Ezekiel 9-10

New Living Translation

The Slaughter of Idolaters

9 Then the Lord thundered, “Bring on the men appointed to punish the city! Tell them to bring their weapons with them!” ² Six men soon appeared from the upper gate that faces north, each carrying a deadly weapon in his hand. With them was a man dressed in linen, who carried a writer’s case at his side. They all went into the Temple courtyard and stood beside the bronze altar.

³ Then the glory of the God of Israel rose up from between the cherubim, where it had rested, and moved to the entrance of the Temple. And the Lord called to the man dressed in linen who was carrying the writer’s case. ⁴ He said to him, “Walk through the streets of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of all who weep and sigh because of the detestable sins being committed in their city.”

⁵ Then I heard the Lord say to the other men, “Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy; have no pity! ⁶ Kill them all—old and young, girls and women and little children. But do not touch anyone with the mark. Begin right here at the Temple.” So they began by killing the seventy leaders.

⁷ “Defile the Temple!” the Lord commanded. “Fill its courtyards with corpses. Go!” So they went and began killing throughout the city.

⁸ While they were out killing, I was all alone. I fell face down on the ground and cried out, “O Sovereign Lord! Will your fury against Jerusalem wipe out everyone left in Israel?”

⁹ Then he said to me, “The sins of the people of Israel and Judah are very, very great. The entire land is full of murder; the city is filled with injustice. They are saying, ‘The Lord doesn’t see it! The Lord has abandoned the land!’ ¹⁰ So I will not spare them or have any pity on them. I will fully repay them for all they have done.”

¹¹ Then the man in linen clothing, who carried the writer’s case, reported back and said, “I have done as you commanded.”

The Lord’s Glory Leaves the Temple

10 In my vision I saw what appeared to be a throne of blue lapis lazuli above the crystal surface over the heads of the cherubim. ² Then the Lord spoke to the man in linen clothing and said, “Go between the whirling wheels beneath the cherubim, and take a handful of burning coals and scatter them over the city.” He did this as I watched.

³ The cherubim were standing at the south end of the Temple when the man went in, and the cloud of glory filled the inner courtyard. ⁴ Then the glory of the Lord rose up from above the cherubim and went over to the entrance of the Temple. The Temple was filled with this cloud of glory, and the courtyard glowed brightly with the glory of the Lord. ⁵ The moving wings of the cherubim sounded like the voice of God Almighty^[a] and could be heard even in the outer courtyard.

⁶ The Lord said to the man in linen clothing, “Go between the cherubim and take some burning coals from between the wheels.” So the man went in and stood beside one of the wheels. ⁷ Then one of the cherubim reached out his hand and took some live coals from the fire burning among them. He put the coals into the hands of the man in linen clothing, and the man took them and went out. ⁸ (All the cherubim had what looked like human hands under their wings.)

⁹ I looked, and each of the four cherubim had a wheel beside him, and the wheels sparkled like beryl. ¹⁰ All four wheels looked alike and were made the same; each wheel had a second wheel turning crosswise within it. ¹¹ The cherubim could move in any of the four directions they faced, without turning as they moved. They went straight in the direction they faced, never turning aside. ¹² Both the cherubim and the wheels were covered with eyes. The cherubim had eyes all over their bodies, including their hands, their backs, and their wings. ¹³ I heard someone refer to the wheels as “the whirling wheels.” ¹⁴ Each of the four cherubim had four faces: the first was the face of an ox,^[b] the second was a human face, the third was the face of a lion, and the fourth was the face of an eagle.

¹⁵ Then the cherubim rose upward. These were the same living beings I had seen beside the Kebar River. ¹⁶ When the cherubim moved, the wheels moved with them. When they lifted their wings to fly, the wheels stayed beside them. ¹⁷ When the cherubim stopped, the wheels stopped. When they flew upward, the wheels rose up, for the spirit of the living beings was in the wheels.

¹⁸ Then the glory of the Lord moved out from the entrance of the Temple and hovered above the cherubim. ¹⁹ And as I watched, the cherubim flew with their wheels to the east gate of the Lord’s Temple. And the glory of the God of Israel hovered above them.

²⁰ These were the same living beings I had seen beneath the God of Israel when I was by the Kebar River. I knew they were cherubim, ²¹ for each had four faces and four wings and what looked like human hands under their wings. ²² And their faces were just like the faces of the beings I had seen at the Kebar, and they traveled straight ahead, just as the others had.