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Ezekiel 8-11
New American Bible (Revised Edition)

Chapter 8

1 In the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth month,[a] as I was sitting in my house, with the elders of Judah sitting before me, the hand of the Lord God fell upon me there.(A) 2 I looked up and there was a figure that looked like a man.[b] Downward from what looked like his waist, there was fire; from his waist upward, like the brilliance of polished bronze.(B)

Vision of Abominations in the Temple. 3 He stretched out the form of a hand and seized me by the hair of my head. The spirit lifted me up[c] between earth and heaven and brought me in divine vision to Jerusalem(C) to the entrance of the inner gate facing north where the statue of jealousy that provokes jealousy stood. 4 There I saw the glory of the God of Israel, like the vision I had seen in the plain.(D) 5 He said to me: Son of man, lift your eyes to the north! I looked to the north and there in the entry north of the altar gate was this statue of jealousy.(E) 6 He asked, Son of man, do you see what they are doing? Do you see the great abominations that the house of Israel is practicing here, so that I must depart from my sanctuary? You shall see even greater abominations!(F)

7 Then he brought me to the entrance of the courtyard, and there I saw a hole in the wall. 8 Son of man, he ordered, dig through the wall. I dug through the wall—there was a doorway. 9 Go in, he said to me, and see the evil abominations they are doing here. 10 I went in and looked—figures of all kinds of creeping things and loathsome beasts,[d] all the idols of the house of Israel,(G) pictured around the wall. 11 Before them stood seventy of the elders of the house of Israel. Among them stood Jaazaniah, son of Shaphan, each with censer in hand; a cloud of incense drifted upward.(H) 12 Then he said to me: Do you see, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in his idol chamber? They think: “The Lord cannot see us; the Lord has forsaken the land.”(I) 13 He said: You will see them practicing even greater abominations.

14 Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the Lord. There women sat and wept for Tammuz.[e](J) 15 He said to me: Do you see this, son of man? You will see other abominations, greater than these!

16 Then he brought me into the inner court of the house of the Lord. There at the door of the Lord’s temple, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the Lord’s temple and their faces toward the east; they were bowing eastward[f] to the sun.(K) 17 He said: Do you see, son of man? Are the abominable things the house of Judah has done here so slight that they should also fill the land with violence, provoking me again and again? Now they are putting the branch to my nose![g] 18 Therefore I in turn will act furiously: my eye will not spare, nor will I take pity. Even if they cry out in a loud voice for me to hear, I shall not listen to them.

Chapter 9

Slaughter of the Idolaters. 1 Then he cried aloud for me to hear: Come, you scourges of the city! 2 And there were six men coming from the direction of the upper gate which faces north, each with a weapon of destruction in his hand. In their midst was a man dressed in linen, with a scribe’s case at his waist. They entered and stood beside the bronze altar.(L) 3 Then the glory of the God of Israel moved off the cherub and went up to the threshold of the temple. He called to the man dressed in linen with the scribe’s case at his waist,(M) 4 (N)and the Lord said to him:[h] Pass through the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and mark an X on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the abominations practiced within it. 5 To the others he said in my hearing: Pass through the city after him and strike! Do not let your eyes spare; do not take pity. 6 Old and young, male and female, women and children—wipe them out! But do not touch anyone marked with the X. Begin at my sanctuary. So they began with the elders who were in front of the temple.(O) 7 Defile the temple, he said to them, fill its courts with the slain. Then go out and strike in the city.

8 As they were striking, I was left alone. I fell on my face, crying out, “Alas, Lord God! Will you destroy all that is left of Israel when you pour out your fury on Jerusalem?” 9 He answered me: The guilt of the house of Israel and the house of Judah is too great to measure; the land is filled with bloodshed, the city with lawlessness. They think that the Lord has abandoned the land, that he does not see them. 10 My eye, however, will not spare, nor shall I take pity, but I will bring their conduct down upon their heads.

11 Just then the man dressed in linen with the scribe’s case at his waist made his report: “I have done as you commanded!”

Chapter 10

1 Then I looked and there above the firmament over the heads of the cherubim was something like a sapphire, something that looked like a throne.(P) 2 [i]And he said to the man dressed in linen: Go within the wheelwork under the cherubim; fill both your hands with burning coals from the place among the cherubim, then scatter them over the city. As I watched, he entered.(Q) 3 Now the cherubim were standing to the south of the temple when the man went in and a cloud filled the inner court. 4 The glory of the Lord had moved off the cherubim to the threshold of the temple; the temple was filled with the cloud, the whole court brilliant with the glory of the Lord. 5 The sound of the wings of the cherubim could be heard as far as the outer court; it was like the voice of God Almighty speaking.(R) 6 He commanded the man dressed in linen: Take fire from within the wheelwork among the cherubim. The man entered and stood by one of the wheels. 7 Thereupon a cherub stretched out a hand from among the cherubim toward the fire in the midst of the cherubim, took some, and put it in the hands of the one dressed in linen. He took it and came out. 8 Something like a human hand was visible under the wings of the cherubim. 9 I also saw four wheels beside the cherubim, one wheel beside each cherub, and the wheels appeared to have the sparkle of yellow topaz. 10 And the appearance of the four all seemed alike, as though one wheel were inside the other. 11 When they moved, they went in any of the four directions without veering as they moved; in whatever direction the first cherub faced, the others followed without veering as they went. 12 Their entire bodies—backs, hands, and wings—and wheels were covered with eyes all around like the four wheels.(S) 13 I heard the wheels called “wheelwork.” 14 Each living creature had four faces: the first a cherub, the second a human being, the third a lion, the fourth an eagle.(T) 15 [j]When the cherubim rose up, they were indeed the living creatures I had seen by the river Chebar.(U) 16 When the cherubim moved, the wheels went beside them; when the cherubim lifted up their wings to rise from the earth, even then the wheels did not leave their sides. 17 When they stood still, the wheels stood still; when they rose up, the wheels rose up with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in them. 18 Then the glory of the Lord left the threshold of the temple and took its place upon the cherubim. 19 The cherubim lifted their wings and rose up from the earth before my eyes as they departed with the wheels beside them. They stopped at the entrance of the eastern gate of the Lord’s house, and the glory of the God of Israel was up above them.(V) 20 [k]These were the living creatures I had seen beneath the God of Israel by the river Chebar. Now I knew they were cherubim.(W) 21 Each of them had four faces and four wings, and something like human hands under their wings. 22 Their faces looked just like the faces I had seen by the river Chebar; and each one went straight ahead.

Chapter 11

Death for the Remnant in Jerusalem. 1 The spirit lifted me up and brought me to the east gate of the house of the Lord facing east. There at the entrance of the gate were twenty-five men; among them I saw the public officials Jaazaniah, son of Azzur, and Pelatiah, son of Benaiah. 2 The Lord said to me: Son of man, these are the men who are planning evil and giving wicked counsel in this city. 3 They are saying, “No need to build houses! The city is the pot, and we are the meat.”[l](X) 4 Therefore prophesy against them, son of man, prophesy! 5 Then the spirit of the Lord fell upon me and told me to say: Thus says the Lord: This is how you talk, house of Israel. I know the things that come into your mind! 6 You have slain many in this city, filled its streets with the slain. 7 Therefore thus says the Lord God: The slain whom you piled up in it, that is the meat, the pot is the city. But you I will bring out of it.(Y) 8 You fear the sword—that sword I will bring upon you—oracle of the Lord God.(Z) 9 I will bring you out of the city, hand you over to foreigners, and execute judgments against you. 10 By the sword you shall fall. At the borders of Israel I will judge you so that you will know that I am the Lord. 11 The city shall not be a pot for you, nor shall you be meat within it. At the borders of Israel I will judge you,(AA) 12 so you shall know that I am the Lord, whose statutes you did not follow, whose ordinances you did not keep. Instead, you acted according to the ordinances of the nations around you.

13 While I was prophesying, Pelatiah, the son of Benaiah, dropped dead. I fell down on my face and cried out in a loud voice: “Alas, Lord God! You are finishing off what remains of Israel!”[m](AB)

Restoration for the Exiles. 14 The word of the Lord came to me: 15 [n]Son of man, the inhabitants of Jerusalem are saying about all your relatives, the other exiles, and all the house of Israel, “They are far away from the Lord. The land is given to us as a possession.”(AC) 16 Therefore say: Thus says the Lord God: I have indeed sent them far away among the nations, scattered them over the lands, and have been but little sanctuary for them in the lands to which they have gone. 17 Therefore, thus says the Lord God, I will gather you from the nations and collect you from the lands through which you were scattered, so I can give you the land of Israel.(AD) 18 They will enter it and remove all its atrocities and abominations. 19 (AE)And I will give them another heart and a new spirit I will put within them. From their bodies I will remove the hearts of stone, and give them hearts of flesh, 20 so that they walk according to my statutes, taking care to keep my ordinances. Thus they will be my people, and I will be their God.(AF) 21 But as for those whose hearts are devoted to their atrocities and abominations, I will bring their conduct down upon their heads—oracle of the Lord God.

22 Then the cherubim lifted their wings and the wheels alongside them, with the glory of the God of Israel above them.(AG) 23 [o]The glory of the Lord rose up from the middle of the city and came to rest on the mountain east of the city.(AH) 24 In a vision, the spirit lifted me up and brought me back to the exiles in Chaldea, by the spirit of God. The vision I had seen left me,(AI) 25 and I told the exiles everything the Lord had shown me.(AJ)

Footnotes

  1. 8:1 In the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth month: September, 592 B.C.
  2. 8:2 Looked like a man: the divine presence which accompanies Ezekiel in these visions. Cf. 40:3–4.
  3. 8:3 The spirit lifted me up: the prophet is transported in vision from Babylon to Jerusalem. Ezekiel may be drawing on his memory of the Temple from before his exile in 598 B.C. The statue of jealousy: the statue which provokes the Lord’s outrage against the insults of his own people; perhaps the statue of the goddess Asherah set up by Manasseh, king of Judah (cf. 2 Kgs 21:7; 2 Chr 33:7, 15). Although his successor, Josiah, had removed it (2 Kgs 23:6), the statue may have been set up again after his death.
  4. 8:10 Creeping things and loathsome beasts: perhaps images of Egyptian deities, often represented in animal form. During the last days of Jerusalem Zedekiah, king of Judah, was allied with Egypt, hoping for protection against the Babylonians.
  5. 8:14 Wept for Tammuz: the withering of trees and plants that began in late spring was attributed to the descent of Tammuz, the Mesopotamian god of fertility, to the world of the dead beneath the earth. During the fourth month of the year, female worshipers of Tammuz would wail and mourn the god’s disappearance.
  6. 8:16 Bowing eastward: sun worship was perhaps introduced as a condition of alliance with other nations. While Josiah removed some elements of this worship (2 Kgs 23:11), Manasseh, for example, built altars to all the “hosts of heaven” in two Temple courtyards (2 Kgs 21:5).
  7. 8:17 Putting the branch to my nose: the meaning is uncertain. It may be connected with the social injustice mentioned in v. 17b and in 9:9, e.g., “with their violence they tweak my nose,” i.e., “goad my fury.” The Masoretic text reads “their noses” as a euphemism for “my nose,” thus avoiding the impropriety of these idolaters coming into contact with God even figuratively.
  8. 9:4 Ezekiel emphasizes personal accountability; the innocent inhabitants of Jerusalem are spared while the idolatrous are punished. An X: lit., the Hebrew letter taw.
  9. 10:2–13 The burning coals, a sign of the divine presence (cf. 28:14; Ps 18:9), represent the judgment of destruction that God is visiting upon the city; they may also represent the judgment of purification that prepares the land to become the Lord’s sanctuary (cf. Is 6:6–7).
  10. 10:15–19 The throne represents God’s presence as ruler and protector of the land. In chap. 1, God is revealed as the lord of the world who can appear even in a far-off land; here God is about to abandon the Temple, that is, hand the city over to its enemies. God and the throne return again in 43:1–3.
  11. 10:20–22 The repetition of description from the preceding verses is a device intended to suggest the rapid, constantly changing motion of the vision and the difficulty of describing the divine in human language.
  12. 11:3 No need to build houses…meat: this advice is based on the conviction that invincible Jerusalem will protect its citizens from further danger just as a pot shields the meat inside from the fire. The poorer citizens of Jerusalem and the refugees from nearby villages can now appropriate the property abandoned by the city’s wealthier upper class when they were deported (v. 15). The metaphor of the pot and its contents reappears in chap. 24.
  13. 11:13 In Ezekiel’s vision Pelatiah represents the people left in Jerusalem, “the remnant of Israel.” His sudden death in the vision, but not in reality, is a figure for the judgment described in vv. 8–10 and prompts Ezekiel’s anguished question about the survival of the people left in the land after the deportations in 597.
  14. 11:15–21 Ezekiel insists that those who remained in Judah are doomed; the exiles, under a new covenant, will constitute a new Israel. Cf. chap. 36; Jer 24:7; 29.
  15. 11:23 The glory of the Lord departs toward the east, to the exiles in Babylon; it will return once the Temple is rebuilt (43:1–3).
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Ezekiel 7
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New American Bible (Revised Edition) (NABRE)

Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.