Ezekiel 33

Ezekiel, Israel’s Sentry

1The word of the Lord came to me: 2#2 Sam 18.24, 25; 2 Kings 9.17; Jer 12.12; Ezek 3.11; Zech 13.7O mortal, speak to your people and say to them: If I bring the sword upon a land and the people of the land take one of their number as their sentinel, 3#Hos 8.1; Joel 2.1and if the sentinel sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people, 4#Jer 6.17; Ezek 18.13; Zech 1.4; Acts 18.6then if any who hear the sound of the trumpet do not take warning and the sword comes and takes them away, their blood shall be upon their own heads. 5#Heb 11.7They heard the sound of the trumpet and did not take warning; their blood shall be upon themselves. But if they had taken warning, they would have saved their lives. 6#v 8; Isa 56.10, 11; Ezek 3.18, 20But if the sentinel sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any of them, they are taken away in their iniquity, but their blood I will require at the sentinel’s hand.

7 # Jer 26.2; Ezek 3.17–21; Acts 5.20 So you, mortal, I have made a sentinel for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. 8If I say to the wicked, “O wicked ones, you shall surely die,” and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, but their blood I will require at your hand. 9#Ezek 3.19, 21; Acts 13.40, 41, 46But if you warn the wicked to turn from their ways and they do not turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, but you will have saved your life.

God’s Justice and Mercy

10 # Ezek 18.2; 24.23; 37.11 Now you, mortal, say to the house of Israel: Thus you have said: “Our transgressions and our sins weigh upon us, and we waste away because of them; how then can we live?” 11#2 Sam 14.14; Ezek 18.23, 30–32; 2 Pet 3.9Say to them: As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from their ways and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel? 12#2 Chr 7.14; Ezek 3.20And you, mortal, say to your people: The righteousness of the righteous shall not save them when they transgress, and as for the wickedness of the wicked, it shall not make them stumble when they turn from their wickedness, and the righteous shall not be able to live by their righteousness#33.12 Heb by it when they sin. 13#Ezek 3.20; 18.24; 2 Pet 2.20, 21Though I say to the righteous that they shall surely live, yet if they trust in their righteousness and commit iniquity, none of their righteous deeds shall be remembered, but in the iniquity that they have committed they shall die. 14#Ezek 3.18, 19; 18.27Again, though I say to the wicked, “You shall surely die,” yet if they turn from their sin and do what is lawful and right— 15#Lev 6.2, 4, 5; Num 5.6, 7; Ezek 20.11; Lk 19.8if the wicked restore the pledge, give back what they have taken by robbery, and walk in the statutes of life, committing no iniquity—they shall surely live; they shall not die. 16#Ezek 18.22None of the sins that they have committed shall be remembered against them; they have done what is lawful and right; they shall surely live.

17Yet your people say, “The way of the Lord is not just,” when it is their own way that is not just. 18#Ezek 18.26When the righteous turn from their righteousness and commit iniquity, they shall die for it.#33.18 Heb them 19And when the wicked turn from their wickedness and do what is lawful and right, they shall live by it.#33.19 Heb them 20#Ezek 18.25Yet you say, “The way of the Lord is not just.” O house of Israel, I will judge all of you according to your ways!

The Fall of Jerusalem

21 # 2 Kings 25.4; Ezek 1.2; 24.26 In the twelfth year of our exile, in the tenth month, on the fifth day of the month, someone who had escaped from Jerusalem came to me and said, “The city has fallen.” 22#Ezek 1.3; 24.27; Lk 1.64Now the hand of the Lord had been upon me the evening before the fugitive came, and he opened my mouth when the fugitive came in the morning, so my mouth was opened, and I was no longer unable to speak.

The Survivors in Judah

23The word of the Lord came to me: 24#Isa 51.2; Ezek 36.4; Acts 7.5Mortal, the inhabitants of these waste places in the land of Israel keep saying, “Abraham was only one man, yet he got possession of the land, but we are many; the land is surely given us to possess.” 25#Deut 12.16; Ezek 20.24; 22.6, 9Therefore say to them: Thus says the Lord God: You eat flesh with the blood and lift up your eyes to your idols and shed blood; shall you then possess the land? 26#Ezek 18.6; 22.11You depend on your swords, you commit abominations, and each of you defiles his neighbor’s wife; shall you then possess the land? 27#1 Sam 13.6; Isa 2.19; Ezek 39.4Say this to them: Thus says the Lord God: As I live, surely those who are in the waste places shall fall by the sword, and those who are in the open field I will give to the wild animals to be devoured, and those who are in strongholds and in caves shall die by pestilence. 28#Jer 44.2, 6, 22; Ezek 7.24; 36.34, 35I will make the land a desolation and a waste, and its proud might shall come to an end, and the mountains of Israel shall be so desolate that no one will pass through. 29#Ezek 23.33, 35Then they shall know that I am the Lord, when I have made the land a desolation and a waste because of all their abominations that they have committed.

30As for you, mortal, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses say to one another, each to a neighbor, “Come and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord.” 31#Ps 78.36, 37; Isa 29.13; Ezek 8.1; 14.1; 20.1; Mt 13.22They come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but they will not obey them. For flattery is on their lips, but their heart is set on their gain.#33.31 Meaning of Heb uncertain 32To them you are like a singer of love songs,#33.32 Cn: Heb like a love song one who has a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument; they hear what you say, but they will not do it. 33#1 Sam 3.20; Ezek 2.5When this comes—and come it will!—then they shall know that a prophet has been among them.

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Ezekiel 33: NRSVUE

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