World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Ezekiel 3
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is. Tap a verse number to see where it is taken up elsewhere.
He said to me, ", eat what you find. Eat this , and go, speak to the ." So I opened my , and he caused me to eat . He said to me, ", eat this that I give you and fill your belly and your bowels with it." Then I ate it. It was as sweet as honey in my . He said to me, ", go to the , and speak my words to them. For you are not sent to a people of a strange speech and of a hard language, but to the — not to many peoples of a strange speech and of a hard language, whose words you can't understand. Surely, if I sent you to them, they would listen to you. But the will not listen to you, for they will not listen to me; for all the are and hard-hearted. Behold, I have made your hard against their faces, and your forehead hard against their foreheads. I have made your forehead as a diamond, harder than flint. Don't be afraid of them, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house." Moreover he said to me, ", receive in and hear with your ears all my words that I speak to you. Go to them of , to the children of your people, and speak to them, and tell them, 'This is what says,' whether they will hear, or whether they will refuse." Then lifted me up, and I heard behind me the voice of a great rushing, saying, " be from his place." I heard the noise of the of the living creatures as they touched one another, and the noise of the wheels beside them, even the noise of a great rushing. So lifted me up, and took me away; and I went in bitterness, in the heat of ; and hand was strong on me. Then I came to them of at Tel Aviv who lived by the river , and to where they lived; and I sat there overwhelmed among them seven days. At the end of seven days, word came to me, saying, ", I have made you a watchman to the . Therefore hear the word from my , and warn them from me. When I tell , 'You will surely ;' and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn from his way, to his life, that man will in his ; but I will require his at your hand. Yet if you warn , and he doesn't turn from his wickedness, nor from his way, he will in his ; but you have your ." "Again, when a man turns from his and commits , and I lay a stumbling block before him, he will . Because you have not given him warning, he will in his , and his deeds which he has done will not be remembered; but I will require his at your hand. Nevertheless if you warn man, that not , and he does not , he will surely live, because he took warning; and you have your ." hand was there on me; and he said to me, "Arise, go out into the plain, and I will talk with you there." Then I arose, and went out into the plain, and behold, stood there, like the which I saw by the river . Then I fell on . Then entered into me and set me on my feet. He spoke with me, and said to me, "Go, shut yourself inside your house. But you, , behold, they will put ropes on you, and will bind you with them, and you will not go out among them. I will make your stick to the roof of your so that you will be mute and will not be able to correct them, for they are a rebellious house. But when I speak with you, I will open your , and you shall tell them, 'This is what says.' He who hears, let him hear; and he who refuses, let him refuse; for they are a rebellious house."
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