God Promises to Rescue His People

¹Israel, the Lord who created you says, “Do not be afraid—I will save you. I have called you by name—you are mine.

²When you pass through deep waters, I will be with you; your troubles will not overwhelm you. When you pass through fire, you will not be burned; the hard trials that come will not hurt you.

³For I am the Lord your God, the holy God of Israel, who saves you. I will give up Egypt to set you free; I will give up Ethiopia and Seba.

⁴I will give up whole nations to save your life, because you are precious to me and because I love you and give you honor.

⁵Do not be afraid—I am with you! “From the distant east and the farthest west I will bring your people home.

⁶I will tell the north to let them go and the south not to hold them back. Let my people return from distant lands, from every part of the world.

⁷They are my own people, and I created them to bring me glory.”

Israel Is the Lord's Witness

⁸God says, “Summon my people to court. They have eyes, but they are blind; they have ears, but they are deaf!

⁹Summon the nations to come to the trial. Which of their gods can predict the future? Which of them foretold what is happening now? Let these gods bring in their witnesses to prove that they are right, to testify to the truth of their words.

¹⁰“People of Israel, you are my witnesses; I chose you to be my servant, so that you would know me and believe in me and understand that I am the only God. Besides me there is no other god; there never was and never will be.

¹¹“I alone am the Lord, the only one who can save you.

¹²I predicted what would happen, and then I came to your aid. No foreign god has ever done this; you are my witnesses.

¹³I am God and always will be. No one can escape from my power; no one can change what I do.”

Escape from Babylon

¹⁴Israel's holy God, the Lord who saves you, says, “To save you, I will send an army against Babylon; I will break down the city gates, and the shouts of her people will turn into crying.

¹⁵I am the Lord, your holy God. I created you, Israel, and I am your king.”

¹⁶Long ago the Lord made a road through the sea, a path through the swirling waters.

¹⁷He led a mighty army to destruction, an army of chariots and horses. Down they fell, never to rise, snuffed out like the flame of a lamp!

¹⁸But the Lord says, “Do not cling to events of the past or dwell on what happened long ago.

¹⁹Watch for the new thing I am going to do. It is happening already—you can see it now! I will make a road through the wilderness and give you streams of water there.

²⁰Even the wild animals will honor me; jackals and ostriches will praise me when I make rivers flow in the desert to give water to my chosen people.

²¹They are the people I made for myself, and they will sing my praises!”

Israel's Sin

²²The Lord says, “But you were tired of me, Israel; you did not worship me.

²³You did not bring me your burnt offerings of sheep; you did not honor me with your sacrifices. I did not burden you by demanding offerings or wear you out by asking for incense.

²⁴You didn't buy incense for me or satisfy me with the fat of your animals. Instead you burdened me with your sins; you wore me out with the wrongs you have committed.

²⁵And yet, I am the God who forgives your sins, and I do this because of who I am. I will not hold your sins against you.

²⁶“Let us go to court; bring your accusation! Present your case to prove you are in the right!

²⁷Your earliest ancestor sinned; your leaders sinned against me,

²⁸and your rulers profaned my sanctuary. So I brought destruction on Israel; I let my own people be insulted.”

The Lord Is the Only God

¹The Lord says, “Listen now, Israel, my servant, my chosen people, the descendants of Jacob.

²I am the Lord who created you; from the time you were born, I have helped you. Do not be afraid; you are my servant, my chosen people whom I love.

³“I will give water to the thirsty land and make streams flow on the dry ground. I will pour out my spirit on your children and my blessing on your descendants.

⁴They will thrive like well-watered grass, like willows by streams of running water.

⁵“One by one, people will say, ‘I am the Lord's.’ They will come to join the people of Israel. They each will mark the name of the Lord on their arms and call themselves one of God's people.”

⁶The Lord, who rules and protects Israel, the Lord Almighty, has this to say: “I am the first, the last, the only God; there is no other god but me.

⁷Could anyone else have done what I did? Who could have predicted all that would happen from the very beginning to the end of time?

⁸Do not be afraid, my people! You know that from ancient times until now I have predicted all that would happen, and you are my witnesses. Is there any other god? Is there some powerful god I never heard of?”

Idolatry Is Ridiculed

⁹All those who make idols are worthless, and the gods they prize so highly are useless. Those who worship these gods are blind and ignorant—and they will be disgraced.

¹⁰It does no good to make a metal image to worship as a god!

¹¹Everyone who worships it will be humiliated. The people who make idols are human beings and nothing more. Let them come and stand trial—they will be terrified and will suffer disgrace.

¹²The metalworker takes a piece of metal and works with it over a fire. His strong arm swings a hammer to pound the metal into shape. As he works, he gets hungry, thirsty, and tired.

¹³The carpenter measures the wood. He outlines a figure with chalk, carves it out with his tools, and makes it in the form of a man, a handsome human figure, to be placed in his house.

¹⁴He might cut down cedars to use, or choose oak or cypress wood from the forest. Or he might plant a laurel tree and wait for the rain to make it grow.

¹⁵A person uses part of a tree for fuel and part of it for making an idol. With one part he builds a fire to warm himself and bake bread; with the other part he makes a god and worships it.

¹⁶With some of the wood he makes a fire; he roasts meat, eats it, and is satisfied. He warms himself and says, “How nice and warm! What a beautiful fire!”

¹⁷The rest of the wood he makes into an idol, and then he bows down and worships it. He prays to it and says, “You are my god—save me!”

¹⁸Such people are too stupid to know what they are doing. They close their eyes and their minds to the truth.

¹⁹The maker of idols hasn't the wit or the sense to say, “Some of the wood I burned up. I baked some bread on the coals, and I roasted meat and ate it. And the rest of the wood I made into an idol. Here I am bowing down to a block of wood!”

²⁰It makes as much sense as eating ashes. His foolish ideas have so misled him that he is beyond help. He won't admit to himself that the idol he holds in his hand is not a god at all.

The Lord, the Creator and Savior

²¹The Lord says, “Israel, remember this; remember that you are my servant. I created you to be my servant, and I will never forget you.

²²I have swept your sins away like a cloud. Come back to me; I am the one who saves you.”

²³Shout for joy, you heavens! Shout, deep places of the earth! Shout for joy, mountains, and every tree of the forest! The Lord has shown his greatness by saving his people Israel.

²⁴“I am the Lord, your savior; I am the one who created you. I am the Lord, the Creator of all things. I alone stretched out the heavens; when I made the earth, no one helped me.

²⁵I make fools of fortunetellers and frustrate the predictions of astrologers. The words of the wise I refute and show that their wisdom is foolishness.

²⁶But when my servant makes a prediction, when I send a messenger to reveal my plans, I make those plans and predictions come true. I tell Jerusalem that people will live there again, and the cities of Judah that they will be rebuilt. Those cities will rise from the ruins.

²⁷With a word of command I dry up the ocean.

²⁸I say to Cyrus, ‘You are the one who will rule for me; you will do what I want you to do: you will order that Jerusalem be rebuilt and that the foundations of the Temple be laid.’”

Ezekiel Acts Out the Siege of Jerusalem

¹God said, “Mortal man, get a brick, put it in front of you, and scratch lines on it to represent the city of Jerusalem.

²Then, to represent a siege, put trenches, earthworks, camps, and battering rams all around it.

³Take an iron pan and set it up like a wall between you and the city. Face the city. It is under siege, and you are the one besieging it. This will be a sign to the nation of Israel.

^4-5“Then lie down on your left side, and I will place on you the guilt of the nation of Israel. For 390 days you will stay there and suffer because of their guilt. I have sentenced you to one day for each year their punishment will last.

⁶When you finish that, turn over on your right side and suffer for the guilt of Judah for forty days—one day for each year of their punishment.

⁷“Fix your eyes on the siege of Jerusalem. Shake your fist at the city and prophesy against it.

⁸I will tie you up so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until the siege is over.

⁹“Now take some wheat, barley, beans, peas, millet, and spelt. Mix them all together and make bread. That is what you are to eat during the 390 days you are lying on your left side.

¹⁰You will be allowed eight ounces of bread a day, and it will have to last until the next day.

¹¹You will also have a limited amount of water to drink, two cups a day.

¹²You are to build a fire out of dried human excrement, bake bread on the fire, and eat it where everyone can see you.”

¹³The Lord said, “This represents the way the Israelites will have to eat food which the Law forbids, when I scatter them to foreign countries.”

¹⁴But I replied, “No, Sovereign Lord! I have never defiled myself. From childhood on I have never eaten meat from any animal that died a natural death or was killed by wild animals. I have never eaten any food considered unclean.”

¹⁵So God said, “Very well. I will let you use cow dung instead, and you can bake your bread on that.”

¹⁶And he added, “Mortal man, I am going to cut off the supply of bread for Jerusalem. The people there will be distressed and anxious as they measure out the food they eat and the water they drink.

¹⁷They will run out of bread and water; they will be in despair, and they will waste away because of their sins.”

Ezekiel Cuts His Hair

¹The Lord said, “Mortal man, take a sharp sword and use it to shave off your beard and all your hair. Then weigh the hair on scales and divide it into three parts.

²Burn up a third of it in the city when the siege is over. Take another third and chop it up with your sword as you move around outside the city. Scatter the remaining third to the winds, and I will pursue it with my sword.

³Keep back a few hairs and wrap them in the hem of your clothes.

⁴Then take a few of them out again, throw them in the fire, and let them burn up. From them fire will spread to the whole nation of Israel.”

⁵The Sovereign Lord said, “Look at Jerusalem. I put her at the center of the world, with other countries all around her.

⁶But Jerusalem rebelled against my commands and showed that she was more wicked than the other nations, more disobedient than the countries around her. Jerusalem rejected my commands and refused to keep my laws.

⁷Now listen, Jerusalem, to what I, the Sovereign Lord, am saying. By not obeying my laws or keeping my commands, you have caused more trouble than the nations around you. You have followed the customs of other nations.

⁸And so I, the Sovereign Lord, am telling you that I am your enemy. I will pass judgment on you where all the nations can see it.

⁹Because of all the things you do that I hate, I will punish Jerusalem as I have never done before and will never do again.

¹⁰As a result, parents in Jerusalem will eat their children, and children will eat their parents. I will punish you and scatter in every direction any who are left alive.

¹¹“Therefore, as I am the living God—this is the word of the Sovereign Lord—because you defiled my Temple with all the evil, disgusting things you did, I will cut you down without mercy.

¹²A third of your people will die from sickness and hunger in the city; a third will be cut down by swords outside the city; and I will scatter the last third to the winds and pursue them with a sword.

¹³“You will feel all the force of my anger and rage until I am satisfied. When all this happens, you will be convinced that I, the Lord, have spoken to you because I am outraged at your unfaithfulness.

¹⁴Everyone from the nations around you who passes by will sneer at you and keep their distance.

¹⁵“When I am angry and furious with you and punish you, all the nations around you will be terrified. They will look at you with disgust and make fun of you.

¹⁶I will cut off your supply of food and let you starve. You will feel the pains of hunger like sharp arrows sent to destroy you.

¹⁷I will send hunger and wild animals to kill your children, and will send sickness, violence, and war to kill you. I, the Lord, have spoken.”

⁵Honest people will treat you fairly; the wicked only want to deceive you.

⁶The words of the wicked are murderous, but the words of the righteous rescue those who are threatened.

⁷The wicked meet their downfall and leave no descendants, but the families of the righteous live on.

⁸If you are intelligent, you will be praised; if you are stupid, people will look down on you.