Study Desk

"For you are not being sent to a people of unintelligible speech or difficult language, but to the house of Israel,

nor to many peoples of unintelligible speech or difficult language, whose words you cannot understand. But I have sent you to the people who understand you;

"When I say to the wicked, 'You will certainly die,' and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way so that he may live, that wicked person shall die for wrongdoing, but his blood I will require from your hand.

"However if you have warned the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die for wrongdoing, but you have saved yourself.

"Again, when a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and commits sin, and I place an obstacle before him, he will die; since you have not warned him, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood I will require from your hand.

But the Spirit entered me and set me up on my feet; and He spoke with me and said to me, "Go, shut yourself inside your house.

"But when I speak to you, I will open your mouth and you will say to them, 'This is what the Lord GOD says:' The one who hears, let him hear; and the one who refuses, let him refuse; for they are a rebellious house.

"When you have completed these days, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side, and bear the wrongdoing of the house of Judah; I have assigned it to you for forty days, a day for each year.

"But as for you, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel and make them into bread for yourself; you shall eat it according to the number of the days that you lie on your side, 390 days.

But I said, "Oh, Lord GOD! Behold, I have never been defiled; for from my youth until now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by animals, nor has any unclean meat ever entered my mouth!"

'But she has rebelled against My ordinances more wickedly than the nations, and against My statutes more than the lands which surround her; for they have rejected My ordinances and have not walked in My statutes.'

'And My eye will have no pity on you, nor will I spare you, but I will bring your ways upon you, and your abominations will be among you; then you will know that I am the LORD!'

'They have blown the trumpet and made everything ready, but no one is going to the battle, for My wrath is against all their multitude.

'When anguish comes, they will seek peace, but there will be none.

'Disaster will come upon disaster and rumor will be added to rumor; then they will seek a vision from a prophet, but the Law will be lost from the priest, and counsel from the elders.

And He said to me, "Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations which the house of Israel are committing here, so that I would be far from My sanctuary? But yet you will see still greater abominations!"

But to the others He said in my presence, "Go through the city after him and strike; do not let your eye have pity and do not spare.

"Utterly kill old men, young men, female virgins, little children, and women, but do not touch any person on whom is the mark; and you shall start from My sanctuary." So they started with the elders who were before the temple.

"But as for Me, My eye will have no pity nor will I spare, but I will bring their conduct upon their heads."

When they moved, they went in any of their four directions without turning as they went; but they followed in the direction which they faced, without turning as they went.