Thus saith the Lord Yahweh: This is Jerusalem!
In the midst of the nations have I set her;
Countries are all about her.

But against Mine ordinances she hath rebelled
More wickedly than the nations,

And more against My statutes than the countries all about her;
For they rejected Mine ordinances and walked not in My statutes.

Therefore thus saith the Lord Yahweh :

Because ye have outdone the nations round about you
In that ye have not walked in My statutes
Nor kept Mine ordinances,

But have done according to the ordinances

Of the nations all about you,

Behold I also am against thee; I will execute judgments
In the midst of thee, in the sight of the nations.

Verily, I will do in thee what I have never done,
(Whose like I will not do again) for all thine abominations.
In thee fathers shall eat their sons and sons their fathers,
And I will execute judgment upon thee,

And I will scatter the whole remnant of thee to all the winds.

Wherefore, as I live, saith the Lord Yahweh:

Because thou hast defiled My Holy Place with loathsome things,
With all thine abominations,

Verily I will cut thee down. Mine eyes shall not spare,
Also I will have no pity;

With the pestilence shall a third part die,

And with famine shall they be consumed;

A third shall fall by the sword round about thee,
And a third part will I scatter to all the winds,
And the sword shall pursue them.

Thus shall Mine anger spend itself.

I will sate my fury upon them and I shall be eased.
They shall know that I, Yahweh, have spoken in just wrath
When I have spent my fury upon them.

I will make thee a desolation, an object of scorn
Among the nations round about thee

In the sight of all who pass by.

Also it shall be a reproach, a warning and a horror
To the nations round about thee

When I shall execute judgments upon thee in ire and rage

And in uttermost fury.

I, Yahweh, have spoken it.

When I shall send upon you

Which shall be

I will increase the famine
I will send evil beasts

the evil arrows of famine
your destruction,

and break your staff of bread.
which shall make thee childless,

And pestilence and blood shall pass through thee,
And I will bring the sword upon thee.

I, Yahweh, have spoken it.

The word of Yahweh came again unto me, saying: Son of man, set thy face toward the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them. and say:

hear the voice

Ye mountains of Israel, of the Lord Thus saith the Lord Yahweh

Yahweh!

Of the ravines

of the mountains and the hills,
and of the valleys:

Lo, I am bringing a sword upon you, and will destroy
Your high places;

Your altars shall be desolate, your sun-pillars shattered;
Your slain will I cast down before your idols,

Yea, the carcasses of the Children of Israel

Will I lay before your idols,

And I will scatter your bones round about your altars.

In all your land your cities shall be laid waste,
And the high places shall be desolate,

That your altars may be ruined, their places desolate,
That your idols may be broken and cease to be,

Your sun-pillars be hewn down, all your works blotted out;
And the slain shall fall in the midst of you; ye shall know 1
That I am Yahweh.

Not without purpose have I said

That I would do this evil unto them.

When there shall be among the nations, scattered through all lands
Some that have escaped the sword,

They of the straying hearts, who have departed from Me
And gone astray after idols;

There shall they loathe themselves for all the abominations
And all the evils which they have committed.

Thus saith the Lord Yahweh:

Smite thy hands together, and stamp with thy feet, and say:
Alas, for all the evil abominations of the House of Israel,
Which shall fall by the sword, by famine and by the plague!
He that is far off shall die by the plague

He that is near shall fall by the sword,
And he that remaineth and is besieged

Shall die by famine; thus will I spend My wrath upon them.

Then shall ye know that I am Yahweh

When their slain men shall lie among their idols

Round about their altars.

In all the tops of the mountains, upon every high hill;
Under every leafy tree, under every thick terebinth,
Places where they did offer sweet savor to all their idols,
I will stretch out My hand upon them

And make their land a ruin throughout their habitations,
More waste than the wilderness of Diblah;

And they shall know that I am Yahweh.

C.

IN A THIRD VISION EZEKIEL IS SHOWN THE CONTINUED
EVIL-DOINGS IN JERUSALEM. A FEW REMAIN FAITHFUL,
BUT YAHWEH WILL DEPART FROM ZION

(Ch. viii, i-xi, 25)

In the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, the hand of the Lord Yahweh fell there upon me. Then I beheld and lo! the

1 Verse 10 of ch. vi is here restored to its place before verses 8-14, which have also been retranslated to bring out the meaning more fully. Also, ch. vii would here be out of place; it follows properly ch. xvi and will there be found.

likeness of a man, from its loins downward like fire, and upward from its loins like the shining of electron. And it put forth the likeness of a hand and grasped me by a lock of my head; and a spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the gate of the inner court that looketh toward the north, where was the seat of the image of Jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy. And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision that I saw in the plain. Then said He unto me: Son of man, lift up thine eyes toward the north; and I lifted up mine eyes toward the north; and behold, to the north of the gate of the altar was this image of Jealousy in the entrance.

Then He said unto me: Son of man, seest thou what they are doing? even the great abominations that the House of Israel doth commit here, that force Me to go far away from My sanctuary? But thou shalt see yet greater abominations. And He brought me to the door of the court; and behold, a hole in the wall. Then said He unto me: Son of man, dig now in the wall; and when I had digged into the wall, behold, a door. And he said unto me: Go in, and see the wicked abominations that they do here. So I went in and saw. And behold, every detestable form of creeping thing, and beasts and all the idols of the House of Israel portrayed upon the wall round about. And seventy men of the elders of the House of Israel stood before them, and in their midst Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, every man with a censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up. Then said He unto me: Son of man, seest thou what the elders of the House of Israel are doing in secret, each in his chamber? for they say: Yahweh seeth us not; Yahweh hath forsaken the earth. And He said: Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. Then He brought me to the entrance of the gate of the Temple toward the north; and behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. Then said He: Hast thou seen, O Son of man? Turn thee yet again and thou shalt see greater abominations than these. And He brought me into the inner court of the Temple; and behold, at the door of the Temple of Yahweh, five and twenty men with their backs to the sanctuary of Yahweh and their faces to the east; and they worshiped the sun toward the east. Then He said unto me:

Seest thou, Son of man? Is it a light thing

For the House of Judah

To practise the abominations which they commit here,
But they must fill the land with violence, and turn again
To provoke Me to anger?

And now they are sending a stench to My nostrils.
Therefore will I also act in wrath;

I will show no compassion, neither will I have pity.
And though they cry in my ears with a loud voice,
Yet will I not hear them.

Then He cried in mine ears with a loud voice, saying:
Draw near, ye who have charge over the city!

Each with the weapon of destruction in his hand.

Then six men came from the watch of the upper gate which lieth toward the north, each one with his weapon of destruction in his hand, and one man in the midst of them clothed in white linen with a writer's ink-horn at his side. And they went in and stood beside the brazen altar. And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub whereupon He was to the threshold of the house; and he called to the

1

man clothed in linen, who had the writer's ink-horn at his side. And Yahweh said unto him:

Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem,
And set a mark upon the foreheads of them that sigh and cry
For all the abominations that are done in the midst thereof.

And to the others He said in my hearing:

Go ye after him through the city and smite.
Let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity;

Slay utterly the old man, the young man and the maiden,
The little children and women;

But come not near any man upon whom is the mark;
And begin at My sanctuary.

And He

Then they began at the elders that were before the house. said unto them: Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain. Go ye forth. And they went forth and smote in the city; and it came to pass while they were smiting, and I was left, that I fell upon my face and cried out and said: Ah, Lord Yahweh! wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel in the pouring out of Thy fury upon Jerusalem? Then said He unto me:

The iniquity of the House of Israel and of the House of Judah
Is exceeding great; the land is full of blood,
And the city full of the wresting of judgment.
For they say: Yahweh hath forsaken the land;
Yahweh seeth not.

As for Me also,

Mine_eye shall not spare, nor will I have pity,
But I will bring their way upon their head.

And behold, the man clothed in linen who had the ink-horn at his side reported, saying: I have done according unto all that Thou hast commanded.

Then I looked and lo, in the firmament that was over the heads of the cherubim, there appeared above them, as it were a sapphire stone, the likeness of a throne. And He spake unto the man clothed in linen, and said: Go in between the wheelwork, even under the cherub, and fill both thy hands with coals of fire from between the cherubim and dash them against the city. And he went in in my sight. Now the cherubim stood on the right side of the temple when the man went in; and the cloud filled the inner court. Then the Glory of Yahweh went up from the cherubim, and rested over the threshold of the temple; and the temple was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the glory of Yahweh. And the sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard even to the outer court, as the voice of El Shaddai when He speaketh. And when He commanded the man clothed in linen, saying: Take fire from between the whirling wheels, from between the cherubim, then he went in and stood near a wheel. And he stretched forth his hand into the fire that was between the cherubim, and took some and went out.

And there appeared in the cherubim the form of a man's hand under their wings; and I looked and behold, four wheels beside the cherubim, one wheel beside one cherub, and another wheel beside another cherub; and the appearance of the wheels was like that of a beryl. And the four

were of one model, as if a wheel were within a wheel. When they moved, they went in one direction; they turned not as they went. Whither the head looked, they followed it; they turned not as they went. And their whole body, and their backs, their hands, their wings and the wheels were full of eyes round about; as for the wheels, they were called in my hearing The Whirling Ones. And the glory of Yahweh went forth from off the threshold of the temple, and rested over the cherubim. And the glory of Yahweh mounted up from the earth in my sight when they went forth, and the wheels beside them; and they stood at the door of the east gate of the temple of Yahweh; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them. This is the living creature that I saw under the God of Israel by the river Chebar; and I knew that they were cherubim. Each one had four faces and four wings; and the likeness of the hands of a man was under their wings. And as for the likeness of their faces, they were the faces which I saw by the river Chebar, their appearance and themselves. Every one of them went straight forward.

Then a spirit lifted me up and brought me to the east gate of the House of Yahweh which looketh eastward; and behold, at the entrance of the gate, five and twenty men; and I saw in the midst of them Jaazaniah the son of Azur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, princes of the people. And He said unto me: Son of man, these are the men that devise iniquity, and that give wicked counsel in this city; that say: The time is not near to build houses; the city is the cauldron and we are the flesh. Therefore prophesy against them, Son of man, prophesy! And the Spirit of Yahweh fell upon me, and He said unto me: Speak! Thus saith Yahweh:

Thus have ye said, O House of Israel:

For I know the things that come into your mind;
Ye have multiplied your slain in this city
And ye have filled the streets thereof with the slain.

Therefore thus saith the Lord Yahweh:
Your slain whom ye have laid in the midst of it,
They are the flesh

And this city is the cauldron:

But ye shall be brought forth out of the midst of it.
Ye have feared the sword, and the sword will I bring upon you.
I will bring you forth out of the midst thereof,

And deliver you into the hands of strangers,

And I will execute judgment upon you—
Ye shall fall by the sword.

I will judge you upon the border of Israel,
And ye shall know that I am the Lord Yahweh.
For ye have not walked in my statutes,
Nor executed my decrees,

But have followed the ordinances
Of the nations round about you.

And it came to pass, as I was prophesying, that Pelatiah son of Benaiah died. Then fell I upon my face, and cried with a loud voice, and said: Ah, Lord Yahweh, wilt Thou make a full end of the remnant of Israel? And the word of Yahweh came unto me, saying: Son of man, as for thy kindred, even thy brethren, and all the House of Israel, all of those concerning whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said: Get you far from Yahweh; unto us is this land given for a possession,

say: