Study Desk

But I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Behold (hear me), I have never been defiled; for from my youth until now I have never eaten what died on its own or was torn by beasts, nor has any unclean meat ever entered my mouth."

"Thus says the Lord GOD, 'This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the center of the nations, and countries are around her.

"Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD, 'Because you have more turmoil than the nations which surround you and have not walked in My statutes, nor kept My ordinances, nor observed the ordinances of the nations which surround you,'

therefore, thus says the Lord GOD, 'Behold, I, I Myself, am against you, and I will execute judgments among you in the sight of the nations.

'So, as I live,' says the Lord GOD, 'surely, because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable idols and with all your abominations, therefore I will also diminish you and withdraw, and My eye will have no pity and I will not spare [you].

and say, 'You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD! Thus says the Lord GOD to the mountains and the hills, to the ravines and the valleys: "Behold, I Myself am going to bring a sword on you, and I will destroy your high places [of idolatrous worship],

"Thus says the Lord GOD, 'Strike with your fist, stamp with your foot and say, "Alas, because of all the evil atrocities of the house of Israel, which will fall by sword, by famine, and by virulent disease!

"Also, son of man, thus says the Lord GOD to the land of Israel, 'An end! The end is coming on the four corners of the land.

"Thus says the Lord GOD, 'A disaster is coming, [one so destructive and injurious, so sudden and violent, that it stands alone,] a unique disaster, look it is coming!

It came about in the sixth year [of the captivity of King Jehoiachin], on the fifth day of the sixth month, as I sat in my house [near Babylon] with the elders of Judah sitting before me, that the hand of the Lord GOD fell on me there.

He stretched out the form of a hand and took me by a lock of hair on my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the inner courtyard, where the seat of the idol (image) of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy, was located.

And behold, the glory and brilliance of the God of Israel [who had loved and chosen them] was there, like the vision which I saw in the plain.

Then the [Shekinah] glory and brilliance of the God of Israel (the cloud) went up from the cherubim on which it had rested, to [stand above] the threshold of the [LORD'S] temple. And the LORD called to the man clothed with linen, who had the scribe's writing case at his side.

As they were executing them and I alone was left, I fell face downward and cried out, "Alas, Lord GOD! Will You destroy all that is left of Israel [the whole remnant] by pouring out Your wrath and indignation on Jerusalem?"

Now the cherubim were standing on the right side of the temple when the man entered; and a cloud [the Shekinah glory of God] filled the inner courtyard.

And the sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard [even] as far as the outer courtyard, like the voice of God Almighty when He speaks.

As I looked at them, the cherubim lifted up their wings and rose up from the earth, they departed with the wheels beside them; and they stood still at the entrance of the east gate of the house of the LORD, and the glory and brilliance of the God of Israel hovered over them.

These are the living beings that I saw beneath the God of Israel by the River Chebar; and I knew that they were cherubim.

'Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD, "Your dead whom you have laid in the midst of your city are the meat and this city is the pot; but I shall force you out of [the security of] it.

"You have feared the sword; so I will bring a sword upon you," says the Lord GOD.