given. And now I'm here to deliver the answer to you. You are much loved! So listen carefully to the answer, the plain meaning of what is revealed:


text:
" 'Seventy sevens are set for your people and for your holy city to throttle rebellion, stop sin, wipe out crime, set things right forever, confirm what the prophet saw, and anoint The Holy of Holies.


text:
" 'Here is what you must understand: From the time the word goes out to rebuild Jerusalem until the coming of the Anointed Leader, there will be seven sevens. The rebuilding will take sixty-two sevens, including building streets and digging a moat. Those will be rough times.


text:
After the sixty-two sevens, the Anointed Leader will be killed—the end of him. The city and Sanctuary will be laid in ruins by the army of the newly arriving leader. The end will come in a rush, like a flood. War will rage right up to the end, desolation the order of the day.


text:
" 'Then for one seven, he will forge many and strong alliances, but halfway through the seven he will banish worship and prayers. At the place of worship, a desecrating obscenity will be set up and remain until finally the desecrator himself is decisively destroyed.' "


text:
In the third year of the reign of King Cyrus of Persia, a message was made plain to Daniel, whose Babylonian name was Belteshazzar. The message was true. It dealt with a big war. He understood the message, the understanding coming by revelation:


text:
I ate only plain and simple food, no seasoning or meat or wine. I neither bathed nor shaved until the three weeks were up.


text:
"On the twenty-fourth day of the first month I was standing on the bank of the great river, the Tigris.


text:
I looked up and to my surprise saw a man dressed in linen with a belt of pure gold around his waist.


text:
His body was hard and glistening, as if sculpted from a precious stone, his face radiant, his eyes bright and penetrating like torches, his arms and feet glistening like polished bronze, and his voice, deep and resonant, sounded like a huge choir of voices.


text:
"I, Daniel, was the only one to see this. The men who were with me, although they didn't see it, were overcome with fear and ran off and hid, fearing the worst.


text:
Left alone after the appearance, abandoned by my friends, I went weak in the knees, the blood drained from my face.


text:
" 'Daniel,' he said, 'man of quality, listen carefully to my message. And get up on your feet. Stand at attention. I've been sent to bring you news.'<br/>"When he had said this, I stood up, but I was still shaking.


text:
" 'Relax, Daniel,' he continued, 'don't be afraid. From the moment you decided to humble yourself to receive understanding, your prayer was heard, and I set out to come to you.


text:
and was delayed for a good three weeks. But then Michael, one of the chief angel-princes, intervened to help me. I left him there with the prince of the kingdom of Persia. And now I'm here to help you understand what will eventually happen to your people. The vision has to do with what's ahead.'


text:
Then I was surprised by something like a human hand that touched my lips. I opened my mouth and started talking to the messenger: 'When I saw you, master, I was terror-stricken. My knees turned to water. I couldn't move.


text:
He said, 'Don't be afraid, friend. Peace. Everything is going to be all right. Take courage. Be strong.'<br/>"Even as he spoke, courage surged up within me. I said, 'Go ahead, let my master speak. You've given me courage.'


text:
"He said, 'Do you know why I've come here to you? I now have to go back to fight against the angel-prince of Persia, and when I get him out of the way, the angel-prince of Greece will arrive.


text:
But first let me tell you what's written in The True Book. No one helps me in my fight against these beings except Michael, your angel-prince.


text:
" 'And I, in my turn, have been helping him out as best I can ever since the first year in the reign of Darius the Mede.'


text:
" 'But now let me tell you the truth of how things stand: Three more kings of Persia will show up, and then a fourth will become richer than all of them. When he senses that he is powerful enough as a result of his wealth, he will go to war against the entire kingdom of Greece.


text:
" 'Then a powerful king will show up and take over a huge territory and run things just as he pleases.


text:
But at the height of his power, with everything seemingly under control, his kingdom will split into four parts, like the four points of the compass. But his heirs won't get in on it. There will be no continuity with his kingship. Others will tear it to pieces and grab whatever they can get for themselves.


text:
" 'Next the king of the south will grow strong, but one of his princes will grow stronger than he and rule an even larger territory.


text:
After a few years, the two of them will make a pact, and the daughter of the king of the south will marry the king of the north to cement the peace agreement. But her influence will weaken and her child will not survive. She and her servants, her child, and her husband will be betrayed.<br/>" 'Sometime later


text:
a member of the royal family will show up and take over. He will take command of his army and invade the defenses of the king of the north and win a resounding victory.


text:
He will load up their tin gods and all the gold and silver trinkets that go with them and cart them off to Egypt. Eventually, the king of the north will recover


text:
" 'But then his sons will raise a huge army and rush down like a flood, a torrential attack, on the defenses of the south.


text:
" 'Furious, the king of the south will come out and engage the king of the north and his huge army in battle and rout them.


text:
As the corpses are cleared from the field, the king, inflamed with bloodlust, will go on a bloodletting rampage, massacring tens of thousands. But his victory won't last long,


text:
for the king of the north will put together another army bigger than the last one, and after a few years he'll come back to do battle again with his immense army and endless supplies.


text:
" 'In those times, many others will get into the act and go off to fight against the king of the south. Hotheads from your own people, drunk on dreams, will join them. But they'll sputter out.


text:
" 'When the king of the north arrives, he'll build siege works and capture the outpost fortress city. The armies of the south will fall to pieces before him. Not even their famous commando shock troops will slow down the attacker.


text:
He'll march in big as you please, as if he owned the place. He'll take over that beautiful country, Palestine, and make himself at home in it.


text:
Then he'll proceed to get everything, lock, stock, and barrel, in his control. He'll cook up a peace treaty and even give his daughter in marriage to the king of the south in a plot to destroy him totally. But the plot will fizzle. It won't succeed.


text:
" 'Later, he'll turn his attention to the coastal regions and capture a bunch of prisoners, but a general will step in and put a stop to his bullying ways. The bully will be bullied!


text:
He'll go back home and tend to his own military affairs. But by then he'll be washed up and soon will be heard of no more.


text:
" 'He will be replaced shortly by a real loser, his rule, reputation, and authority already in shreds. And he won't last long. He'll slip out of history quietly, without even a fight.


text:
" 'His place will be taken by a reject, a man spurned and passed over for advancement. He'll surprise everyone, seemingly coming out of nowhere, and will seize the kingdom.


text:
He'll come in like a steamroller, flattening the opposition. Even the Prince of the Covenant will be crushed.


text:
After negotiating a cease-fire, he'll betray its terms. With a few henchmen, he'll take total control.


text:
Arbitrarily and impulsively, he'll invade the richest provinces. He'll surpass all his ancestors, near and distant, in his rape of the country, grabbing and looting, living with his cronies in corrupt and lavish luxury.<br/>" 'He will make plans against the fortress cities, but they'll turn out to be shortsighted.


text:
He'll get a great army together, all charged up to fight the king of the south. The king of the south in response will get his army—an even greater army—in place, ready to fight. But he won't be able to sustain that intensity for long because of the treacherous intrigue


text:
in his own ranks, his court having been honeycombed with vicious plots. His army will be smashed, the battlefield filled with corpses.


text:
" 'The two kings, each with evil designs on the other, will sit at the conference table and trade lies. Nothing will come of the treaty, which is nothing but a tissue of lies anyway. But that's not the end of it. There's more to this story.


text:
" 'The king of the north will go home loaded down with plunder, but his mind will be set on destroying the holy covenant as he passes through the country on his way home.


text:
" 'One year later he will mount a fresh invasion of the south. But the second invasion won't compare to the first.


text:
When the Roman ships arrive, he will turn tail and go back home. But as he passes through the country, he will be filled with anger at the holy covenant. He will take up with all those who betray the holy covenant, favoring them.


text:
The bodyguards surrounding him will march in and desecrate the Sanctuary and citadel. They'll throw out the daily worship and set up in its place the obscene sacrilege.


text:
The king of the north will play up to those who betray the holy covenant, corrupting them even further with his seductive talk, but those who stay courageously loyal to their God will take a strong stand.


text:
" 'Those who keep their heads on straight will teach the crowds right from wrong by their example. They'll be put to severe testing for a season: some killed, some burned, some exiled, some robbed.


text:
When the testing is intense, they'll get some help, but not much. Many of the helpers will be halfhearted at best.


text:
The testing will refine, cleanse, and purify those who keep their heads on straight and stay true, for there is still more to come.


text:
" 'Meanwhile, the king of the north will do whatever he pleases. He'll puff himself up and posture himself as greater than any god. He will even dare to brag and boast in defiance of the God of gods. And he'll get by with it for a while—until this time of wrathful judgment is completed, for what is decreed must be done.


text:
He will have no respect for the gods of his ancestors, not even that popular favorite among women, Adonis. Contemptuous of every god and goddess, the king of the north will puff himself up greater than all of them.


text:
He'll even stoop to despising the God of the holy ones, and in the place where God is worshiped he will put on exhibit, with a lavish show of silver and gold and jewels, a new god that no one has ever heard of.


text:
Marching under the banner of a strange god, he will attack the key fortresses. He will promote everyone who falls into line behind this god, putting them in positions of power and paying them off with grants of land.


text:
" 'In the final wrap-up of this story, the king of the south will confront him. But the king of the north will come at him like a tornado. Unleashing chariots and horses and an armada of ships, he'll blow away anything in his path.


text:
As he enters the beautiful land, people will fall before him like dominoes. Only Edom, Moab, and a few Ammonites will escape.


text:
He will confiscate the treasuries of Egyptian gold and silver and other valuables. The Libyans and Ethiopians will fall in with him.


text:
Then disturbing reports will come in from the north and east that will throw him into a panic. Towering in rage, he'll rush to stamp out the threat.


text:
But he'll no sooner have pitched camp between the Mediterranean Sea and the Holy Mountain—all those royal tents!—than he'll meet his end. And not a soul around who can help!


text:
" 'That's when Michael, the great angel-prince, champion of your people, will step in. It will be a time of trouble, the worst trouble the world has ever seen. But your people will be saved from the trouble, every last one found written in the Book.


text:
Many who have been long dead and buried will wake up, some to eternal life, others to eternal shame.


text:
" 'Men and women who have lived wisely and well will shine brilliantly, like the cloudless, star-strewn night skies. And those who put others on the right path to life will glow like stars forever.


text:
" 'This is a confidential report, Daniel, for your eyes and ears only. Keep it secret. Put the book under lock and key until the end. In the interim there is going to be a lot of frantic running around, trying to figure out what's going on.'


text:
"As I, Daniel, took all this in, two figures appeared, one standing on this bank of the river and one on the other bank.


text:
One of them asked a third man who was dressed in linen and who straddled the river, 'How long is this astonishing story to go on?'


text:
"The man dressed in linen, who straddled the river, raised both hands to the skies. I heard him solemnly swear by the Eternal One that it would be a time, two times, and half a time, that when the oppressor of the holy people was brought down the story would be complete.


text:
"I heard all this plainly enough, but I didn't understand it. So I asked, 'Master, can you explain this to me?'


text:
" 'Go on about your business, Daniel,' he said. 'The message is confidential and under lock and key until the end, until things are about to be wrapped up.


text:
The populace will be washed clean and made like new. But the wicked will just keep on being wicked, without a clue about what is happening. Those who live wisely and well will understand what's going on.'


text:
"From the time that the daily worship is banished from the Temple and the obscene desecration is set up in its place, there will be 1,290 days.


text:
"And you? Go about your business without fretting or worrying. Relax. When it's all over, you will be on your feet to receive your reward."


text:
This is God's Message to Hosea son of Beeri. It came to him during the royal reigns of Judah's kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. This was also the time that Jeroboam son of Joash was king over Israel.


text:
The first time God spoke to Hosea he said:<br/>"Find a whore and marry her.<br/>Make this whore the mother of your children.<br/>And here's why: This whole country<br/>has become a whorehouse, unfaithful to me, God."


text:
Then God told him:<br/>"Name him Jezreel. It won't be long now before<br/>I'll make the people of Israel pay for the massacre at Jezreel.<br/>I'm calling it quits on the kingdom of Israel.


text:
Payday is coming! I'm going to chop Israel's bows and arrows<br/>into kindling in the valley of Jezreel."


text:
Gomer got pregnant again. This time she had a daughter. God told Hosea:<br/>"Name this one No-Mercy. I'm fed up with Israel.<br/>I've run out of mercy. There's no more forgiveness.


text:
Judah's another story. I'll continue having mercy on them.<br/>I'll save them. It will be their God who saves them,<br/>Not their armaments and armies,<br/>not their horsepower and manpower."


text:
"But down the road the population of Israel is going to explode past counting, like sand on the ocean beaches. In the very place where they were once named Nobody, they will be named God's Somebody.


text:
Everybody in Judah and everybody in Israel will be assembled as one people. They'll choose a single leader. There'll be no stopping them—a great day in Jezreel!


text:
"Haul your mother into court. Accuse her!<br/>She's no longer my wife.<br/>I'm no longer her husband.<br/>Tell her to quit dressing like a whore,<br/>displaying her breasts for sale.


text:
If she refuses, I'll rip off her clothes<br/>and expose her, naked as a newborn.<br/>I'll turn her skin into dried-out leather,<br/>her body into a badlands landscape,<br/>a rack of bones in the desert.


text:
Face it: Your mother's been a whore,<br/>bringing bastard children into the world.<br/>She said, 'I'm off to see my lovers!<br/>They'll wine and dine me,<br/>Dress and caress me,<br/>perfume and adorn me!'


text:
She'll go on the hunt for her lovers<br/>but not bring down a single one.<br/>She'll look high and low<br/>but won't find a one. Then she'll say,<br/>'I'm going back to my husband, the one I started out with.<br/>That was a better life by far than this one.'


text:
She didn't know that it was I all along<br/>who wined and dined and adorned her,<br/>That I was the one who dressed her up<br/>in the big-city fashions and jewelry<br/>that she wasted on wild Baal-orgies.


text:
I'm about to bring her up short: No more wining and dining!<br/>Silk lingerie and gowns are a thing of the past.


text:
I'll expose her genitals to the public.<br/>All her fly-by-night lovers will be helpless to help her.


text:
Party time is over. I'm calling a halt to the whole business,<br/>her wild weekends and unholy holidays.


text:
I'll wreck her sumptuous gardens and ornamental fountains,<br/>of which she bragged, 'Whoring paid for all this!'<br/>They will soon be dumping grounds for garbage,<br/>feeding grounds for stray dogs and cats.


text:
I'll make her pay for her indulgence in promiscuous religion—<br/>all that sensuous Baal worship<br/>And all the promiscuous sex that went with it,<br/>stalking her lovers, dressed to kill,<br/>And not a thought for me."<br/>God's Message!


text:
"And now, here's what I'm going to do:<br/>I'm going to start all over again.<br/>I'm taking her back out into the wilderness<br/>where we had our first date, and I'll court her.


text:
I'll give her bouquets of roses.<br/>I'll turn Heartbreak Valley into Acres of Hope.<br/>She'll respond like she did as a young girl,<br/>those days when she was fresh out of Egypt.


text:
"At that time"—this is God's Message still—<br/>"you'll address me, 'Dear husband!'<br/>Never again will you address me,<br/>'My slave-master!'


text:
I'll wash your mouth out with soap,<br/>get rid of all the dirty false-god names,<br/>not so much as a whisper of those names again.


text:
At the same time I'll make a peace treaty between you<br/>and wild animals and birds and reptiles,<br/>And get rid of all weapons of war.<br/>Think of it! Safe from beasts and bullies!


text:
And then I'll marry you for good—forever!<br/>I'll marry you true and proper, in love and tenderness.


text:
Yes, I'll marry you and neither leave you nor let you go.<br/>You'll know me, God, for who I really am.


text:
"On the very same day, I'll answer"—this is God's Message—<br/>"I'll answer the sky, sky will answer earth,


text:
I'll plant her in the good earth.<br/>I'll have mercy on No-Mercy.<br/>I'll say to Nobody, 'You're my dear Somebody,'<br/>and he'll say 'You're my God!' "


text:
Then God ordered me, "Start all over: Love your wife again,<br/>your wife who's in bed with her latest boyfriend, your<br/>cheating wife.<br/>Love her the way I, God, love the Israelite people,<br/>even as they flirt and party with every god that takes their fancy."


text:
Then I told her, "From now on you're living with me.<br/>No more whoring, no more sleeping around.<br/>You're living with me and I'm living with you."


text:
The people of Israel are going to live a long time<br/>stripped of security and protection,<br/>without religion and comfort,<br/>godless and prayerless.


text:
But in time they'll come back, these Israelites,<br/>come back looking for their God and their David-King.<br/>They'll come back chastened to reverence<br/>before God and his good gifts, ready for the End of the story of his love.


text:
Attention all Israelites! God's Message!<br/>God indicts the whole population:<br/>"No one is faithful. No one loves.<br/>No one knows the first thing about God.


text:
All this cussing and lying and killing, theft and loose sex,<br/>sheer anarchy, one murder after another!


text:
And because of all this, the very land itself weeps<br/>and everything in it is grief-stricken—<br/>animals in the fields and birds on the wing,<br/>even the fish in the sea are listless, lifeless.


text:
"But don't look for someone to blame.<br/>No finger pointing!<br/>You, priest, are the one in the dock.


text:
You stumble around in broad daylight,<br/>And then the prophets take over and stumble all night.<br/>Your mother is as bad as you.


text:
My people are ruined<br/>because they don't know what's right or true.<br/>Because you've turned your back on knowledge,<br/>I've turned my back on you priests.<br/>Because you refuse to recognize the revelation of God,<br/>I'm no longer recognizing your children.


text:
The result: You can't tell the people from the priests,<br/>the priests from the people.<br/>I'm on my way to make them both pay<br/>and take the consequences of the bad lives they've lived.


text:
They'll eat and be as hungry as ever,<br/>have sex and get no satisfaction.<br/>They walked out on me, their God,<br/>for a life of rutting with whores.


text:
They ask questions of a dead tree,<br/>expect answers from a sturdy walking stick.<br/>Drunk on sex, they can't find their way home.<br/>They've replaced their God with their genitals.


text:
They worship on the tops of mountains,<br/>make a picnic out of religion.<br/>Under the oaks and elms on the hills<br/>they stretch out and take it easy.<br/>Before you know it, your daughters are whores<br/>and the wives of your sons are sleeping around.


text:
But I'm not going after your whoring daughters<br/>or the adulterous wives of your sons.<br/>It's the men who pick up the whores that I'm after,<br/>the men who worship at the holy whorehouses—<br/>a stupid people, ruined by whores!


text:
"You've ruined your own life, Israel—<br/>but don't drag Judah down with you!<br/>Don't go to the sex shrine at Gilgal,<br/>don't go to that sin city Bethel,<br/>Don't go around saying 'God bless you' and not mean it,<br/>taking God's name in vain.


text:
When the beer runs out,<br/>it's sex, sex, and more sex.<br/>Bold and sordid debauchery—<br/>how they love it!


text:
"Listen to this, priests!<br/>Attention, people of Israel!<br/>Royal family—all ears!<br/>You're in charge of justice around here.<br/>But what have you done? Exploited people at Mizpah,<br/>ripped them off on Tabor,


text:
"I know you, Ephraim, inside and out.<br/>Yes, Israel, I see right through you!<br/>Ephraim, you've played your sex-and-religion games long enough.<br/>All Israel is thoroughly polluted.


text:
They couldn't turn to God if they wanted to.<br/>Their evil life is a bad habit.<br/>Every breath they take is a whore's breath.<br/>They wouldn't recognize God if they saw me.


text:
"Bloated by arrogance, big as a house,<br/>they're a public disgrace,<br/>The lot of them—Israel, Ephraim, Judah—<br/>lurching and weaving down their guilty streets.


text:
When they decide to get their lives together<br/>and go off looking for God once again,<br/>They'll find it's too late.<br/>I, God, will be long gone.


text:
They've played fast and loose with me for too long,<br/>filling the country with their bastard offspring.<br/>A plague of locusts will<br/>devastate their violated land.


text:
"Blow the ram's horn shofar in Gibeah,<br/>the bugle in Ramah!<br/>Signal the invasion of Sin City!<br/>Scare the daylights out of Benjamin!


text:
Ephraim will be left wasted,<br/>a lifeless moonscape.<br/>I'm telling it straight, the unvarnished truth,<br/>to the tribes of Israel.


text:
"Israel's rulers are crooks and thieves,<br/>cheating the people of their land,<br/>And I'm angry, good and angry.<br/>Every inch of their bodies is going to feel my anger.


text:
"Brutal Ephraim is himself brutalized—<br/>a taste of his own medicine!<br/>He was so determined<br/>to do it his own worthless way.


text:
"When Ephraim saw he was sick<br/>and Judah saw his pus-filled sores,<br/>Ephraim went running to Assyria,<br/>went for help to the big king.<br/>But he can't heal you.<br/>He can't cure your oozing sores.


text:
"I'm a grizzly charging Ephraim,<br/>a grizzly with cubs charging Judah.<br/>I'll rip them to pieces—yes, I will!<br/>No one can stop me now.<br/>I'll drag them off.<br/>No one can help them.


text:
Then I'll go back to where I came from<br/>until they come to their senses.<br/>When they finally hit rock bottom,<br/>maybe they'll come looking for me."


text:
"Come on, let's go back to God.<br/>He hurt us, but he'll heal us.<br/>He hit us hard,<br/>but he'll put us right again.


text:
In a couple of days we'll feel better.<br/>By the third day he'll have made us brand-new,<br/>Alive and on our feet,<br/>fit to face him.


text:
We're ready to study God,<br/>eager for God-knowledge.<br/>As sure as dawn breaks,<br/>so sure is his daily arrival.<br/>He comes as rain comes,<br/>as spring rain refreshing the ground."


text:
"What am I to do with you, Ephraim?<br/>What do I make of you, Judah?<br/>Your declarations of love last no longer<br/>than morning mist and predawn dew.


text:
That's why I use prophets to shake you to attention,<br/>why my words cut you to the quick:<br/>To wake you up to my judgment<br/>blazing like light.


text:
I'm after love that lasts, not more religion.<br/>I want you to know God, not go to more prayer meetings.


text:
It used to be robbers who mugged pedestrians.<br/>Now it's gangs of priests<br/>Assaulting worshipers on their way to Shechem.<br/>Nothing is sacred to them.


text:
"I saw a shocking thing in the country of Israel:<br/>Ephraim worshiping in a religious whorehouse,<br/>and Israel in the mud right there with him.


text:
"You're as bad as the worst of them, Judah.<br/>You've been sowing wild oats. Now it's harvest time.


text:
"Every time I gave Israel a fresh start,<br/>wiped the slate clean and got them going again,<br/>Ephraim soon filled the slate with new sins,<br/>the treachery of Samaria written out in bold print.<br/>Two-faced and double-tongued,<br/>they steal you blind, pick you clean.


text:
It never crosses their mind<br/>that I keep account of their every crime.<br/>They're mud-spattered head to toe with the residue of sin.<br/>I see who they are and what they've done.


text:
They're a bunch of overheated adulterers,<br/>like an oven that holds its heat<br/>From the kneading of the dough<br/>to the rising of the bread.


text:
They're like wood stoves,<br/>red-hot with lust.<br/>Through the night their passion is banked;<br/>in the morning it blazes up, flames hungrily licking.


text:
Murderous and volcanic,<br/>they incinerate their rulers.<br/>Their kings fall one by one,<br/>and no one pays any attention to me.


text:
Strangers suck him dry<br/>but he doesn't even notice.<br/>His hair has turned gray—<br/>he doesn't notice.


text:
Bloated by arrogance, big as a house,<br/>Israel's a public disgrace.<br/>Israel lumbers along oblivious to God,<br/>despite all the signs, ignoring God.


text:
"Ephraim is bird-brained,<br/>mindless, clueless,<br/>First chirping after Egypt,<br/>then fluttering after Assyria.


text:
Doom! They've run away from home.<br/>Now they're really in trouble! They've defied me.<br/>And I'm supposed to help them<br/>while they feed me a line of lies?


text:
Instead of crying out to me in heartfelt prayer,<br/>they whoop it up in bed with their whores,<br/>Gash themselves bloody in their sex-and-religion orgies,<br/>but turn their backs on me.


text:
I'm the one who gave them good minds and healthy bodies,<br/>and how am I repaid? With evil scheming!


text:
They turn, but not to me—<br/>turn here, then there, like a weather vane.<br/>Their rulers will be cut down, murdered—<br/>just deserts for their mocking blasphemies.<br/>And the final sentence?<br/>Ridicule in the court of world opinion.


text:
"Blow the trumpet! Sound the alarm!<br/>Vultures are circling over God's people<br/>Who have broken my covenant<br/>and defied my revelation.


text:
"They crown kings, but without asking me.<br/>They set up princes but don't let me in on it.<br/>Instead, they make idols, using silver and gold,<br/>idols that will be their ruin.


text:
Throw that gold calf-god on the trash heap, Samaria!<br/>I'm seething with anger against that rubbish!<br/>How long before they shape up?


text:
And they're Israelites!<br/>A sculptor made that thing—<br/>it's not God.<br/>That Samaritan calf<br/>will be broken to bits.


text:
Look at them! Planting wind-seeds,<br/>they'll harvest tornadoes.<br/>Wheat with no head<br/>produces no flour.<br/>And even if it did,<br/>strangers would gulp it down.


text:
They trotted off to Assyria:<br/>Why, even wild donkeys stick to their own kind,<br/>but donkey-Ephraim goes out and pays to get lovers.


text:
Now, because of their whoring life among the pagans,<br/>I'm going to gather them together and confront them.<br/>They're going to reap the consequences soon,<br/>feel what it's like to be oppressed by the big king.


text:
"Ephraim has built a lot of altars,<br/>and then uses them for sinning.<br/>Can you believe it? Altars for sinning!


text:
They offer sacrifices to me<br/>and then they feast on the meat.<br/>God is not pleased!<br/>I'm fed up—I'll keep remembering their guilt.<br/>I'll punish their sins<br/>and send them back to Egypt.


text:
Israel has forgotten his Maker<br/>and gotten busy making palaces.<br/>Judah has gone in for a lot of fortress cities.<br/>I'm sending fire on their cities<br/>to burn down their fortifications."


text:
Don't waste your life in wild orgies, Israel.<br/>Don't party away your life with the heathen.<br/>You walk away from your God at the drop of a hat<br/>and like a whore sell yourself promiscuously<br/>at every sex-and-religion party on the street.


text:
At this rate you'll not last long in God's land:<br/>Some of you are going to end up bankrupt in Egypt.<br/>Some of you will be disillusioned in Assyria.


text:
As refugees in Egypt and Assyria,<br/>you won't have much chance to worship God—<br/>Sentenced to rations of bread and water,<br/>and your souls polluted by the spirit-dirty air.<br/>You'll be starved for God,<br/>exiled from God's own country.


text:
Be warned! When you escape from the frying pan of disaster,<br/>you'll fall into the fire of Egypt.<br/>Egypt will give you a fine funeral!<br/>What use will all your god-inspired silver be then<br/>as you eke out a living in a field of weeds?


text:
Time's up. Doom's at the doorstep.<br/>It's payday!<br/>Did Israel bluster, "The prophet is crazy!<br/>The 'man of the Spirit' is nuts!"?<br/>Think again. Because of your great guilt,<br/>you're in big trouble.


text:
The prophet is looking out for Ephraim,<br/>working under God's orders.<br/>But everyone is trying to trip him up.<br/>He's hated right in God's house, of all places.


text:
The people are going from bad to worse,<br/>rivaling that ancient and unspeakable crime at Gibeah.<br/>God's keeping track of their guilt.<br/>He'll make them pay for their sins.


text:
"Long ago when I came upon Israel,<br/>it was like finding grapes out in the desert.<br/>When I found your ancestors, it was like finding<br/>a fig tree bearing fruit for the first time.<br/>But when they arrived at Baal-peor, that pagan shrine,<br/>they took to sin like a pig to filth,<br/>wallowing in the mud with their newfound friends.


text:
Ephraim is fickle and scattered, like a flock of blackbirds,<br/>their beauty dissipated in confusion and clamor,<br/>Frenetic and noisy, frigid and barren,<br/>and nothing to show for it—neither conception nor childbirth.


text:
Even if they did give birth, I'd declare them<br/>unfit parents and take away their children!<br/>Yes indeed—a black day for them<br/>when I turn my back and walk off!


text:
I see Ephraim letting his children run wild.<br/>He might just as well take them and kill them outright!"


text:
"All their evil came out into the open<br/>at the pagan shrine at Gilgal. Oh, how I hated them there!<br/>Because of their evil practices,<br/>I'll kick them off my land.<br/>I'm wasting no more love on them.<br/>Their leaders are a bunch of rebellious adolescents.


text:
Ephraim is hit hard—<br/>roots withered, no more fruit.<br/>Even if by some miracle they had children,<br/>the dear babies wouldn't live—I'd make sure of that!"


text:
My God has washed his hands of them.<br/>They wouldn't listen.<br/>They're doomed to be wanderers,<br/>vagabonds among the godless nations.


text:
Israel was once a lush vine,<br/>bountiful in grapes.<br/>The more lavish the harvest,<br/>the more promiscuous the worship.<br/>The more money they got,<br/>the more they squandered on gods-in-their-own-image.


text:
Their sweet smiles are sheer lies.<br/>They're guilty as sin.<br/>God will smash their worship shrines,<br/>pulverize their god-images.


text:
They go around saying,<br/>"Who needs a king?<br/>We couldn't care less about God,<br/>so why bother with a king?<br/>What difference would he make?"


text:
They talk big,<br/>lie through their teeth,<br/>make deals.<br/>But their high-sounding words<br/>turn out to be empty words, litter in the gutters.


text:
The people of Samaria travel over to Crime City<br/>to worship the golden calf-god.<br/>They go all out, prancing and hollering,<br/>taken in by their showmen priests.<br/>They act so important around the calf-god,<br/>but are oblivious to the sham, the shame.


text:
They have plans to take it to Assyria,<br/>present it as a gift to the great king.<br/>And so Ephraim makes a fool of himself,<br/>disgraces Israel with his stupid idols.


text:
Israel's favorite sin centers<br/>will all be torn down.<br/>Thistles and crabgrass<br/>will decorate their ruined altars.<br/>Then they'll say to the mountains, "Bury us!"<br/>and to the hills, "Fall on us!"


text:
You got your start in sin at Gibeah—<br/>that ancient, unspeakable, shocking sin—<br/>And you've been at it ever since.<br/>And Gibeah will mark the end of it<br/>in a war to end all the sinning.


text:
I'll come to teach them a lesson.<br/>Nations will gang up on them,<br/>Making them learn the hard way<br/>the sum of Gibeah plus Gibeah.


text:
Ephraim was a trained heifer<br/>that loved to thresh.<br/>Passing by and seeing her strong, sleek neck,<br/>I wanted to harness Ephraim,<br/>Put Ephraim to work in the fields—<br/>Judah plowing, Jacob harrowing:


text:
Sow righteousness,<br/>reap love.<br/>It's time to till the ready earth,<br/>it's time to dig in with God,<br/>Until he arrives<br/>with righteousness ripe for harvest.


text:
But instead you plowed wicked ways,<br/>reaped a crop of evil and ate a salad of lies.<br/>You thought you could do it all on your own,<br/>flush with weapons and manpower.


text:
But the volcano of war will erupt among your people.<br/>All your defense posts will be leveled<br/>As viciously as king Shalman<br/>leveled the town of Beth-arba,<br/>When mothers and their babies<br/>were smashed on the rocks.


text:
That's what's ahead for you, you so-called people of God,<br/>because of your off-the-charts evil.<br/>Some morning you're going to wake up<br/>and find Israel, king and kingdom, a blank—nothing.


text:
But when others called him,<br/>he ran off and left me.<br/>He worshiped the popular sex gods,<br/>he played at religion with toy gods.


text:
Still, I stuck with him. I led Ephraim.<br/>I rescued him from human bondage,<br/>But he never acknowledged my help,


text:
never admitted that I was the one pulling his wagon,<br/>That I lifted him, like a baby, to my cheek,<br/>that I bent down to feed him.


text:
That's why his cities are unsafe—the murder rate skyrockets<br/>and every plan to improve things falls to pieces.


text:
My people are hell-bent on leaving me.<br/>They pray to god Baal for help.<br/>He doesn't lift a finger to help them.


text:
But how can I give up on you, Ephraim?<br/>How can I turn you loose, Israel?<br/>How can I leave you to be ruined like Admah,<br/>devastated like luckless Zeboim?<br/>I can't bear to even think such thoughts.<br/>My insides churn in protest.


text:
And so I'm not going to act on my anger.<br/>I'm not going to destroy Ephraim.<br/>And why? Because I am God and not a human.<br/>I'm The Holy One and I'm here—in your very midst.


text:
"The people will end up following God.<br/>I will roar like a lion—<br/>Oh, how I'll roar!<br/>My frightened children will come running from the west.


text:
Like frightened birds they'll come from Egypt,<br/>from Assyria like scared doves.<br/>I'll move them back into their homes."<br/>God's Word!


text:
Ephraim tells lies right and left.<br/>Not a word of Israel can be trusted.<br/>Judah, meanwhile, is no better,<br/>addicted to cheap gods.


text:
Ephraim, obsessed with god-fantasies,<br/>chases ghosts and phantoms.<br/>He tells lies nonstop,<br/>soul-destroying lies.<br/>Both Ephraim and Judah made deals with Assyria<br/>and tried to get an inside track with Egypt.


text:
In the womb, that heel, Jacob, got the best of his brother.<br/>When he grew up, he tried to get the best of God.


text:
But God would not be bested.<br/>God bested him.<br/>Brought to his knees,<br/>Jacob wept and prayed.<br/>God found him at Bethel.<br/>That's where he spoke with him.


text:
What are you waiting for? Return to your God!<br/>Commit yourself in love, in justice!<br/>Wait for your God,<br/>and don't give up on him—ever!


text:
Ephraim boasted, "Look, I'm rich!<br/>I've made it big!<br/>And look how well I've covered my tracks:<br/>not a hint of fraud, not a sign of sin!"


text:
"But not so fast! I'm God, your God!<br/>Your God from the days in Egypt!<br/>I'm going to put you back to living in tents,<br/>as in the old days when you worshiped in the wilderness.


text:
I speak through the prophets<br/>to give clear pictures of the way things are.<br/>Using prophets, I tell revealing stories.


text:
I show Gilead rampant with religious scandal<br/>and Gilgal teeming with empty-headed religion.<br/>I expose their worship centers as<br/>stinking piles of garbage in their gardens."


text:
Are you going to repeat the life of your ancestor Jacob?<br/>He ran off guilty to Aram,<br/>Then sold his soul to get ahead,<br/>and made it big through treachery and deceit.


text:
Your real identity is formed through God-sent prophets,<br/>who led you out of Egypt and served as faithful pastors.


text:
As it is, Ephraim has continually<br/>and inexcusably insulted God.<br/>Now he has to pay for his life-destroying ways.<br/>His Master will do to him what he has done.


text:
God once let loose against Ephraim<br/>a terrifying sentence against Israel:<br/>Caught and convicted<br/>in the lewd sex-worship of Baal—they died!


text:
And now they're back in the sin business again,<br/>manufacturing god-images they can use,<br/>Religion customized to taste. Professionals see to it:<br/>Anything you want in a god you can get.<br/>Can you believe it? They sacrifice live babies to these dead gods—<br/>kill living babies and kiss golden calves!


text:
And now there's nothing left to these people:<br/>hollow men, desiccated women,<br/>Like scraps of paper blown down the street,<br/>like smoke in a gusty wind.


text:
"I'm still your God,<br/>the God who saved you out of Egypt.<br/>I'm the only real God you've ever known.<br/>I'm the one and only God who delivers.


text:
I took care of you, took care of all your needs,<br/>gave you everything you needed.<br/>You were spoiled. You thought you didn't need me.<br/>You forgot me.


text:
I'll jump them like a sow grizzly robbed of her cubs.<br/>I'll rip out their guts.<br/>Coyotes will make a meal of them.<br/>Crows will clean their bones.


text:
Where is your trusty king you thought would save you?<br/>Where are all the local leaders you wanted so badly?<br/>All these rulers you insisted on having,<br/>demanding, 'Give me a king! Give me leaders!'?


text:
Well, long ago I gave you a king, but I wasn't happy about it.<br/>Now, fed up, I've gotten rid of him.


text:
I have a detailed record of your infidelities—<br/>Ephraim's sin documented and stored in a safe-deposit box.


text:
"When birth pangs signaled it was time to be born,<br/>Ephraim was too stupid to come out of the womb.<br/>When the passage into life opened up,<br/>he didn't show.


text:
Shall I intervene and pull them into life?<br/>Shall I snatch them from a certain death?<br/>Who is afraid of you, Death?<br/>Who cares about your threats, Tomb?<br/>In the end I'm abolishing regret,<br/>banishing sorrow,


text:
Even though Ephraim ran wild,<br/>the black sheep of the family.<br/>"God's tornado is on its way,<br/>roaring out of the desert.<br/>It will devastate the country,<br/>leaving a trail of ruin and wreckage.<br/>The cities will be gutted,<br/>dear possessions gone for good.


text:
Now Samaria has to face the charges<br/>because she has rebelled against her God:<br/>Her people will be killed, babies smashed on the rocks,<br/>pregnant women ripped open."


text:
Prepare your confession<br/>and come back to God.<br/>Pray to him, "Take away our sin,<br/>accept our confession.<br/>Receive as restitution<br/>our repentant prayers.


text:
Assyria won't save us;<br/>horses won't get us where we want to go.<br/>We'll never again say 'our god'<br/>to something we've made or made up.<br/>You're our last hope. Is it not true<br/>that in you the orphan finds mercy?"


text:
I will make a fresh start with Israel.<br/>He'll burst into bloom like a crocus in the spring.<br/>He'll put down deep oak tree roots,


text:
he'll become a forest of oaks!<br/>He'll become splendid—like a giant sequoia,<br/>his fragrance like a grove of cedars!


text:
Those who live near him will be blessed by him,<br/>be blessed and prosper like golden grain.<br/>Everyone will be talking about them,<br/>spreading their fame as the vintage children of God.


text:
Ephraim is finished with gods that are no-gods.<br/>From now on I'm the one who answers and satisfies him.<br/>I am like a luxuriant fruit tree.<br/>Everything you need is to be found in me."


text:
If you want to live well,<br/>make sure you understand all of this.<br/>If you know what's good for you,<br/>you'll learn this inside and out.<br/>God's paths get you where you want to go.<br/>Right-living people walk them easily;<br/>wrong-living people are always tripping and stumbling.


text:
Attention, elder statesmen! Listen closely,<br/>everyone, whoever and wherever you are!<br/>Have you ever heard of anything like this?<br/>Has anything like this ever happened before—ever?


text:
Make sure you tell your children,<br/>and your children tell their children,<br/>And their children their children.<br/>Don't let this message die out.


text:
What the chewing locust left,<br/>the gobbling locust ate;<br/>What the gobbling locust left,<br/>the munching locust ate;<br/>What the munching locust left,<br/>the chomping locust ate.


text:
Sober up, you drunks!<br/>Get in touch with reality—and weep!<br/>Your supply of booze is cut off.<br/>You're on the wagon, like it or not.


text:
My country's being invaded<br/>by an army invincible, past numbering,<br/>Teeth like those of a lion,<br/>fangs like those of a tiger.


text:
It has ruined my vineyards,<br/>stripped my orchards,<br/>And clear-cut the country.<br/>The landscape's a moonscape.


text:
Without grain and grapes,<br/>worship has been brought to a standstill<br/>in the Sanctuary of God.<br/>The priests are at a loss.<br/>God's ministers don't know what to do.


text:
The fields are sterile.<br/>The very ground grieves.<br/>The wheat fields are lifeless,<br/>vineyards dried up, olive oil gone.


text:
Dirt farmers, despair!<br/>Grape growers, wring your hands!<br/>Lament the loss of wheat and barley.<br/>All crops have failed.


text:
Vineyards dried up,<br/>fig trees withered,<br/>Pomegranates, date palms, and apple trees—<br/>deadwood everywhere!<br/>And joy is dried up and withered<br/>in the hearts of the people.


text:
And also you priests,<br/>put on your robes and join the outcry.<br/>You who lead people in worship,<br/>lead them in lament.<br/>Spend the night dressed in gunnysacks,<br/>you servants of my God.<br/>Nothing's going on in the place of worship,<br/>no offerings, no prayers—nothing.


text:
Declare a holy fast, call a special meeting,<br/>get the leaders together,<br/>Round up everyone in the country.<br/>Get them into God's Sanctuary for serious prayer to God.


text:
What a day! Doomsday!<br/>God's Judgment Day has come.<br/>The Strong God has arrived.<br/>This is serious business!


text:
The seeds in the field are dead,<br/>barns deserted,<br/>Grain silos abandoned.<br/>Who needs them? The crops have failed!


text:
The farm animals groan—oh, how they groan!<br/>The cattle mill around.<br/>There's nothing for them to eat.<br/>Not even the sheep find anything.


text:
God! I pray, I cry out to you!<br/>The fields are burning up,<br/>The country is a dust bowl,<br/>forest and prairie fires rage unchecked.


text:
Wild animals, dying of thirst,<br/>look to you for a drink.<br/>Springs and streams are dried up.<br/>The whole country is burning up.


text:
Blow the ram's horn trumpet in Zion!<br/>Trumpet the alarm on my holy mountain!<br/>Shake the country up!<br/>God's Judgment's on its way—the Day's almost here!


text:
A black day! A Doomsday!<br/>Clouds with no silver lining!<br/>Like dawn light moving over the mountains,<br/>a huge army is coming.<br/>There's never been anything like it<br/>and never will be again.


text:
Wildfire burns everything before this army<br/>and fire licks up everything in its wake.<br/>Before it arrives, the country is like the Garden of Eden.<br/>When it leaves, it is Death Valley.<br/>Nothing escapes unscathed.


text:
It sounds like thunder<br/>leaping on mountain ridges,<br/>Or like the roar of wildfire<br/>through grass and brush,<br/>Or like an invincible army shouting for blood,<br/>ready to fight, straining at the bit.


text:
The invaders charge.<br/>They climb barricades. Nothing stops them.<br/>Each soldier does what he's told,<br/>so disciplined, so determined.


text:
They don't get in each other's way.<br/>Each one knows his job and does it.<br/>Undaunted and fearless,<br/>unswerving, unstoppable.


text:
They storm the city,<br/>swarm its defenses,<br/>Loot the houses,<br/>breaking down doors, smashing windows.


text:
They arrive like an earthquake,<br/>sweep through like a tornado.<br/>Sun and moon turn out their lights,<br/>stars black out.


text:
God himself bellows in thunder<br/>as he commands his forces.<br/>Look at the size of that army!<br/>And the strength of those who obey him!<br/>God's Judgment Day—great and terrible.<br/>Who can possibly survive this?


text:
But there's also this, it's not too late—<br/>God's personal Message!—<br/>"Come back to me and really mean it!<br/>Come fasting and weeping, sorry for your sins!"


text:
Change your life, not just your clothes.<br/>Come back to God, your God.<br/>And here's why: God is kind and merciful.<br/>He takes a deep breath, puts up with a lot,<br/>This most patient God, extravagant in love,<br/>always ready to cancel catastrophe.


text:
Who knows? Maybe he'll do it now,<br/>maybe he'll turn around and show pity.<br/>Maybe, when all's said and done,<br/>there'll be blessings full and robust for your God!


text:
Blow the ram's horn trumpet in Zion!<br/>Declare a day of repentance, a holy fast day.<br/>Call a public meeting.


text:
Get everyone there. Consecrate the congregation.<br/>Make sure the elders come,<br/>but bring in the children, too, even the nursing babies,<br/>Even men and women on their honeymoon—<br/>interrupt them and get them there.


text:
Between Sanctuary entrance and altar,<br/>let the priests, God's servants, weep tears of repentance.<br/>Let them intercede: "Have mercy, God, on your people!<br/>Don't abandon your heritage to contempt.<br/>Don't let the pagans take over and rule them<br/>and sneer, 'And so where is this God of theirs?' "


text:
God answered and spoke to his people,<br/>"Look, listen—I'm sending a gift:<br/>Grain and wine and olive oil.<br/>The fast is over—eat your fill!<br/>I won't expose you any longer<br/>to contempt among the pagans.


text:
I'll head off the final enemy coming out of the north<br/>and dump them in a wasteland.<br/>Half of them will end up in the Dead Sea,<br/>the other half in the Mediterranean.<br/>There they'll rot, a stench to high heaven.<br/>The bigger the enemy, the stronger the stench!"


text:
Fear not, wild animals!<br/>The fields and meadows are greening up.<br/>The trees are bearing fruit again:<br/>a bumper crop of fig trees and vines!


text:
Children of Zion, celebrate!<br/>Be glad in your God.<br/>He's giving you a teacher<br/>to train you how to live right—<br/>Teaching, like rain out of heaven, showers of words<br/>to refresh and nourish your soul, just as he used to do.


text:
"I'll make up for the years of the locust,<br/>the great locust devastation—<br/>Locusts savage, locusts deadly,<br/>fierce locusts, locusts of doom,<br/>That great locust invasion<br/>I sent your way.


text:
You'll eat your fill of good food.<br/>You'll be full of praises to your God,<br/>The God who has set you back on your heels in wonder.<br/>Never again will my people be despised.


text:
You'll know without question<br/>that I'm in the thick of life with Israel,<br/>That I'm your God, yes, your God,<br/>the one and only real God.<br/>Never again will my people be despised.


text:
"And that's just the beginning: After that—<br/>"I will pour out my Spirit<br/>on every kind of people:<br/>Your sons will prophesy,<br/>also your daughters.<br/>Your old men will dream,<br/>your young men will see visions.


text:
I'll set wonders in the sky above<br/>and signs on the earth below:<br/>Blood and fire and billowing smoke,


text:
the sun turning black and the moon blood-red,<br/>Before the Judgment Day of God,<br/>the Day tremendous and awesome.


text:
Whoever calls, 'Help, God!'<br/>gets help.<br/>On Mount Zion and in Jerusalem<br/>there will be a great rescue—just as God said.<br/>Included in the survivors<br/>are those that God calls.


text:
"In those days, yes, at that very time<br/>when I put life back together again for Judah and Jerusalem,


text:
I'll assemble all the godless nations.<br/>I'll lead them down into Judgment Valley<br/>And put them all on trial, and judge them one and all<br/>because of their treatment of my own people Israel.<br/>They scattered my people all over the pagan world<br/>and grabbed my land for themselves.


text:
They threw dice for my people<br/>and used them for barter.<br/>They would trade a boy for a whore,<br/>sell a girl for a bottle of wine when they wanted a drink.


text:
"As for you, Tyre and Sidon and Philistia,<br/>why should I bother with you?<br/>Are you trying to get back at me<br/>for something I did to you?<br/>If you are, forget it.<br/>I'll see to it that it boomerangs on you.


text:
You robbed me, cleaned me out of silver and gold,<br/>carted off everything valuable to furnish your own temples.


text:
But I'm going to reverse your crime.<br/>I'm going to free those slaves.<br/>I'll have done to you what you did to them:


text:
I'll sell your children as slaves to your neighbors,<br/>And they'll sell them to the far-off Sabeans."<br/>God's Verdict.


text:
Announce this to the godless nations:<br/>Prepare for battle!<br/>Soldiers at attention!<br/>Present arms! Advance!


text:
Turn your shovels into swords,<br/>turn your hoes into spears.<br/>Let the weak one throw out his chest<br/>and say, "I'm tough, I'm a fighter."


text:
Hurry up, pagans! Wherever you are, get a move on!<br/>Get your act together.<br/>Prepare to be<br/>shattered by God!


text:
Let the pagan nations set out<br/>for Judgment Valley.<br/>There I'll take my place at the bench<br/>and judge all the surrounding nations.


text:
"Swing the sickle—<br/>the harvest is ready.<br/>Stomp on the grapes—<br/>the winepress is full.<br/>The wine vats are full,<br/>overflowing with vintage evil.


text:
"Mass confusion, mob uproar—<br/>in Decision Valley!<br/>God's Judgment Day has arrived<br/>in Decision Valley.


text:
God roars from Zion, shouts from Jerusalem.<br/>Earth and sky quake in terror.<br/>But God is a safe hiding place,<br/>a granite safe house for the children of Israel.


text:
Then you'll know for sure<br/>that I'm your God,<br/>Living in Zion,<br/>my sacred mountain.<br/>Jerusalem will be a sacred city,<br/>posted: 'no trespassing.'


text:
"What a day!<br/>Wine streaming off the mountains,<br/>Milk rivering out of the hills,<br/>water flowing everywhere in Judah,<br/>A fountain pouring out of God's Sanctuary,<br/>watering all the parks and gardens!


text:
But Egypt will be reduced to weeds in a vacant lot,<br/>Edom turned into barren badlands,<br/>All because of brutalities to the Judean people,<br/>the atrocities and murders of helpless innocents.


text:
The Message of Amos, one of the shepherds of Tekoa, that he received on behalf of Israel. It came to him in visions during the time that Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam II son of Joash was king of Israel, two years before the big earthquake.


text:
The Message:<br/>God roars from Zion,<br/>shouts from Jerusalem!<br/>The thunderclap voice withers the pastures tended by shepherds,<br/>shrivels Mount Carmel's proud peak.


text:
God's Message:<br/>"Because of the three great sins of Damascus<br/>—make that four—I'm not putting up with her any longer.<br/>She pounded Gilead to a pulp, pounded her senseless<br/>with iron hammers and mauls.


text:
I'm going to smash the Damascus gates<br/>and banish the crime king who lives in Sin Valley,<br/>the vice boss who gives orders from Paradise Palace.<br/>The people of the land will be sent back<br/>to where they came from—to Kir."<br/>God's Decree.


text:
God's Message:<br/>"Because of the three great sins of Gaza<br/>—make that four—I'm not putting up with her any longer.<br/>She deported whole towns<br/>and then sold the people to Edom.


text:
I'll banish the crime king from Ashdod,<br/>the vice boss from Ashkelon.<br/>I'll raise my fist against Ekron,<br/>and what's left of the Philistines will die."<br/>God's Decree.


text:
God's Message:<br/>"Because of the three great sins of Tyre<br/>—make that four—I'm not putting up with her any longer.<br/>She deported whole towns to Edom,<br/>breaking the treaty she had with her kin.


text:
God's Message:<br/>"Because of the three great sins of Edom<br/>—make that four—I'm not putting up with her any longer.<br/>She hunts down her brother to murder him.<br/>She has no pity, she has no heart.<br/>Her anger rampages day and night.<br/>Her meanness never takes a timeout.


text:
God's Message:<br/>"Because of the three great sins of Ammon<br/>—make that four—I'm not putting up with her any longer.<br/>She ripped open pregnant women in Gilead<br/>to get more land for herself.


text:
For that, I'm burning down the walls of her capital, Rabbah,<br/>burning up her forts.<br/>Battle shouts! War whoops!<br/>with a tornado to finish things off!


text:
God's Message:<br/>"Because of the three great sins of Moab<br/>—make that four—I'm not putting up with her any longer.<br/>She violated the corpse of Edom's king,<br/>burning it to cinders.


text:
For that, I'm burning down Moab,<br/>burning down the forts of Kerioth.<br/>Moab will die in the shouting,<br/>go out in the blare of war trumpets.


text:
God's Message:<br/>"Because of the three great sins of Judah<br/>—make that four—I'm not putting up with them any longer.<br/>They rejected God's revelation,<br/>refused to keep my commands.<br/>But they swallowed the same old lies<br/>that got their ancestors onto dead-end roads.


text:
God's Message:<br/>"Because of the three great sins of Israel<br/>—make that four—I'm not putting up with them any longer.<br/>They buy and sell upstanding people.<br/>People for them are only things—ways of making money.<br/>They'd sell a poor man for a pair of shoes.<br/>They'd sell their own grandmother!


text:
They grind the penniless into the dirt,<br/>shove the luckless into the ditch.<br/>Everyone and his brother sleeps with the 'sacred whore'—<br/>a sacrilege against my Holy Name.


text:
Stuff they've extorted from the poor<br/>is piled up at the shrine of their god,<br/>While they sit around drinking wine<br/>they've conned from their victims.


text:
"In contrast, I was always on your side.<br/>I destroyed the Amorites who confronted you,<br/>Amorites with the stature of great cedars,<br/>tough as thick oaks.<br/>I destroyed them from the top branches down.<br/>I destroyed them from the roots up.


text:
And yes, I'm the One who delivered you from Egypt,<br/>led you safely through the wilderness for forty years<br/>And then handed you the country of the Amorites<br/>like a piece of cake on a platter.


text:
I raised up some of your young men to be prophets,<br/>set aside your best youth for training in holiness.<br/>Isn't this so, Israel?"<br/>God's Decree.


text:
"But you made the youth-in-training break training,<br/>and you told the young prophets, 'Don't prophesy!'


text:
You're too much for me.<br/>I'm hard-pressed—to the breaking point.<br/>I'm like a wagon piled high and overloaded,<br/>creaking and groaning.


text:
"When I go into action, what will you do?<br/>There's no place to run no matter how fast you run.<br/>The strength of the strong won't count.<br/>Fighters won't make it.


text:
Even the bravest of all your warriors<br/>Won't make it.<br/>He'll run off for dear life, stripped naked."<br/>God's Decree.


text:
Listen to this, Israel. God is calling you to account—and I mean all of you, everyone connected with the family that he delivered out of Egypt. Listen!


text:
"Out of all the families on earth,<br/>I picked you.<br/>Therefore, because of your special calling,<br/>I'm holding you responsible for all your sins."


text:
Does a lion roar in the forest<br/>if there's no carcass to devour?<br/>Does a young lion growl with pleasure<br/>if he hasn't caught his supper?


text:
Does a bird fall to the ground<br/>if it hasn't been hit with a stone?<br/>Does a trap spring shut<br/>if nothing trips it?


text:
When the alarm goes off in the city,<br/>aren't people alarmed?<br/>And when disaster strikes the city,<br/>doesn't God stand behind it?


text:
Announce to the forts of Assyria,<br/>announce to the forts of Egypt—<br/>Tell them, "Gather on the Samaritan mountains, take a good, hard look:<br/>what a snake pit of brutality and terror!


text:
Therefore"—this is God's Word—"an enemy will surround the country.<br/>He'll strip you of your power and plunder your forts."


text:
God's Message:<br/>"In the same way that a shepherd<br/>trying to save a lamb from a lion<br/>Manages to recover<br/>just a pair of legs or the scrap of an ear,<br/>So will little be saved of the Israelites<br/>who live in Samaria—<br/>A couple of old chairs at most,<br/>the broken leg of a table.


text:
"Note well! The day I make Israel pay for its sins,<br/>pay for the sin-altars of worship at Bethel,<br/>The horned altars will all be dehorned<br/>and scattered around.


text:
I'll tear down the winter palace,<br/>smash the summer palace—all your fancy buildings.<br/>The luxury homes will be demolished,<br/>all those pretentious houses."<br/>God's Decree.


text:
"Listen to this, you cows of Bashan<br/>grazing on the slopes of Samaria.<br/>You women! Mean to the poor,<br/>cruel to the down-and-out!<br/>Indolent and pampered, you demand of your husbands,<br/>'Bring us a tall, cool drink!'


text:
"This is serious—I, God, have sworn by my holiness!<br/>Be well warned: Judgment Day is coming!<br/>They're going to rope you up and haul you off,<br/>keep the stragglers in line with cattle prods.


text:
They'll drag you through the ruined city walls,<br/>forcing you out single file,<br/>And kick you to kingdom come."<br/>God's Decree.


text:
"Come along to Bethel and sin!<br/>And then to Gilgal and sin some more!<br/>Bring your sacrifices for morning worship.<br/>Every third day bring your tithe.


text:
Burn pure sacrifices—thank offerings.<br/>Speak up—announce freewill offerings!<br/>That's the sort of religious show<br/>you Israelites just love."<br/>God's Decree.


text:
"You know, don't you, that I'm the One<br/>who emptied your pantries and cleaned out your cupboards,<br/>Who left you hungry and standing in bread lines?<br/>But you never got hungry for me. You continued to ignore me."<br/>God's Decree.


text:
"Yes, and I'm the One who stopped the rains<br/>three months short of harvest.<br/>I'd make it rain on one village<br/>but not on another.<br/>I'd make it rain on one field<br/>but not on another—and that one would dry up.


text:
People would stagger from village to village<br/>crazed for water and never quenching their thirst.<br/>But you never got thirsty for me.<br/>You ignored me."<br/>God's Decree.


text:
"I hit your crops with disease<br/>and withered your orchards and gardens.<br/>Locusts devoured your olive and fig trees,<br/>but you continued to ignore me."<br/>God's Decree.


text:
"I revisited you with the old Egyptian plagues,<br/>killed your choice young men and prize horses.<br/>The stink of rot in your camps was so strong<br/>that you held your noses—<br/>But you didn't notice me.<br/>You continued to ignore me."<br/>God's Decree.


text:
"I hit you with earthquake and fire,<br/>left you devastated like Sodom and Gomorrah.<br/>You were like a burning stick<br/>snatched from the flames.<br/>But you never looked my way.<br/>You continued to ignore me."<br/>God's Decree.


text:
"All this I have done to you, Israel,<br/>and this is why I have done it.<br/>Time's up, O Israel!<br/>Prepare to meet your God!"


text:
Look who's here: Mountain-Shaper! Wind-Maker!<br/>He laid out the whole plot before Adam.<br/>He brings everything out of nothing,<br/>like dawn out of darkness.<br/>He strides across the alpine ridges.<br/>His name is God, God-of-the-Angel-Armies.


text:
"Virgin Israel has fallen flat on her face.<br/>She'll never stand up again.<br/>She's been left where she's fallen.<br/>No one offers to help her up."


text:
This is the Message, God's Word:<br/>"The city that marches out with a thousand<br/>will end up with a hundred.<br/>The city that marches out with a hundred<br/>will end up with ten. Oh, family of Israel!"


text:
Don't fool around at those shrines of Bethel,<br/>Don't waste time taking trips to Gilgal,<br/>and don't bother going down to Beer-sheba.<br/>Gilgal is here today and gone tomorrow<br/>and Bethel is all show, no substance."


text:
So seek God and live! You don't want to end up<br/>with nothing to show for your life<br/>But a pile of ashes, a house burned to the ground.<br/>For God will send just such a fire,<br/>and the firefighters will show up too late.


text:
Do you realize where you are? You're in a cosmos<br/>star-flung with constellations by God,<br/>A world God wakes up each morning<br/>and puts to bed each night.<br/>God dips water from the ocean<br/>and gives the land a drink.<br/>God, God-revealed, does all this.


text:
But here it is, bluntly spoken:<br/>Because you run roughshod over the poor<br/>and take the bread right out of their mouths,<br/>You're never going to move into<br/>the luxury homes you have built.<br/>You're never going to drink wine<br/>from the expensive vineyards you've planted.


text:
I know precisely the extent of your violations,<br/>the enormity of your sins. Appalling!<br/>You bully right-living people,<br/>taking bribes right and left and kicking the poor when they're down.


text:
Justice is a lost cause. Evil is epidemic.<br/>Decent people throw up their hands.<br/>Protest and rebuke are useless,<br/>a waste of breath.


text:
Seek good and not evil—<br/>and live!<br/>You talk about God, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies,<br/>being your best friend.<br/>Well, live like it,<br/>and maybe it will happen.


text:
Hate evil and love good,<br/>then work it out in the public square.<br/>Maybe God, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies,<br/>will notice your remnant and be gracious.


text:
Now again, my Master's Message, God, God-of-the-Angel-Armies:<br/>"Go out into the streets and lament loudly!<br/>Fill the malls and shops with cries of doom!<br/>Weep loudly, 'Not me! Not us, Not now!'<br/>Empty offices, stores, factories, workplaces.<br/>Enlist everyone in the general lament.


text:
Woe to all of you who want God's Judgment Day!<br/>Why would you want to see God, want him to come?<br/>When God comes, it will be bad news before it's good news,<br/>the worst of times, not the best of times.


text:
Here's what it's like: A man runs from a lion<br/>right into the jaws of a bear.<br/>A woman goes home after a hard day's work<br/>and is raped by a neighbor.


text:
I want nothing to do with your religion projects,<br/>your pretentious slogans and goals.<br/>I'm sick of your fund-raising schemes,<br/>your public relations and image making.


text:
Do you know what I want?<br/>I want justice—oceans of it.<br/>I want fairness—rivers of it.<br/>That's what I want. That's all I want.


text:
"Didn't you, dear family of Israel, worship me faithfully for forty years in the wilderness, bringing the sacrifices and offerings I commanded?


text:
How is it you've stooped to dragging gimcrack statues of your so-called rulers around, hauling the cheap images of all your star-gods here and there?


text:
Since you like them so much, you can take them with you when I drive you into exile beyond Damascus." God's Message, God-of-the-Angel-Armies.


text:
Woe to you who think you live on easy street in Zion,<br/>who think Mount Samaria is the good life.<br/>You assume you're at the top of the heap,<br/>voted the number-one best place to live.


text:
Well, wake up and look around. Get off your pedestal.<br/>Take a look at Calneh.<br/>Go and visit Great Hamath.<br/>Look in on Gath of the Philistines.<br/>Doesn't that take you off your high horse?<br/>Compared to them, you're not much, are you?


text:
Woe to those who live only for today,<br/>indifferent to the fate of others!<br/>Woe to the playboys, the playgirls,<br/>who think life is a party held just for them!


text:
Woe to those addicted to feeling good—life without pain!<br/>those obsessed with looking good—life without wrinkles!<br/>They could not care less<br/>about their country going to ruin.


text:
But here's what's really coming:<br/>a forced march into exile.<br/>They'll leave the country whining,<br/>a rag-tag bunch of good-for-nothings.


text:
God, the Master, has sworn, and solemnly stands by his Word.<br/>The God-of-the-Angel-Armies speaks:<br/>"I hate the arrogance of Jacob.<br/>I have nothing but contempt for his forts.<br/>I'm about to hand over the city<br/>and everyone in it."


text:
A relative comes and gets the bodies to prepare them for a decent burial. He discovers a survivor huddled in a closet and asks, "Are there any more?" The answer: "Not a soul. But hush! God must not be mentioned in this desecrated place."


text:
Note well: God issues the orders.<br/>He'll knock large houses to smithereens.<br/>He'll smash little houses to bits.


text:
Do you hold a horse race in a field of rocks?<br/>Do you plow the sea with oxen?<br/>You'd cripple the horses<br/>and drown the oxen.<br/>And yet you've made a shambles of justice,<br/>a bloated corpse of righteousness,


text:
"Enjoy it while you can, you Israelites.<br/>I've got a pagan army on the move against you"<br/>—this is your God speaking, God-of-the-Angel-Armies—<br/>"And they'll make hash of you,<br/>from one end of the country to the other."


text:
God, my Master, showed me this vision: He was preparing a locust swarm. The first cutting, which went to the king, was complete, and the second crop was just sprouting.


text:
The locusts ate everything green. Not even a blade of grass was left.<br/>I called out, "God, my Master! Excuse me, but what's going to come of Jacob? He's so small."


text:
God showed me this vision: Oh! God, my Master God was calling up a firestorm. It burned up the ocean. Then it burned up the Promised Land.


text:
God said to me, "What do you see, Amos?"<br/>I said, "A plumb line."<br/>Then my Master said, "Look what I've done. I've hung a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel. I've spared them for the last time. This is it!


text:
Isaac's sex-and-religion shrines will be smashed,<br/>Israel's unholy shrines will be knocked to pieces.<br/>I'm raising my sword against the royal family of Jeroboam.


text:
Amaziah, priest at the shrine at Bethel, sent a message to Jeroboam, king of Israel:<br/>"Amos is plotting to get rid of you; and he's doing it as an insider, working from within Israel. His talk will destroy the country. He's got to be silenced. Do you know what Amos is saying?


text:
Then Amaziah confronted Amos: "Seer, be on your way! Get out of here and go back to Judah where you came from!


text:
Hang out there. Do your preaching there. But no more preaching at Bethel! Don't show your face here again. This is the king's chapel. This is a royal shrine."


text:
But Amos stood up to Amaziah: "I never set up to be a preacher, never had plans to be a preacher. I raised cattle and I pruned trees.


text:
"So listen to God's Word. You tell me, 'Don't preach to Israel. Don't say anything against the family of Isaac.'


text:
But here's what God is telling you:<br/>Your wife will become a whore in town.<br/>Your children will get killed.<br/>Your land will be auctioned off.<br/>You will die homeless and friendless.<br/>And Israel will be hauled off to exile, far from home."


text:
He said, "What do you see, Amos?"<br/>I said, "A bowl of fresh, ripe fruit."<br/>God said, "Right. So, I'm calling it quits with my people Israel. I'm no longer acting as if everything is just fine."


text:
"The royal singers will wail when it happens."<br/>My Master God said so.<br/>"Corpses will be strewn here, there, and everywhere.<br/>Hush!"


text:
Who say, "When's my next paycheck coming<br/>so I can go out and live it up?<br/>How long till the weekend<br/>when I can go out and have a good time?"<br/>Who give little and take much,<br/>and never do an honest day's work.


text:
God's oath will shake earth's foundations,<br/>dissolve the whole world into tears.<br/>God's oath will sweep in like a river that rises,<br/>flooding houses and lands,<br/>And then recedes,<br/>leaving behind a sea of mud.


text:
"On Judgment Day, watch out!"<br/>These are the words of God, my Master.<br/>"I'll turn off the sun at noon.<br/>In the middle of the day the earth will go black.


text:
I'll turn your parties into funerals<br/>and make every song you sing a dirge.<br/>Everyone will walk around in rags,<br/>with sunken eyes and bald heads.<br/>Think of the worst that could happen<br/>—your only son, say, murdered.<br/>That's a hint of Judgment Day<br/>—that and much more.


text:
"Oh yes, Judgment Day is coming!"<br/>These are the words of my Master God.<br/>"I'll send a famine through the whole country.<br/>It won't be food or water that's lacking, but my Word.


text:
People will drift from one end of the country to the other,<br/>roam to the north, wander to the east.<br/>They'll go anywhere, listen to anyone,<br/>hoping to hear God's Word—but they won't hear it.


text:
"On Judgment Day,<br/>lovely young girls will faint of Word-thirst,<br/>robust young men will faint of God-thirst,


text:
Along with those who take oaths at the Samaria Sin-and-Sex Center,<br/>saying, 'As the lord god of Dan is my witness!'<br/>and 'The lady goddess of Beer-sheba bless you!'<br/>Their lives will fall to pieces.<br/>They'll never put it together again."


text:
I saw my Master standing beside the altar at the shrine. He said:<br/>"Hit the tops of the shrine's pillars,<br/>make the floor shake.<br/>The roof's about to fall on the heads of the people,<br/>and whoever's still alive, I'll kill.<br/>No one will get away,<br/>no runaways will make it.


text:
If they dig their way down into the underworld,<br/>I'll find them and bring them up.<br/>If they climb to the stars,<br/>I'll find them and bring them down.


text:
If they hide out at the top of Mount Carmel,<br/>I'll find them and bring them back.<br/>If they dive to the bottom of the ocean,<br/>I'll send Dragon to swallow them up.


text:
If they're captured alive by their enemies,<br/>I'll send Sword to kill them.<br/>I've made up my mind<br/>to hurt them, not help them."


text:
My Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies,<br/>touches the earth, a mere touch, and it trembles.<br/>The whole world goes into mourning.<br/>Earth swells like the Nile at flood stage;<br/>then the water subsides, like the great Nile of Egypt.


text:
God builds his palace—towers soaring high in the skies,<br/>foundations set on the rock-firm earth.<br/>He calls ocean waters and they come,<br/>then he ladles them out on the earth.<br/>God, your God, does all this.


text:
"Do you Israelites think you're any better than the far-off Cushites?" God's Decree.<br/>"Am I not involved with all nations? Didn't I bring Israel up from Egypt, the Philistines from Caphtor, the Arameans from Qir?


text:
But you can be sure that I, God, the Master, have my eye on the Kingdom of Sin. I'm going to wipe it off the face of the earth. Still, I won't totally destroy the family of Jacob." God's Decree.


text:
"I'm still giving the orders around here. I'm throwing Israel into a sieve among all the nations and shaking them good, shaking out all the sin, all the sinners. No real grain will be lost,


text:
but all the sinners will be sifted out and thrown away, the people who say, 'Nothing bad will ever happen in our lifetime. It won't even come close.'


text:
"But also on that Judgment Day I will restore David's house that has fallen to pieces. I'll repair the holes in the roof, replace the broken windows, fix it up like new. David's people will be strong again


text:
and seize what's left of enemy Edom, plus everyone else under my sovereign judgment." God's Decree. He will do this.


text:
"Yes indeed, it won't be long now." God's Decree.<br/>"Things are going to happen so fast your head will swim, one thing fast on the heels of the other. You won't be able to keep up. Everything will be happening at once—and everywhere you look, blessings! Blessings like wine pouring off the mountains and hills.


text:
I'll make everything right again for my people Israel:<br/>"They'll rebuild their ruined cities.<br/>They'll plant vineyards and drink good wine.<br/>They'll work their gardens and eat fresh vegetables.


text:
And I'll plant them, plant them on their own land.<br/>They'll never again be uprooted from the land I've given them."<br/>God, your God, says so.


text:
Obadiah's Message to Edom<br/>from God, the Master.<br/>We got the news straight from God<br/>by a special messenger sent out to the godless nations:<br/>"On your feet, prepare for battle;<br/>get ready to make war on Edom!


text:
"Listen to this, Edom:<br/>I'm turning you to a no-account,<br/>the runt of the godless nations, despised.


text:
You thought you were so great,<br/>perched high among the rocks, king of the mountain,<br/>Thinking to yourself,<br/>'Nobody can get to me! Nobody can touch me!'


text:
Think again. Even if, like an eagle,<br/>you hang out on a high cliff-face,<br/>Even if you build your nest in the stars,<br/>I'll bring you down to earth."<br/>God's sure Word.


text:
"If thieves crept up on you,<br/>they'd rob you blind—isn't that so?<br/>If they mugged you on the streets at night,<br/>they'd pick you clean—isn't that so?


text:
All your old partners will drive you to the edge.<br/>Your old friends will lie to your face.<br/>Your old drinking buddies will stab you in the back.<br/>Your world will collapse. You won't know what hit you.


text:
So don't be surprised"—it's God's sure Word!—<br/>"when I wipe out all sages from Edom<br/>and rid the Esau mountains of its famous wise men.


text:
Because of the murderous history compiled<br/>against your brother Jacob,<br/>You will be looked down on by everyone.<br/>You'll lose your place in history.


text:
On that day you stood there and didn't do anything.<br/>Strangers took your brother's army into exile.<br/>Godless foreigners invaded and pillaged Jerusalem.<br/>You stood there and watched.<br/>You were as bad as they were.


text:
You shouldn't have gloated over your brother<br/>when he was down-and-out.<br/>You shouldn't have laughed and joked at Judah's sons<br/>when they were facedown in the mud.<br/>You shouldn't have talked so big<br/>when everything was so bad.


text:
You shouldn't have taken advantage of my people<br/>when their lives had fallen apart.<br/>You of all people should not have been amused<br/>by their troubles, their wrecked nation.<br/>You shouldn't have taken the shirt off their back<br/>when they were knocked flat, defenseless.


text:
And you shouldn't have stood waiting at the outskirts<br/>and cut off refugees,<br/>And traitorously turned in helpless survivors<br/>who had lost everything.


text:
"God's Judgment Day is near<br/>for all the godless nations.<br/>As you have done, it will be done to you.<br/>What you did will boomerang back<br/>and hit your own head.


text:
Just as you partied on my holy mountain,<br/>all the godless nations will drink God's wrath.<br/>They'll drink and drink and drink—<br/>they'll drink themselves to death.


text:
But not so on Mount Zion—there's respite there!<br/>a safe and holy place!<br/>The family of Jacob will take back their possessions<br/>from those who took them from them.


text:
That's when the family of Jacob will catch fire,<br/>the family of Joseph become fierce flame,<br/>while the family of Esau will be straw.<br/>Esau will go up in flames,<br/>nothing left of Esau but a pile of ashes."<br/>God said it, and it is so.


text:
People from the south will take over the Esau mountains;<br/>people from the foothills will overrun the Philistines.<br/>They'll take the farms of Ephraim and Samaria,<br/>and Benjamin will take Gilead.


text:
Earlier, Israelite exiles will come back<br/>and take Canaanite land to the north at Zarephath.<br/>Jerusalem exiles from the far northwest in Sepharad<br/>will come back and take the cities in the south.


text:
The remnant of the saved in Mount Zion<br/>will go into the mountains of Esau<br/>And rule justly and fairly,<br/>a rule that honors God's kingdom.


text:
"Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They're in a bad way and I can't ignore it any longer."


text:
But Jonah got up and went the other direction to Tarshish, running away from God. He went down to the port of Joppa and found a ship headed for Tarshish. He paid the fare and went on board, joining those going to Tarshish—as far away from God as he could get.


text:
The sailors were terrified. They called out in desperation to their gods. They threw everything they were carrying overboard to lighten the ship. Meanwhile, Jonah had gone down into the hold of the ship to take a nap. He was sound asleep.


text:
The captain came to him and said, "What's this? Sleeping! Get up! Pray to your god! Maybe your god will see we're in trouble and rescue us."


text:
Then the sailors said to one another, "Let's get to the bottom of this. Let's draw straws to identify the culprit on this ship who's responsible for this disaster."<br/>So they drew straws. Jonah got the short straw.


text:
Then they grilled him: "Confess. Why this disaster? What is your work? Where do you come from? What country? What family?"


text:
At that, the men were frightened, really frightened, and said, "What on earth have you done!" As Jonah talked, the sailors realized that he was running away from God.


text:
They said to him, "What are we going to do with you—to get rid of this storm?" By this time the sea was wild, totally out of control.


text:
Jonah said, "Throw me overboard, into the sea. Then the storm will stop. It's all my fault. I'm the cause of the storm. Get rid of me and you'll get rid of the storm."


text:
But no. The men tried rowing back to shore. They made no headway. The storm only got worse and worse, wild and raging.


text:
Then they prayed to God, "O God, Don't let us drown because of this man's life, and don't blame us for his death. You are God. Do what you think is best."


text:
The sailors were impressed, no longer terrified by the sea, but in awe of God. They worshiped God, offered a sacrifice, and made vows.


text:
Then God assigned a huge fish to swallow Jonah. Jonah was in the fish's belly three days and nights.


text:
He prayed:<br/>"In trouble, deep trouble, I prayed to God.<br/>He answered me.<br/>From the belly of the grave I cried, 'Help!'<br/>You heard my cry.


text:
You threw me into ocean's depths,<br/>into a watery grave,<br/>With ocean waves, ocean breakers<br/>crashing over me.


text:
I said, 'I've been thrown away,<br/>thrown out, out of your sight.<br/>I'll never again lay eyes<br/>on your Holy Temple.'


text:
Ocean gripped me by the throat.<br/>The ancient Abyss grabbed me and held tight.<br/>My head was all tangled in seaweed


text:
at the bottom of the sea where the mountains take root.<br/>I was as far down as a body can go,<br/>and the gates were slamming shut behind me forever—<br/>Yet you pulled me up from that grave alive,<br/>O God, my God!


text:
When my life was slipping away,<br/>I remembered God,<br/>And my prayer got through to you,<br/>made it all the way to your Holy Temple.


text:
But I'm worshiping you, God,<br/>calling out in thanksgiving!<br/>And I'll do what I promised I'd do!<br/>Salvation belongs to God!"


text:
This time Jonah started off straight for Nineveh, obeying God's orders to the letter.<br/>Nineveh was a big city, very big—it took three days to walk across it.


text:
The people of Nineveh listened, and trusted God. They proclaimed a citywide fast and dressed in burlap to show their repentance. Everyone did it—rich and poor, famous and obscure, leaders and followers.


text:
When the message reached the king of Nineveh, he got up off his throne, threw down his royal robes, dressed in burlap, and sat down in the dirt.


text:
Then he issued a public proclamation throughout Nineveh, authorized by him and his leaders: "Not one drop of water, not one bite of food for man, woman, or animal, including your herds and flocks!


text:
Dress them all, both people and animals, in burlap, and send up a cry for help to God. Everyone must turn around, turn back from an evil life and the violent ways that stain their hands.


text:
Who knows? Maybe God will turn around and change his mind about us, quit being angry with us and let us live!"


text:
God saw what they had done, that they had turned away from their evil lives. He did change his mind about them. What he said he would do to them he didn't do.


text:
He yelled at God, "God! I knew it—when I was back home, I knew this was going to happen! That's why I ran off to Tarshish! I knew you were sheer grace and mercy, not easily angered, rich in love, and ready at the drop of a hat to turn your plans of punishment into a program of forgiveness!


text:
But Jonah just left. He went out of the city to the east and sat down in a sulk. He put together a makeshift shelter of leafy branches and sat there in the shade to see what would happen to the city.


text:
God arranged for a broad-leafed tree to spring up. It grew over Jonah to cool him off and get him out of his angry sulk. Jonah was pleased and enjoyed the shade. Life was looking up.


text:
But then God sent a worm. By dawn of the next day, the worm had bored into the shade tree and it withered away.


text:
The sun came up and God sent a hot, blistering wind from the east. The sun beat down on Jonah's head and he started to faint. He prayed to die: "I'm better off dead!"


text:
Then God said to Jonah, "What right do you have to get angry about this shade tree?"<br/>Jonah said, "Plenty of right. It's made me angry enough to die!"


text:
God said, "What's this? How is it that you can change your feelings from pleasure to anger overnight about a mere shade tree that you did nothing to get? You neither planted nor watered it. It grew up one night and died the next night.


text:
So, why can't I likewise change what I feel about Nineveh from anger to pleasure, this big city of more than a hundred and twenty thousand childlike people who don't yet know right from wrong, to say nothing of all the innocent animals?"


text:
God's Message as it came to Micah of Moresheth. It came during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. It had to do with what was going on in Samaria and Jerusalem.


text:
Listen, people—all of you.<br/>Listen, earth, and everyone in it:<br/>The Master, God, takes the witness stand against you,<br/>the Master from his Holy Temple.


text:
Mountains sink under his feet,<br/>valleys split apart;<br/>The rock mountains crumble into gravel,<br/>the river valleys leak like sieves.


text:
All this because of Jacob's sin,<br/>because Israel's family did wrong.<br/>You ask, "So what is Jacob's sin?"<br/>Just look at Samaria—isn't it obvious?<br/>And all the sex-and-religion shrines in Judah—<br/>isn't Jerusalem responsible?


text:
"I'm turning Samaria into a heap of rubble,<br/>a vacant lot littered with garbage.<br/>I'll dump the stones from her buildings in the valley<br/>and leave her abandoned foundations exposed.


text:
All her carved and cast gods and goddesses<br/>will be sold for stove wood and scrap metal,<br/>All her sacred fertility groves<br/>burned to the ground,<br/>All the sticks and stones she worshiped as gods,<br/>destroyed.<br/>These were her earnings from her life as a whore.<br/>This is what happens to the fees of a whore."


text:
This is why I lament and mourn.<br/>This is why I go around in rags and barefoot.<br/>This is why I howl like a pack of coyotes,<br/>and moan like a mournful owl in the night.


text:
God has inflicted punishing wounds;<br/>Judah has been wounded with no healing in sight.<br/>Judgment has marched through the city gates.<br/>Jerusalem must face the charges.


text:
Don't gossip about this in Telltown.<br/>Don't waste your tears.<br/>In Dustville,<br/>roll in the dust.


text:
In Alarmtown,<br/>the alarm is sounded.<br/>The citizens of Exitburgh<br/>will never get out alive.<br/>Lament, Last-Stand City:<br/>There's nothing in you left standing.


text:
The villagers of Bittertown<br/>wait in vain for sweet peace.<br/>Harsh judgment has come from God<br/>and entered Peace City.


text:
All you who live in Chariotville,<br/>get in your chariots for flight.<br/>You led the daughter of Zion<br/>into trusting not God but chariots.<br/>Similar sins in Israel<br/>also got their start in you.


text:
Go ahead and give your good-bye gifts<br/>to Good-byeville.<br/>Miragetown beckoned<br/>but disappointed Israel's kings.


text:
Shave your heads in mourning<br/>over the loss of your precious towns.<br/>Go bald as a goose egg—they've gone<br/>into exile and aren't coming back.


text:
Doom to those who plot evil,<br/>who go to bed dreaming up crimes!<br/>As soon at it's morning,<br/>they're off, full of energy, doing what they've planned.


text:
They covet fields and grab them,<br/>find homes and take them.<br/>They bully the neighbor and his family,<br/>see people only for what they can get out of them.


text:
God has had enough. He says,<br/>"I have some plans of my own:<br/>Disaster because of this interbreeding evil!<br/>Your necks are on the line.<br/>You're not walking away from this.<br/>It's doomsday for you.


text:
Mocking ballads will be sung of you,<br/>and you yourselves will sing the blues:<br/>'Our lives are ruined,<br/>our homes and lands auctioned off.<br/>They take everything, leave us nothing!<br/>All is sold to the highest bidder.' "


text:
Talk like this to the family of Jacob?<br/>Does God lose his temper?<br/>Is this the way he acts?<br/>Isn't he on the side of good people?<br/>Doesn't he help those who help themselves?"


text:
"What do you mean, 'good people'!<br/>You're the enemy of my people!<br/>You rob unsuspecting people<br/>out for an evening stroll.<br/>You take their coats off their backs<br/>like soldiers who plunder the defenseless.


text:
You drive the women of my people<br/>out of their ample homes.<br/>You make victims of the children<br/>and leave them vulnerable to violence and vice.


text:
Get out of here, the lot of you.<br/>You can't take it easy here!<br/>You've polluted this place,<br/>and now you're polluted—ruined!


text:
If someone showed up with a good smile and glib tongue<br/>and told lies from morning to night—<br/>'I'll preach sermons that will tell you<br/>how you can get anything you want from God:<br/>More money, the best wines... you name it'—<br/>you'd hire him on the spot as your preacher!


text:
"I'm calling a meeting, Jacob.<br/>I want everyone back—all the survivors of Israel.<br/>I'll get them together in one place—<br/>like sheep in a fold, like cattle in a corral—<br/>a milling throng of homebound people!


text:
Then I, God, will burst all confinements<br/>and lead them out into the open.<br/>They'll follow their King.<br/>I will be out in front leading them."


text:
Then I said:<br/>"Listen, leaders of Jacob, leaders of Israel:<br/>Don't you know anything of justice?


text:
Haters of good, lovers of evil:<br/>Isn't justice in your job description?<br/>But you skin my people alive.<br/>You rip the meat off their bones.


text:
The time's coming, though, when these same leaders<br/>will cry out for help to God, but he won't listen.<br/>He'll turn his face the other way<br/>because of their history of evil.


text:
Here is God's Message to the prophets,<br/>the preachers who lie to my people:<br/>"For as long as they're well paid and well fed,<br/>the prophets preach, 'Isn't life wonderful! Peace to all!'<br/>But if you don't pay up and jump on their bandwagon,<br/>their 'God bless you' turns into 'God damn you.'


text:
Therefore, you're going blind. You'll see nothing.<br/>You'll live in deep shadows and know nothing.<br/>The sun has set on the prophets.<br/>They've had their day; from now on it's night.


text:
Visionaries will be confused,<br/>experts will be all mixed up.<br/>They'll hide behind their reputations and make lame excuses<br/>to cover up their God-ignorance."


text:
But me—I'm filled with God's power,<br/>filled with God's Spirit of justice and strength,<br/>Ready to confront Jacob's crime<br/>and Israel's sin.


text:
The leaders of Jacob and<br/>the leaders of Israel are<br/>Leaders contemptuous of justice,<br/>who twist and distort right living,


text:
Judges sell verdicts to the highest bidder,<br/>priests mass-market their teaching,<br/>prophets preach for high fees,<br/>All the while posturing and pretending<br/>dependence on God:<br/>"We've got God on our side.<br/>He'll protect us from disaster."


text:
Because of people like you,<br/>Zion will be turned back into farmland,<br/>Jerusalem end up as a pile of rubble,<br/>and instead of the Temple on the mountain,<br/>a few scraggly scrub pines.


text:
But when all is said and done,<br/>God's Temple on the mountain,<br/>Firmly fixed, will dominate all mountains,<br/>towering above surrounding hills.<br/>People will stream to it


text:
and many nations set out for it,<br/>Saying, "Come, let's climb God's mountain.<br/>Let's go to the Temple of Jacob's God.<br/>He will teach us how to live.<br/>We'll know how to live God's way."<br/>True teaching will issue from Zion,<br/>God's revelation from Jerusalem.


text:
He'll establish justice in the rabble of nations<br/>and settle disputes in faraway places.<br/>They'll trade in their swords for shovels,<br/>their spears for rakes and hoes.<br/>Nations will quit fighting each other,<br/>quit learning how to kill one another.


text:
Each man will sit under his own shade tree,<br/>each woman in safety will tend her own garden.<br/>God-of-the-Angel-Armies says so,<br/>and he means what he says.


text:
Meanwhile, all the other people live however they wish,<br/>picking and choosing their gods.<br/>But we live honoring God,<br/>and we're loyal to our God forever and ever.


text:
"On that great day," God says,<br/>"I will round up all the hurt and homeless,<br/>everyone I have bruised or banished.


text:
I will transform the battered into a company of the elite.<br/>I will make a strong nation out of the long lost,<br/>A showcase exhibit of God's rule in action,<br/>as I rule from Mount Zion, from here to eternity.


text:
"And you stragglers around Jerusalem,<br/>eking out a living in shantytowns:<br/>The glory that once was will be again.<br/>Jerusalem's daughter will be the kingdom center."


text:
So why the doomsday hysterics?<br/>You still have a king, don't you?<br/>But maybe he's not doing his job<br/>and you're panicked like a woman in labor.


text:
Well, go ahead—twist and scream, Daughter Jerusalem.<br/>You are like a woman in childbirth.<br/>You'll soon be out of the city, on your way<br/>and camping in the open country.<br/>And then you'll arrive in Babylon.<br/>What you lost in Jerusalem will be found in Babylon.<br/>God will give you new life again.<br/>He'll redeem you from your enemies.


text:
But for right now, they're ganged up against you,<br/>many godless peoples, saying,<br/>"Kick her when she's down! Violate her!<br/>We want to see Zion grovel in the dirt."


text:
These blasphemers have no idea<br/>what God is thinking and doing in this.<br/>They don't know that this is the making of God's people,<br/>that they are wheat being threshed, gold being refined.


text:
On your feet, Daughter of Zion! Be threshed of chaff,<br/>be refined of dross.<br/>I'm remaking you into a people invincible,<br/>into God's juggernaut to crush the godless peoples.<br/>You'll bring their plunder as holy offerings to God,<br/>their wealth to the Master of the earth.


text:
But for now, prepare for the worst, victim daughter!<br/>The siege is set against us.<br/>They humiliate Israel's king,<br/>slapping him around like a rag doll.


text:
But you, Bethlehem, David's country,<br/>the runt of the litter—<br/>From you will come the leader<br/>who will shepherd-rule Israel.<br/>He'll be no upstart, no pretender.<br/>His family tree is ancient and distinguished.


text:
Meanwhile, Israel will be in foster homes<br/>until the birth pangs are over and the child is born,<br/>And the scattered brothers come back<br/>home to the family of Israel.


text:
He will stand tall in his shepherd-rule by God's strength,<br/>centered in the majesty of God-Revealed.<br/>And the people will have a good and safe home,<br/>for the whole world will hold him in respect—<br/>Peacemaker of the world!


text:
And if some bullying Assyrian shows up,<br/>invades and violates our land, don't worry.<br/>We'll put him in his place, send him packing,<br/>and watch his every move.


text:
Shepherd-rule will extend as far as needed,<br/>to Assyria and all other Nimrod-bullies.<br/>Our shepherd-ruler will save us from old or new enemies,<br/>from anyone who invades or violates our land.


text:
The purged and select company of Jacob will be<br/>like an island in the sea of peoples.<br/>They'll be like dew from God,<br/>like summer showers<br/>Not mentioned in the weather forecast,<br/>not subject to calculation or control.


text:
Yes, the purged and select company of Jacob will be<br/>like an island in the sea of peoples,<br/>Like the king of beasts among wild beasts,<br/>like a young lion loose in a flock of sheep,<br/>Killing and devouring the lambs<br/>and no one able to stop him.


text:
"The day is coming"<br/>—God's Decree—<br/>"When there will be no more war. None.<br/>I'll slaughter your war horses and demolish your chariots.


text:
I will smash your carved and cast gods<br/>and chop down your phallic posts.<br/>No more taking control of the world,<br/>worshiping what you do or make.


text:
Listen now, listen to God:<br/>"Take your stand in court.<br/>If you have a complaint, tell the mountains;<br/>make your case to the hills.


text:
And now, Mountains, hear God's case;<br/>listen, Jury Earth—<br/>For I am bringing charges against my people.<br/>I am building a case against Israel.


text:
I delivered you from a bad life in Egypt;<br/>I paid a good price to get you out of slavery.<br/>I sent Moses to lead you—<br/>and Aaron and Miriam to boot!


text:
Remember what Balak king of Moab tried to pull,<br/>and how Balaam son of Beor turned the tables on him.<br/>Remember all those stories about Shittim and Gilgal.<br/>Keep all God's salvation stories fresh and present."


text:
How can I stand up before God<br/>and show proper respect to the high God?<br/>Should I bring an armload of offerings<br/>topped off with yearling calves?


text:
Would God be impressed with thousands of rams,<br/>with buckets and barrels of olive oil?<br/>Would he be moved if I sacrificed my firstborn child,<br/>my precious baby, to cancel my sin?


text:
But he's already made it plain how to live, what to do,<br/>what God is looking for in men and women.<br/>It's quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor,<br/>be compassionate and loyal in your love,<br/>And don't take yourself too seriously—<br/>take God seriously.


text:
Attention! God calls out to the city!<br/>If you know what's good for you, you'll listen.<br/>So listen, all of you!<br/>This is serious business.


text:
No matter how much you get, it will never be enough—<br/>hollow stomachs, empty hearts.<br/>No matter how hard you work, you'll have nothing to show for it—<br/>bankrupt lives, wasted souls.


text:
You'll plant grass<br/>but never get a lawn.<br/>You'll make jelly<br/>but never spread it on your bread.<br/>You'll press apples<br/>but never drink the cider.


text:
You have lived by the standards of your king, Omri,<br/>the decadent lifestyle of the family of Ahab.<br/>Because you've slavishly followed their fashions,<br/>I'm forcing you into bankruptcy.<br/>Your way of life will be laughed at, a tasteless joke.<br/>Your lives will be derided as futile and fake."


text:
I'm overwhelmed with sorrow!<br/>sunk in a swamp of despair!<br/>I'm like someone who goes to the garden<br/>to pick cabbages and carrots and corn<br/>And returns empty-handed,<br/>finds nothing for soup or sandwich or salad.


text:
There's not a decent person in sight.<br/>Right-living humans are extinct.<br/>They're all out for one another's blood,<br/>animals preying on each other.


text:
They've all become experts in evil.<br/>Corrupt leaders demand bribes.<br/>The powerful rich<br/>make sure they get what they want.


text:
The best and brightest are thistles.<br/>The top of the line is crabgrass.<br/>But no longer: It's exam time.<br/>Look at them slinking away in disgrace!


text:
Don't trust your neighbor,<br/>don't confide in your friend.<br/>Watch your words,<br/>even with your spouse.


text:
Neighborhoods and families are falling to pieces.<br/>The closer they are—sons, daughters, in-laws—<br/>The worse they can be.<br/>Your own family is the enemy.


text:
But me, I'm not giving up.<br/>I'm sticking around to see what God will do.<br/>I'm waiting for God to make things right.<br/>I'm counting on God to listen to me.


text:
Don't, enemy, crow over me.<br/>I'm down, but I'm not out.<br/>I'm sitting in the dark right now,<br/>but God is my light.


text:
I can take God's punishing rage.<br/>I deserve it—I sinned.<br/>But it's not forever. He's on my side<br/>and is going to get me out of this.<br/>He'll turn on the lights and show me his ways.<br/>I'll see the whole picture and how right he is.


text:
And my enemy will see it, too,<br/>and be discredited—yes, disgraced!<br/>This enemy who kept taunting,<br/>"So where is this God of yours?"<br/>I'm going to see it with these, my own eyes—<br/>my enemy disgraced, trash in the gutter.


text:
Oh, that will be a day! A day for rebuilding your city,<br/>a day for stretching your arms, spreading your wings!


text:
All your dispersed and scattered people will come back,<br/>old friends and family from faraway places,<br/>From Assyria in the east to Egypt in the west,<br/>from across the seas and out of the mountains.


text:
But there'll be a reversal for everyone else—massive depopulation—<br/>because of the way they lived, the things they did.


text:
Shepherd, O God, your people with your staff,<br/>your dear and precious flock.<br/>Uniquely yours in a grove of trees,<br/>centered in lotus land.<br/>Let them graze in lush Bashan<br/>as in the old days in green Gilead.


text:
And the godless nations: Put them in their place—<br/>humiliated in their arrogance, speechless and clueless.


text:
Make them slink like snakes, crawl like cockroaches,<br/>come out of their holes from under their rocks<br/>And face our God.<br/>Fill them with holy fear and trembling.


text:
Where is the god who can compare with you—<br/>wiping the slate clean of guilt,<br/>Turning a blind eye, a deaf ear,<br/>to the past sins of your purged and precious people?<br/>You don't nurse your anger and don't stay angry long,<br/>for mercy is your specialty. That's what you love most.


text:
And compassion is on its way to us.<br/>You'll stamp out our wrongdoing.<br/>You'll sink our sins<br/>to the bottom of the ocean.


text:
You'll stay true to your word to Father Jacob<br/>and continue the compassion you showed<br/>Grandfather Abraham—<br/>Everything you promised our ancestors<br/>from a long time ago.


text:
God is serious business.<br/>He won't be trifled with.<br/>He avenges his foes.<br/>He stands up against his enemies, fierce and raging.


text:
But God doesn't lose his temper.<br/>He's powerful, but it's a patient power.<br/>Still, no one gets by with anything.<br/>Sooner or later, everyone pays.<br/>Tornadoes and hurricanes<br/>are the wake of his passage,<br/>Storm clouds are the dust<br/>he shakes off his feet.


text:
He yells at the sea: It dries up.<br/>All the rivers run dry.<br/>The Bashan and Carmel mountains shrivel,<br/>the Lebanon orchards shrivel.


text:
Mountains quake in their roots,<br/>hills dissolve into mud flats.<br/>Earth shakes in fear of God.<br/>The whole world's in a panic.


text:
Who can face such towering anger?<br/>Who can stand up to this fierce rage?<br/>His anger spills out like a river of lava,<br/>his fury shatters boulders.


text:
God is good,<br/>a hiding place in tough times.<br/>He recognizes and welcomes<br/>anyone looking for help,


text:
No matter how desperate the trouble.<br/>But cozy islands of escape<br/>He wipes right off the map.<br/>No one gets away from God.


text:
Why waste time conniving against God?<br/>He's putting an end to all such scheming.<br/>For troublemakers, no second chances.


text:
Nineveh's an anthill<br/>of evil plots against God,<br/>A think tank for lies<br/>that seduce and betray.


text:
And God has something to say about all this:<br/>"Even though you're on top of the world,<br/>With all the applause and all the votes,<br/>you'll be mowed down flat.<br/>"I've afflicted you, Judah, true,<br/>but I won't afflict you again.


text:
From now on I'm taking the yoke from your neck<br/>and splitting it up for kindling.<br/>I'm cutting you free<br/>from the ropes of your bondage."


text:
God's orders on Nineveh:<br/>"You're the end of the line.<br/>It's all over with Nineveh.<br/>I'm gutting your temple.<br/>Your gods and goddesses go in the trash.<br/>I'm digging your grave. It's an unmarked grave.<br/>You're nothing—no, you're less than nothing!"


text:
Look! Striding across the mountains—<br/>a messenger bringing the latest good news: peace!<br/>A holiday, Judah! Celebrate!<br/>Worship and recommit to God!<br/>No more worries about this enemy.<br/>This one is history. Close the books.


text:
The juggernaut's coming!<br/>Post guards, lay in supplies.<br/>Get yourselves together,<br/>get ready for the big battle.


text:
God has restored the Pride of Jacob,<br/>the Pride of Israel.<br/>Israel's lived through hard times.<br/>He's been to hell and back.


text:
Weapons flash in the sun,<br/>the soldiers splendid in battle dress,<br/>Chariots burnished and glistening,<br/>ready to charge,<br/>A spiked forest of brandished spears,<br/>lethal on the horizon.


text:
The chariots pour into the streets.<br/>They fill the public squares,<br/>Flaming like torches in the sun,<br/>like lightning darting and flashing.


text:
The Assyrian king rallies his men,<br/>but they stagger and stumble.<br/>They run to the ramparts<br/>to stem the tide, but it's too late.


text:
Soon it's all over:<br/>Nineveh stripped, Nineveh doomed,<br/>Maids and slaves moaning like doves,<br/>beating their breasts.


text:
Nineveh is a tub<br/>from which they've pulled the plug.<br/>Cries go up, "Do something! Do something!"<br/>but it's too late. Nineveh's soon empty—nothing.


text:
Other cries come: "Plunder the silver!<br/>Plunder the gold!<br/>A bonanza of plunder!<br/>Take everything you want!"


text:
So, what happened to the famous<br/>and fierce Assyrian lion<br/>And all those cute Assyrian cubs?<br/>To the lion and lioness<br/>Cozy with their cubs,<br/>fierce and fearless?


text:
To the lion who always returned from the hunt<br/>with fresh kills for lioness and cubs,<br/>The lion lair heaped with bloody meat,<br/>blood and bones for the royal lion feast?


text:
"Assyria, I'm your enemy,"<br/>says God-of-the-Angel-Armies.<br/>"I'll torch your chariots. They'll go up in smoke.<br/>'Lion Country' will be strewn with carcasses.<br/>The war business is over—you're out of work:<br/>You'll have no more wars to report,<br/>No more victories to announce.<br/>You're out of war work forever."


text:
Horsemen galloping,<br/>brandishing swords and spears,<br/>Dead bodies rotting in the street,<br/>corpses stacked like cordwood,<br/>Bodies in every gutter and alley,<br/>clogging every intersection!


text:
And whores! Whores without end!<br/>Whore City,<br/>Fatally seductive, you're the Witch of Seduction,<br/>luring nations to their ruin with your evil spells.


text:
"I'm your enemy, Whore Nineveh—<br/>I, God-of-the-Angel-Armies!<br/>I'll strip you of your seductive silk robes<br/>and expose you on the world stage.<br/>I'll let the nations get their fill of the ugly truth<br/>of who you really are and have been all along.


text:
Everyone who sees you will gag and say,<br/>'Nineveh's a pigsty:<br/>What on earth did we ever see in her?<br/>Who would give her a second look? Ugh!' "


text:
Do you think you're superior to Egyptian Thebes,<br/>proudly invincible on the River Nile,<br/>Protected by the great River,<br/>walled in by the River, secure?


text:
Ethiopia stood guard to the south,<br/>Egypt to the north.<br/>Put and Libya, strong friends,<br/>were ready to step in and help.


text:
But you know what happened to her:<br/>The whole city was marched off to a refugee camp,<br/>Her babies smashed to death<br/>in public view on the streets,<br/>Her prize leaders auctioned off,<br/>her celebrities put in chain gangs.


text:
Expect the same treatment, Nineveh.<br/>You'll soon be staggering like a bunch of drunks,<br/>Wondering what hit you,<br/>looking for a place to sleep it off.


text:
All your forts are like peach trees,<br/>the lush peaches ripe, ready for the picking.<br/>One shake of the tree and they fall<br/>straight into hungry mouths.


text:
Face it: Your warriors are wimps.<br/>You're sitting ducks.<br/>Your borders are gaping doors, inviting<br/>your enemies in. And who's to stop them?


text:
Store up water for the siege.<br/>Shore up your defenses.<br/>Get down to basics: Work the clay<br/>and make bricks.


text:
Sorry. Too late.<br/>Enemy fire will burn you up.<br/>Swords will cut you to pieces.<br/>You'll be chewed up as if by locusts.<br/>Yes, as if by locusts—a fitting fate,<br/>for you yourselves are a locust plague.


text:
You've multiplied shops and shopkeepers—<br/>more buyers and sellers than stars in the sky!<br/>A plague of locusts, cleaning out the neighborhood<br/>and then flying off.


text:
Your bureaucrats are locusts,<br/>your brokers and bankers are locusts.<br/>Early on, they're all at your service,<br/>full of smiles and promises,<br/>But later when you return with questions or complaints,<br/>you'll find they've flown off and are nowhere to be found.


text:
King of Assyria! Your shepherd-leaders,<br/>in charge of caring for your people,<br/>Are busy doing everything else but.<br/>They're not doing their job,<br/>And your people are scattered and lost.<br/>There's no one to look after them.


text:
You're past the point of no return.<br/>Your wound is fatal.<br/>When the story of your fate gets out,<br/>the whole world will applaud and cry "Encore!"<br/>Your cruel evil has seeped<br/>into every nook and cranny of the world.<br/>Everyone has felt it and suffered.


text:
God, how long do I have to cry out for help<br/>before you listen?<br/>How many times do I have to yell, "Help! Murder! Police!"<br/>before you come to the rescue?


text:
Why do you force me to look at evil,<br/>stare trouble in the face day after day?<br/>Anarchy and violence break out,<br/>quarrels and fights all over the place.


text:
Law and order fall to pieces.<br/>Justice is a joke.<br/>The wicked have the righteous hamstrung<br/>and stand justice on its head.


text:
"Look around at the godless nations.<br/>Look long and hard. Brace yourself for a shock.<br/>Something's about to take place<br/>and you're going to find it hard to believe.


text:
I'm about to raise up Babylonians to punish you,<br/>Babylonians, fierce and ferocious—<br/>World-conquering Babylon,<br/>grabbing up nations right and left,


text:
Their horses run like the wind,<br/>attack like bloodthirsty wolves.<br/>A stampede of galloping horses<br/>thunders out of nowhere.<br/>They descend like vultures<br/>circling in on carrion.


text:
They're out to kill. Death is on their minds.<br/>They collect victims like squirrels gathering nuts.


text:
God, you're from eternity, aren't you?<br/>Holy God, we aren't going to die, are we?<br/>God, you chose Babylonians for your judgment work?<br/>Rock-Solid God, you gave them the job of discipline?


text:
But you can't be serious!<br/>You can't condone evil!<br/>So why don't you do something about this?<br/>Why are you silent now?<br/>This outrage! Evil men swallow up the righteous<br/>and you stand around and watch!


text:
You're treating men and women<br/>as so many fish in the ocean,<br/>Swimming without direction,<br/>swimming but not getting anywhere.


text:
Then this evil Babylonian arrives and goes fishing.<br/>He pulls in a good catch.<br/>He catches his limit and fills his creel—<br/>a good day of fishing! He's happy!


text:
He praises his rod and reel,<br/>piles his fishing gear on an altar and worships it!<br/>It's made his day,<br/>and he's going to eat well tonight!


text:
Are you going to let this go on and on?<br/>Will you let this Babylonian fisherman<br/>Fish like a weekend angler,<br/>killing people as if they're nothing but fish?


text:
What's God going to say to my questions? I'm braced for the worst.<br/>I'll climb to the lookout tower and scan the horizon.<br/>I'll wait to see what God says,<br/>how he'll answer my complaint.


text:
And then God answered: "Write this.<br/>Write what you see.<br/>Write it out in big block letters<br/>so that it can be read on the run.


text:
This vision-message is a witness<br/>pointing to what's coming.<br/>It aches for the coming—it can hardly wait!<br/>And it doesn't lie.<br/>If it seems slow in coming, wait.<br/>It's on its way. It will come right on time.


text:
"Look at that man, bloated by self-importance—<br/>full of himself but soul-empty.<br/>But the person in right standing before God<br/>through loyal and steady believing<br/>is fully alive, really alive.


text:
"Note well: Money deceives.<br/>The arrogant rich don't last.<br/>They are more hungry for wealth<br/>than the grave is for cadavers.<br/>Like death, they always want more,<br/>but the 'more' they get is dead bodies.<br/>They are cemeteries filled with dead nations,<br/>graveyards filled with corpses.


text:
Don't give people like this a second thought.<br/>Soon the whole world will be taunting them:<br/>" 'Who do you think you are—<br/>getting rich by stealing and extortion?<br/>How long do you think<br/>you can get away with this?'


text:
You've plundered nation after nation.<br/>Now you'll get a taste of your own medicine.<br/>All the survivors are out to plunder you,<br/>a payback for all your murders and massacres.


text:
"Who do you think you are—<br/>recklessly grabbing and looting,<br/>Living it up, acting like king of the mountain,<br/>acting above it all, above trials and troubles?


text:
You've engineered the ruin of your own house.<br/>In ruining others you've ruined yourself.<br/>You've undermined your foundations,<br/>rotted out your own soul.


text:
The bricks of your house will speak up and accuse you.<br/>The woodwork will step forward with evidence.


text:
Don't you know that God-of-the-Angel-Armies<br/>makes sure nothing comes of that but ashes,<br/>Makes sure the harder you work<br/>at that kind of thing, the less you are?


text:
"Who do you think you are—<br/>inviting your neighbors to your drunken parties,<br/>Giving them too much to drink,<br/>roping them into your sexual orgies?


text:
You thought you were having the time of your life.<br/>Wrong! It's a time of disgrace.<br/>All the time you were drinking,<br/>you were drinking from the cup of God's wrath.


text:
You'll wake up holding your throbbing head, hung over—<br/>hung over from Lebanon violence,<br/>Hung over from animal massacres,<br/>hung over from murder and mayhem,<br/>From multiple violations<br/>of place and people.


text:
"What's the use of a carved god<br/>so skillfully carved by its sculptor?<br/>What good is a fancy cast god<br/>when all it tells is lies?<br/>What sense does it make to be a pious god-maker<br/>who makes gods that can't even talk?


text:
Who do you think you are—<br/>saying to a stick of wood, 'Wake up,'<br/>Or to a dumb stone, 'Get up'?<br/>Can they teach you anything about anything?<br/>There's nothing to them but surface.<br/>There's nothing on the inside.


text:
God, I've heard what our ancestors say about you,<br/>and I'm stopped in my tracks, down on my knees.<br/>Do among us what you did among them.<br/>Work among us as you worked among them.<br/>And as you bring judgment, as you surely must,<br/>remember mercy.


text:
God's on his way again,<br/>retracing the old salvation route,<br/>Coming up from the south through Teman,<br/>the Holy One from Mount Paran.<br/>Skies are blazing with his splendor,<br/>his praises sounding through the earth,


