World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 33
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1 word came to me, saying, ", speak to the children of your people, and tell them, 'When I bring on a land, and the people of the land take a man from among them, and set him for their watchman, if, when he sees come on the land, he blows the and warns the people, then whoever hears the sound of the and doesn't heed the warning, if comes and takes him away, his will be on his own head. He heard the sound of the and didn't take warning. His will be on him; whereas if he had heeded the warning, he would have his . But if the watchman sees come and doesn't blow the , and the people aren't warned, and comes and takes any person from among them, he is taken away in his , but his I will require at the watchman's hand.' "So you, , I have set you a watchman to the . Therefore hear the word from my , and give them warnings from me. When I tell , 'O man, you will surely ,' and you don't speak to warn from his way, that man will in his , but I will require his at your hand. Nevertheless, if you warn of his way to turn from it, and he doesn't turn from his way; he will in his , but you have your . "You, , tell the : 'You say this, "Our and our are on us, and we pine away in them. How then can we live?"' Tell them, '"As I live," , "I have no pleasure in the of , but that turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why will you , ?"' "You, , tell the children of your people, 'The of will not him in the day of his . And as for the wickedness of , he will not fall by it in the day that he turns from his wickedness; neither will he who is be able to live by it in the day that he . When I tell that he will surely live, if he trusts in his and commits , none of his deeds will be remembered; but he will in his that he has committed. Again, when I say to , "You will surely ," if he turns from his and does that which is lawful and right, if restore the pledge, give again that which he had taken by robbery, walk in the of life, committing no , he will surely live. He will not . None of his that he has committed will be remembered against him. He has done that which is lawful and right. He will surely live. "'Yet the children of your people say, " of is not fair;" but as for them, their way is not fair. When turns from his and commits , he will even therein. When turns from his wickedness and does that which is lawful and right, he will live by it. Yet you say, " of is not fair." , I will judge every one of you after his ways.'" In the twelfth year of our , in the tenth month, in the fifth day of the month, one who had escaped out of came to me, saying, "The city has been defeated!" Now hand had been on me in the evening, before he who had escaped came; and he had opened my until he came to me in the morning; and my was opened, and I was no longer mute. 23 word came to me, saying, ", those who inhabit the waste places in the land of Israel speak, saying, ' was one, and he the land; but we are many. The land is given us for .' Therefore tell them, ' says: "You eat with , and lift up your eyes to your idols, and shed . So should you possess the land? You stand on your , you work , and every one of you defiles his neighbor's wife. So should you possess the land?"' "You shall tell them, ' says: "As I live, surely those who are in the waste places will fall . I will give whoever is in the open field to the animals to be devoured, and those who are in the strongholds and in the caves will of the pestilence. I will make the land a desolation and an astonishment. The pride of her will cease. The mountains of Israel will be desolate, so that no one will pass through. Then they will know that I am , when I have made the land a desolation and an astonishment because of all their which they have committed."' "As for you, , the children of your people talk about you by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak to one another, everyone to his brother, saying, 'Please come and hear what the word is that comes out from .' They come to you as the people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but don't do them; for with their they show much love, but their goes after their gain. Behold, you are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument; for they hear your words, but they don't do them. "When this comes to pass—behold, it comes—then they will know that a has been among them."
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Babylon and the exile, 612 BC to 539 BC ›
Babylon replaces Assyria, Jerusalem and its temple are destroyed in 586 BC, and the leadership of Judah lives in Mesopotamia without a king, a temple, or a country.
- Babylon
- Nebuchadnezzar II rebuilds the city on a scale meant to be seen from a distance: the Ishtar Gate in glazed blue brick, the processional way, the ziggurat, and gardens later counted among the wonders of the world. Babylonian tablets record rations issued to the captive king Jehoiachin of Judah by name, which is one of the tidier points of contact between the Bible and the archives.
- Egypt
- Briefly resurgent. Pharaoh Neco marches north, kills King Josiah at Megiddo, and installs and deposes kings in Jerusalem, until Babylon beats him decisively at Carchemish in 605 BC. Jeremiah spends his career saying that betting on Egypt is suicide, and is proved right.
- Judah
- Deported in stages, then destroyed. The temple is burned, the walls broken, and the leadership marched to Mesopotamia. What happens next is one of the strangest survivals in history: a people keeps its identity without land, king, or sanctuary, and comes out of it with its scriptures more central than before.
- Further afield
- An extraordinary century for ideas everywhere at once. Thales and the first Greek philosophers, Solon's reforms at Athens, the Buddha in India, Confucius and Lao Tzu in China, and Zoroaster in Persia all fall within a few generations of the exile.
All of Ezekiel