The Daily Audio Bible

Ezekiel must warn the Lord's people

¹⁶ When the seven days were finished, the Lord gave this message to me:

¹⁷ ‘Son of man, I have made you a guard to warn Israel's people about danger. You must listen to the messages that I will give to you. Then you must use my messages to warn the Israelites. ¹⁸ I may say to a wicked person, “Your punishment will be death.” Then you must warn that person. You must tell him to stop doing wicked things so that he may save his life. If you do not tell the wicked person this, he will die because of his sins. But I will say that you are guilty, as if you had killed him yourself. ¹⁹ So you must warn the wicked person. If you warn him, he still may not stop doing wicked things. Then that wicked person will die because of his sins. But you will have saved your own life.

²⁰ A righteous person may stop doing things that are right. He may start to do bad things. Then I will put him in danger. He will die as punishment for his sins. I will not remember the good things that he did. But if you have not warned him of the danger, I will say that you are guilty. It is as if you killed him yourself. ²¹ But if you do warn that righteous person to stop doing bad things, he may agree. Then he will continue to live, because you warned him. You also will have saved your own life.’

²² The Lord continued to give me strength. He said to me, ‘Stand up now! Go out into the valley and I will speak to you there.’ ²³ So I got up and I went out to the valley. I saw the glory of the Lord in that place. It was like the glory that I had seen beside the Kebar river. I bent down low, with my face to the ground.

²⁴ Then a spirit came into me. He lifted me up and he made me stand on my feet. The Lord said to me, ‘Go into your house and shut the door. ²⁵ Son of man, people will tie you with ropes so that you cannot move. You will not be able to go out among the people. ²⁶ I will also stop your tongue from moving so that you cannot speak. You will not be able to warn the Israelites. They are people who refuse to obey me. ²⁷ But sometimes I will speak to you. Then you will be able to open your mouth and give them my message. You must tell them, “This is what the Almighty Lord says.” Some of them will listen to my message. But other people will refuse to listen. They are a nation of people who refuse to obey me.’^[a]

A message about Jerusalem

4 ‘Son of man, take a large brick and put it in front of you.^[b] On the brick, draw a picture of the city, Jerusalem. ² Show that soldiers are ready to attack the city. Build heaps of earth around it so that nobody can escape. Put heavy pieces of wood around the city that the enemy could use to break its walls. ³ Then you must do this. Take a flat plate of iron and put it between you and the brick. It will be like a wall between you and the city. Look towards the city. Show that soldiers are around the city and they are ready to attack it. Nobody can escape. This will be a picture to show Israel's people what will happen to them.^[c]

^4-5 Then lie down on your left side. Show that you are receiving the punishment for the sins of the Israelites. You will suffer like that for 390 days. It will show the number of years that I have decided to punish Israel's people. Each day that you suffer will show one year of their punishment.

⁶ After you have finished all those days, lie down again. This time, lie down on your right side for 40 days. You will suffer like that to show the punishment for the sins of Judah's people. Each day will show one year of their punishment. ⁷ Continue to look towards the brick which has the picture of Jerusalem on it. Show that you are ready to attack it, like soldiers all around it. Speak my message to warn the city. ⁸ Listen! I will use ropes to tie around you. You will not be able to turn from one side to another. You will lie on one side until you have finished all the days to attack the city.^[d]

⁹ You must take some grains like wheat and barley, and different kinds of beans. Then put them all into a jar. Use them to make bread for yourself. You must eat this for 390 days while you lie on your left side. ¹⁰ You should eat 220 grams of food each day. Eat it at the same time each day. ¹¹ You must measure the water that you drink each day. You may drink two cups at the same times each day. ¹² Prepare your food like a cake that is made from barley. Bake it on a fire that you have made with human dung. Do this where the people can see you.’^[e]

¹³ The Lord also said, ‘I will send Israel's people away to live in foreign lands. Then they will have to eat unclean food, as you will do now.’^[f]

¹⁴ Then I said, ‘No, Almighty Lord, I could not use human dung. It would make me unclean. Since I was a child I have never eaten any food that would make me unclean. I have never eaten meat from a dead animal that people have found. I have not eaten meat from an animal that wild animals have killed.’

¹⁵ So God said to me, ‘I will allow you to use dung from cows instead of from humans. You may use that to make the fire to cook your bread.’

¹⁶ Then God said to me, ‘Son of man, I will soon take away the bread in Jerusalem. The people will have to measure the food that they eat. And they will have to measure the water that they drink. They will worry and be afraid. ¹⁷ They will not have enough food or water. Everyone will be very upset. Their bodies will become very thin when I punish them for their sins.’^[g]

Ezekiel cuts his hair

5 ‘Son of man, take a sharp sword. Use it like a knife to cut off your hair and your beard. Then use some scales to weigh the hair. Put it into three separate parts that are the same weight.^[h]

² Wait until all the days when you are lying on your side have finished. Take one part of your hair and burn it on the brick which has the picture of Jerusalem. Take another part and use a sword to cut it into small pieces. Let the pieces fall all around the brick which shows the city. Then take the third part and throw the hairs into the wind. I will run after them with a sword. ³ But keep a few of your hairs. Tie them into the edge of your clothes. ⁴ Finally, take out some of these hairs. Throw them into the fire and burn them. This fire will grow so that it reaches all Israel's people.

⁵ I, the Almighty Lord, say this: This shows what will happen to Jerusalem. I have put the city in the centre of all the nations. It has countries all around it. ⁶ But Jerusalem's people have refused to obey my rules and my commands. They have become more wicked than the nations and countries around them. They have not obeyed my laws.

⁷ So this is what the Almighty Lord says: You people of Jerusalem have done worse things than any of the nations around you. You have not obeyed my rules or my laws. You have not even obeyed the laws of the nations around you.

⁸ So this is what the Almighty Lord says: I myself have become your enemy, people of Jerusalem. I will punish you while the other nations watch. ⁹ I will punish you for all the disgusting things that you have done. I have never punished anyone like that before. And I will never do it again. ¹⁰ When I punish you like that, you will have no food to eat. Parents will be so hungry that they will eat their children. Children will eat their parents. I will chase away those few people who are still alive. They will go to all parts of the earth.

¹¹ The Almighty Lord says this: I promise you as surely as I live that I will remove you. You have made my holy place unclean. You have put your disgusting idols in my house. You have done wicked things there. Because of that I will not be sorry for you. I will not save you. ¹² Illness or famine will kill one third of your people inside the city. The soldiers who are around the city will kill a third of your people. And I will chase away a third of them to all parts of the earth. I will cause their enemies to run after them with their swords.^[i]

¹³ When I have done all that to them, I will not be angry any longer. I will not punish them any more, because it is enough. When I have finished, they will know that I, the Lord, have spoken to them. I have been angry with them because they have not been faithful to me.

¹⁴ I will cause your city to become a heap of stones. People of the other nations around you will laugh at you when they see what has happened to you. ¹⁵ They will all laugh at you and insult you. They will see that I was very angry with you and I punished you. Then they will be afraid of my great anger. I, the Lord, say this!

¹⁶ I will take away your bread so that famine kills more and more of you. It will seem that I am shooting arrows at you to destroy you. ¹⁷ Famine or wild animals will kill you. Your children will no longer live. Illness and war will destroy you. I will send soldiers to attack you. I, the Lord, say this!’

6 The Lord gave this message to me: ² ‘Son of man, look towards the mountains of Israel. Tell them my message to warn them.^{[j] 3} Say, “You mountains of Israel, listen to this message from the Almighty Lord. This is what the Almighty Lord says to the mountains, the hills and the valleys: I am coming here to attack you. I will destroy the places where you worship false gods. ⁴ I will destroy your altars for sacrifices and your altars for incense. I will kill the people who worship there and put them in front of their idols.^{[k] 5} The dead bodies of you people of Israel will lie in front of your idols. I will cause soldiers to throw your bones on the ground around the altars.

⁶ In all the places that you live, soldiers will destroy your towns. They will also destroy the places where you worship false gods. They will break down the altars so that they become heaps of stones. They will break your idols into pieces. They will destroy the altars where you burn incense. They will remove all those things that you have made. ⁷ Dead bodies will lie on the ground everywhere that you live. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

⁸ But I will allow some of you to live. Those people will escape when the enemy army attacks. They will run away to live in foreign countries. ⁹ When they are living as prisoners among those other nations, they will remember me. They will realize that they made me very sad because they were not faithful to me. They stopped worshipping me. Instead, they chose to worship idols. Then they will be ashamed of themselves, because of all the disgusting things which they have done. ¹⁰ They will know that I am the Lord. They will know that it was true when I promised to bring this terrible trouble to them.” ’

¹¹ This is what I, the Almighty Lord, say to you, Ezekiel: ‘Clap your hands together. Stamp on the ground with your feet. Show that you are very upset because of all the disgusting, evil things that Israel's people have done. War, famine and disease will kill them. ¹² Illness will kill the people who live far away. Enemy soldiers will kill those who live near to the city. Famine will kill those people who are still alive. Because I am very angry with them, I will punish them very much.

¹³ Then they will know that I am the Lord. They will see the dead bodies of their own people. The bodies will be lying among the idols that they worshipped. They will be lying around the altars of their false gods, on every high hill and mountain. The dead bodies will lie under the big trees where they offered incense to all their idols. ¹⁴ I will punish them very much. I will destroy their land from the desert in the south as far as Diblah. I will make it a place where nobody can live. Then they will know that I am the Lord.’

God's special place of rest

4 God promised his people that they could go to his special place of rest. That promise is still true for us today. So we must be very careful. Do not fail to arrive in that place. We certainly do not want that to happen. ² We have heard God's good news, just like God's people in the wilderness heard his message. But that message did not help them, because they did not believe it. They did not trust God, like those who obeyed him. ³ But those of us who trust God do enjoy his special place of rest. This is what God said:

God said that, even though he had finished his work when he made the world. ⁴ In the Bible God has spoken about the seventh day like this:

⁵ As we have already seen, God said something later about his rest:

⁶ So we see that there is still a chance for people to go to God's place of rest. But those people who first heard God's message in the wilderness refused to obey him. As a result, they did not arrive in his special place of rest. ⁷ So God chose another time for people to go to his place of rest. He called it ‘Today’. A long time after Moses, David spoke God's message. As we have already seen, he said:

⁸ This shows that Joshua did not bring God's people to the place where they could rest. Later, God had to speak again about another day of rest. ⁹ So we see this: God still has a place ready for his people, where they can rest. They will rest as God rested on the seventh day. ¹⁰ When God made the world and everything, he rested after he had finished his work. It is the same for everyone who goes to God's place of rest. They too will rest. They will no longer need to work.^[c]

¹¹ So we must do everything possible to arrive in God's special place of rest. God's people in the wilderness did not obey him. We must not be like them. If we do not obey God, we also will fail to arrive in that place.

¹² So be careful! God's message to us is alive and powerful. It is like a sword that has two sharp edges. Even more than a sword, God's message goes very deep into us. It cuts between our soul and our spirit. It is like a sharp knife that can cut deep into our body between our bones. God's message shows what we are really thinking. It shows what we really want. ¹³ There is nothing in the whole world that can hide from God. He sees everything clearly and he knows everything. We will have to explain to him everything that we have done during our lives.

Jesus is our great priest

¹⁴ Jesus, the Son of God, helps us as God's most important priest. He is our great priest who has gone up into heaven. We say that we believe in him. So we must continue to show people that we trust him. ¹⁵ Jesus, our great priest understands us. He knows how weak we are. He knows that we sometimes want to do wrong things. The Devil tried to make him do all those same kinds of wrong things. But Jesus never did anything wrong. ¹⁶ So we should come near to God and we should not be afraid. God is our King. We can ask him to help us when we need help. We know that he will forgive us and he will be kind to us in whatever way we need.^[d]