Ezekiel

Ezekiel here. Priest, son of Buzi. It's the fifth year since King Jehoiachin was taken off to Babylon, and the rest of us with him. We're living by the River Kebar. And today the sky opened and I saw visions of God.

A storm coming from the north. A huge cloud, fire flashing through it, bright light all round. In the middle, four living creatures. Human shape, but four faces each: a man, a lion, an ox, an eagle. Four wings. Feet like a calf's hooves, shining like polished bronze. Fire darting between them like lightning.

Replying to @ezekiel.son.of.buzi

And the wheels. A wheel on the ground beside each creature, gleaming like beryl. It looked like a wheel inside a wheel. They could go in any direction without turning. The rims were high and terrifying, and full of eyes all round. Wherever the creatures went, the wheels went. The spirit of the creatures was in the wheels.

Replying to @ezekiel.son.of.buzi

Their wings sounded like roaring water. Like an army.

Above them, something like a throne, blue as sapphire. On it, a figure like a man. Fire from the waist down, gleaming like amber from the waist up, and brilliant light all round, like a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day. That is what the glory of the LORD looked like. I fell face down.

He called me son of man and told me to stand up. He's sending me to Israel, a people who have rebelled against him for generations. Whether they listen or not, they'll know a prophet has been among them. And he told me not to be afraid of them, even if it feels like living among scorpions.

A hand held out a scroll to me. Written on the front and the back: grief, mourning and pain. He told me to eat it. So I ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey.

He says Israel won't listen to me, because they won't listen to him. They're all hard-headed. So he's making my forehead harder than flint.

The Spirit lifted me up and took me away. I went bitter and angry, with the LORD's hand heavy on me. Came to the exiles at Tel-abib and sat where they sat for seven days. Overwhelmed.

After seven days the LORD told me he's made me a watchman for Israel. If I don't warn someone and they die in their wrongdoing, he'll hold me responsible for their blood. If I warn them and they don't turn, that's on them.

Told to shut myself inside my house. My tongue will stick to the roof of my mouth and I won't be able to speak, except when he gives me something to say.

Today: a brick. Drew Jerusalem on it. Then built a siege round it. Siege wall, ramp, camps, battering rams on every side. Put an iron plate between me and it, and turned my face towards it.

Replying to @ezekiel.son.of.buzi

It's a sign for Israel. Jerusalem is going to be under siege.

Next: lying on my left side. 390 days, a day for every year of Israel's wrongdoing. Then 40 days on my right side for Judah. Tied with ropes so I can't turn over until it's done.

My food while I'm lying here: wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet and spelt, all in one jar, baked into bread. Twenty shekels' weight a day. A little water at set times. That's how it'll be in Jerusalem. Bread by weight, water by measure.

Replying to @ezekiel.son.of.buzi

He wanted it baked over human dung, in front of everyone. I said: Lord GOD, no. I've never made myself unclean. Nothing that died on its own, nothing torn by animals, no unclean meat, not once in my life. He let me use cow dung instead.

Shaved my head and beard with a sword. Weighed the hair on scales and split it in three. A third to be burned in the city. A third struck with the sword all round it. A third thrown to the wind. A few strands tucked into the fold of my cloak.

Sixth year. The elders of Judah were sitting in my house, and the power of the Lord GOD came over me. A figure like fire took me by the hair, and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and sky and carried me, in visions of God, to Jerusalem. To the temple.

There was a hole in the temple courtyard wall. He told me to dig through it. Behind it, a door. Inside, the walls carved all over with crawling things and unclean animals and idols. Seventy of Israel's elders standing there in the dark, each with an incense burner. And what they're telling each other: the LORD doesn't see us. The LORD has left the land.

Replying to @ezekiel.son.of.buzi

Then women at the north gate, weeping for Tammuz. Then about twenty-five men between the porch and the altar, their backs to the LORD's temple, bowing east to the sun.

The wheels again. The same living creatures I saw by the Kebar. Now I know what they are: cherubim. The glory of the LORD went up from the temple doorway and stood over them. They spread their wings and rose, wheels beside them, and stopped at the east gate.

Replying to @jerusalem.stayed

The LORD knows what's going through your minds. You've filled this city's streets with the dead. They're the meat, and the city's the pot. You won't be in it. He's bringing you out.

While I was prophesying, Pelatiah son of Benaiah, one of those leaders at the gate, died. I threw myself face down and cried out: Lord GOD, are you going to finish off everyone left in Israel?

The people in Jerusalem say the exiles are far away from the LORD and the land is theirs now. The LORD says: I sent them far away, but for a little while I've been their sanctuary in the countries where they've gone. And I'll gather them and give them back the land.

The glory of the LORD rose from inside the city and stopped on the mountain east of it. Then the Spirit carried me back to the exiles in Babylonia, and the vision lifted. I told them everything the LORD had shown me.

Packed a bag for exile, in broad daylight, where everyone could see. At dusk I dug through the wall with my hands and went out through it, bag on my shoulder, face covered.

Replying to @ezekiel.son.of.buzi

I'm a sign to you. What I did, they'll do. The prince in Jerusalem will go out through a hole in the wall at dusk, bags on his shoulder, face covered, so he can't see the land. Into exile. To Babylon, and he won't see it.

Replying to @jerusalem.stayed

The LORD says that saying is finished. None of his words will be delayed any longer. What he says will happen.

Some of the elders came and sat with me again. The LORD said: these men have set up idols in their hearts. Should I let them ask me anything at all?

When a land turns its back on the LORD and he sends judgement on it, even if Noah, Daniel and Job lived there, their goodness would save only themselves.

The Lord GOD says: I'll take a tender shoot from the very top of the cedar and plant it on a high mountain in Israel. It'll become a great cedar, with every kind of bird nesting in its shade. I bring the tall tree down and make the low tree tall.

Replying to @by.the.kebar

Not any more. Every life belongs to the LORD, parent and child alike. The one who sins is the one who'll die. A son won't carry his father's guilt, and a father won't carry his son's.

Replying to @by.the.kebar

Is it his way that isn't fair? Or yours? Throw off everything you've done wrong and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. Why should you die, Israel?

Oh, Lord GOD. They're saying about me: isn't he just telling stories?

The king of Babylon is standing at a fork in the road. One way to Rabbah of the Ammonites. The other to Jerusalem. He shakes the arrows, asks his idols, looks at a liver. In his right hand, the lot for Jerusalem. Battering rams, a ramp, a siege wall.

The LORD looked for someone to build up the wall and stand in the gap for the land, so he wouldn't have to destroy it. He found no one.

Ninth year, tenth month, tenth day. The LORD told me to write the date down. Today the king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem.

The LORD told me he's about to take away the delight of my eyes. One blow. And I'm not to mourn. No crying. No tears. Groan quietly. I spoke to the people in the morning. In the evening my wife died.

Replying to @ezekiel.son.of.buzi

Next morning I did as I'd been told. Turban on. Sandals on. No mourners' bread.

Replying to @ezekiel.son.of.buzi

The LORD is about to let his own temple be defiled. The thing you're proudest of. The delight of your eyes. And the sons and daughters you left behind will die by the sword. And you'll do what I've done. No mourning out loud. You'll waste away inside, groaning to each other.

Replying to @ruler.of.tyre

You're a man, not a god. Wiser than Daniel, sure. No secret's hidden from you. Your trading made you rich and your riches made you proud. Will you still say you're a god to the ones who come to kill you?

Replying to @pharaoh.egypt

The Lord GOD says he's against you, Pharaoh. A great monster lying in the middle of your rivers.

Replying to @by.the.kebar

As surely as I live, the Lord GOD says, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked. I'd rather they turned from their ways and lived. Turn round! Turn from your evil ways! Why should you die, Israel?

Replying to @escaped.jerusalem

The evening before he got here, the LORD's power came on me. By the time he reached me in the morning, my mouth was open. I can speak again.

Replying to @ruins.of.judah

You eat meat with the blood still in it. You look to your idols. You shed blood. You rely on your swords. And you think you'll own the land?

They come and sit in front of me like always, and listen, and don't do any of it. To them I'm a singer of love songs with a lovely voice who plays well. They hear the words. They don't do them. When it happens, and it will, they'll know a prophet was among them.

An exile at Tel-abib@tel.abib.localCome on, let's pop round to Ezekiel's and hear the latest message from the LORD.

Shepherds of Israel, you only look after yourselves. You eat the fat, you wear the wool, and you don't feed the flock. You haven't built up the weak, healed the sick, bandaged the injured, brought back the strays or gone looking for the lost. So they scattered, and nobody went looking.

So the Lord GOD says: I'll search for my sheep myself. I'll look for the lost, bring back the strays, bandage the injured and build up the weak. I'll make them lie down in good pasture. And I'll put one shepherd over them, my servant David.

David@davidThe LORD is my shepherd. I have everything I need. Green fields. Quiet water. He brings me back to life. Even when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I won't be afraid, because you're with me. My cup's overflowing.

The Lord GOD says: I'll sprinkle clean water on you and you'll be clean. I'll give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I'll take out your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I'll put my Spirit in you.

Replying to @ezekiel.son.of.buzi

And people will say: this land that was a wasteland has become like the garden of Eden.

The LORD's power came on me, and his Spirit set me down in the middle of a valley full of bones. He led me all round them. So many. And very dry. He asked me: son of man, can these bones live? I said, Lord GOD, only you know.

Replying to @ezekiel.son.of.buzi

He told me to prophesy to them. Dry bones, listen to the word of the LORD. So I did. And as I was speaking, a noise. A rattling. The bones came together, bone to bone. Then tendons. Then flesh. Then skin. But there was no breath in them.

Replying to @ezekiel.son.of.buzi

Then: prophesy to the breath. Come from the four winds, breath, and breathe into them so they live. I did. Breath came into them. They came to life and stood up on their feet. A huge army.

These bones are the whole people of Israel. They're saying their bones are dry and their hope is gone. The Lord GOD says: my people, I'm going to open your graves and bring you up out of them, and bring you home to the land of Israel. I'll put my Spirit in you, and you'll live.

Another exile by the Kebar@by.the.kebarOur bones are dried up. Our hope is gone. We're finished.

Two sticks. On one I wrote Judah. On the other, Joseph, the stick of Ephraim. Held them together so they were one stick in my hand, where everyone could see.

Replying to @ezekiel.son.of.buzi

One nation again in the land, with one king. Never two kingdoms again. They'll be my people, the LORD says, and I'll be their God.

Twenty-fifth year of our exile, fourteen years since Jerusalem fell. In visions God took me to the land of Israel and set me on a very high mountain, with something like a city on it. A man who looked like bronze was standing in the gateway with a linen cord and a measuring rod. He told me to look carefully, listen, and tell Israel everything I saw.

Replying to @ezekiel.son.of.buzi

He measured everything. Every gate, every wall, every room. I'll spare you the numbers.

He brought me to the gate that faces east. And the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east, with a sound like roaring water, and the whole land shining. The same as I saw by the Kebar. I fell face down. The glory of the LORD came into the temple through the east gate and filled it.

Ezekiel@ezekiel.son.of.buziThe glory of the LORD rose from inside the city and stopped on the mountain east of it. Then the Spirit carried me back to the exiles in Babylonia, and the vision lifted. I told them everything the LORD had shown me.

Replying to @ezekiel.son.of.buzi

Then a voice from inside the temple: this is the place of my throne. I will live here among the Israelites for ever.

The east gate is shut now, and stays shut. Nobody goes in through it. The LORD, the God of Israel, has come in that way.

Water trickling out from under the temple doorway, flowing east. The man walked a thousand cubits and led me through it. Ankle-deep. Another thousand: knee-deep. Another thousand: up to my waist. Another thousand, and it was a river I couldn't cross. Deep enough to swim in.

Replying to @ezekiel.son.of.buzi

He asked, son of man, do you see this? Then took me back to the bank, and there were trees everywhere, on both sides. This water, he said, flows down into the Dead Sea and makes the water fresh. Wherever the river goes, things live. Fish of every kind. Fishermen along the shore from En-gedi to En-eglaim, spreading their nets.

Replying to @ezekiel.son.of.buzi

Fruit trees on both banks. Leaves that never wither, fruit every month. The fruit for food and the leaves for healing.

And from that day, the name of the city will be: The LORD Is There.