Ezekiel 7:18–22

¹⁰And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.

²He is gone up to Bajith, and to Dibon, the high places, to weep: Moab shall howl over Nebo, and over Medeba: on all their heads shall be baldness, and every beard cut off.

³In their streets they shall gird themselves with sackcloth: on the tops of their houses, and in their streets, every one shall howl, weeping abundantly.

³¹And they shall make themselves utterly bald for thee, and gird them with sackcloth, and they shall weep for thee with bitterness of heart and bitter wailing.

²⁴And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead of well set hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty.

⁶Even when I remember I am afraid, and trembling taketh hold on my flesh.

¹²And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.

²⁵We lie down in our shame, and our confusion covereth us: for we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.

³⁷For every head shall be bald, and every beard clipped: upon all the hands shall be cuttings, and upon the loins sackcloth.

²⁶Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion together that rejoice at mine hurt: let them be clothed with shame and dishonour that magnify themselves against me.

⁴My heart is sore pained within me: and the terrors of death are fallen upon me.

⁵Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me.

¹⁵And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;

¹⁶And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:

¹⁷For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

⁴Riches profit not in the day of wrath: but righteousness delivereth from death.

¹⁸Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord’s wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.

⁷For every one of the house of Israel, or of the stranger that sojourneth in Israel, which separateth himself from me, and setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to a prophet to inquire of him concerning me; I the Lord will answer him by myself:

¹⁹And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

²⁰But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?

²⁰In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats;

²⁶For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

¹⁰He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity.

³Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face: should I be inquired of at all by them?

⁴Therefore speak unto them, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet; I the Lord will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols;

¹²Because they ministered unto them before their idols, and caused the house of Israel to fall into iniquity; therefore have I lifted up mine hand against them, saith the Lord God, and they shall bear their iniquity.

¹²Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth, though he hide it under his tongue;

¹³Though he spare it, and forsake it not; but keep it still within his mouth:

¹⁴Yet his meat in his bowels is turned, it is the gall of asps within him.

¹⁵He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again: God shall cast them out of his belly.

¹⁶He shall suck the poison of asps: the viper’s tongue shall slay him.

¹⁷He shall not see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter.

¹⁸That which he laboured for shall he restore, and shall not swallow it down: according to his substance shall the restitution be, and he shall not rejoice therein.

¹⁹Because he hath oppressed and hath forsaken the poor; because he hath violently taken away an house which he builded not;

²⁰Surely he shall not feel quietness in his belly, he shall not save of that which he desired.

²¹There shall none of his meat be left; therefore shall no man look for his goods.

²²In the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits: every hand of the wicked shall come upon him.

²³When he is about to fill his belly, God shall cast the fury of his wrath upon him, and shall rain it upon him while he is eating.

²²Ye shall defile also the covering of thy graven images of silver, and the ornament of thy molten images of gold: thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth; thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence.

²Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.

³⁰They were not estranged from their lust. But while their meat was yet in their mouths,

³¹The wrath of God came upon them, and slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel.

⁹And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence unto them:

¹⁵And they went after them unto Jordan: and, lo, all the way was full of garments and vessels, which the Syrians had cast away in their haste. And the messengers returned, and told the king.

⁷Wherefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents, and their horses, and their asses, even the camp as it was, and fled for their life.

⁸And when these lepers came to the uttermost part of the camp, they went into one tent, and did eat and drink, and carried thence silver, and gold, and raiment, and went and hid it; and came again, and entered into another tent, and carried thence also, and went and hid it.

²¹Speak unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will profane my sanctuary, the excellency of your strength, the desire of your eyes, and that which your soul pitieth; and your sons and your daughters whom ye have left shall fall by the sword.

³⁰For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the Lord: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it.

¹⁵¶ Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.

¹⁶And he brought me into the inner court of the Lord’s house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.

⁷¶ And he brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall.

⁸Then said he unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall: and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door.

⁹And he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here.

¹⁰So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, pourtrayed upon the wall round about.

⁷And he said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city.

¹¹Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waste.

¹FURTHERMORE David the king said unto all the congregation, Solomon my son, whom alone God hath chosen, is yet young and tender, and the work is great: for the palace is not for man, but for the Lord God.

²Now I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God the gold for things to be made of gold, and the silver for things of silver, and the brass for things of brass, the iron for things of iron, and wood for things of wood; onyx stones, and stones to be set, glistering stones, and of divers colours, and all manner of precious stones, and marble stones in abundance.

⁹Even to prepare me timber in abundance: for the house which I am about to build shall be wonderful great.

¹THEN Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem in mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.

²And he began to build in the second day of the second month, in the fourth year of his reign.

³¶ Now these are the things wherein Solomon was instructed for the building of the house of God. The length by cubits after the first measure was threescore cubits, and the breadth twenty cubits.

⁴And the porch that was in the front of the house, the length of it was according to the breadth of the house, twenty cubits, and the height was an hundred and twenty: and he overlaid it within with pure gold.

⁵And the greater house he cieled with fir tree, which he overlaid with fine gold, and set thereon palm trees and chains.

⁶And he garnished the house with precious stones for beauty: and the gold was gold of Parvaim.

⁷He overlaid also the house, the beams, the posts, and the walls thereof, and the doors thereof, with gold; and graved cherubims on the walls.

⁸And he made the most holy house, the length whereof was according to the breadth of the house, twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits: and he overlaid it with fine gold, amounting to six hundred talents.

⁹And the weight of the nails was fifty shekels of gold. And he overlaid the upper chambers with gold.

¹⁰And in the most holy house he made two cherubims of image work, and overlaid them with gold.

¹¹¶ And the wings of the cherubims were twenty cubits long: one wing of the one cherub was five cubits, reaching to the wall of the house: and the other wing was likewise five cubits, reaching to the wing of the other cherub.

¹²And one wing of the other cherub was five cubits, reaching to the wall of the house: and the other wing was five cubits also, joining to the wing of the other cherub.

¹³The wings of these cherubims spread themselves forth twenty cubits: and they stood on their feet, and their faces were inward.

¹⁴¶ And he made the vail of blue, and purple, and crimson, and fine linen, and wrought cherubims thereon.

¹⁵Also he made before the house two pillars of thirty and five cubits high, and the chapiter that was on the top of each of them was five cubits.

¹⁶And he made chains, as in the oracle, and put them on the heads of the pillars; and made an hundred pomegranates, and put them on the chains.

¹⁷And he reared up the pillars before the temple, one on the right hand, and the other on the left; and called the name of that on the right hand Jachin, and the name of that on the left Boaz.

⁴Also he built altars in the house of the Lord, whereof the Lord had said, In Jerusalem shall my name be for ever.

⁵And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord.

⁶And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom: also he observed times, and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger.

⁷And he set a carved image, the idol which he had made, in the house of God, of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen before all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever:

¹⁴¶ Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem.

⁴And he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord said, In Jerusalem will I put my name.

⁷And he set a graven image of the grove that he had made in the house, of which the Lord said to David, and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever:

¹¹And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the Lord, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire.

¹²And the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, did the king beat down, and brake them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron.

¹¹Wherefore, as I live, saith the Lord God; Surely, because thou hast defiled my sanctuary with all thy detestable things, and with all thine abominations, therefore will I also diminish thee; neither shall mine eye spare, neither will I have any pity.

²²My face will I turn also from them, and they shall pollute my secret place: for the robbers shall enter into it, and defile it.

¹²But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy:

³Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing?

¹⁴Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.

¹⁰The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.

¹HOW hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!

⁷The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.

²Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King.

²Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined.

²The Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.

³Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God. Selah.

¹³And he carried out thence all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the Lord, as the Lord had said.

²Remember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old; the rod of thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed; this mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt.

³Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual desolations; even all that the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary.

⁴Thine enemies roar in the midst of thy congregations; they set up their ensigns for signs.

⁵A man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees.

⁶But now they break down the carved work thereof at once with axes and hammers.

⁷They have cast fire into thy sanctuary, they have defiled by casting down the dwelling place of thy name to the ground.

⁸They said in their hearts, Let us destroy them together: they have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land.

¹⁸And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king, and of his princes; all these he brought to Babylon.

¹⁹And they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof.

¹³And the pillars of brass that were in the house of the Lord, and the bases, and the brasen sea that was in the house of the Lord, did the Chaldees break in pieces, and carried the brass of them to Babylon.

¹⁴And the pots, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the spoons, and all the vessels of brass wherewith they ministered, took they away.

¹⁵And the firepans, and the bowls, and such things as were of gold, in gold, and of silver, in silver, the captain of the guard took away.

¹⁶The two pillars, one sea, and the bases which Solomon had made for the house of the Lord; the brass of all these vessels was without weight.

⁹And he burnt the house of the Lord, and the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great man’s house burnt he with fire.

¹³And burned the house of the Lord, and the king’s house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, and all the houses of the great men, burned he with fire:

¹⁴And all the army of the Chaldeans, that were with the captain of the guard, brake down all the walls of Jerusalem round about.

¹⁵Then Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard carried away captive certain of the poor of the people, and the residue of the people that remained in the city, and those that fell away, that fell to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the multitude.

¹⁶But Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard left certain of the poor of the land for vinedressers and for husbandmen.

¹⁷Also the pillars of brass that were in the house of the Lord, and the bases, and the brasen sea that was in the house of the Lord, the Chaldeans brake, and carried all the brass of them to Babylon.

¹⁸The caldrons also, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the bowls, and the spoons, and all the vessels of brass wherewith they ministered, took they away.

¹⁹And the basons, and the firepans, and the bowls, and the caldrons, and the candlesticks, and the spoons, and the cups; that which was of gold in gold, and that which was of silver in silver, took the captain of the guard away.

²⁰The two pillars, one sea, and twelve brasen bulls that were under the bases, which king Solomon had made in the house of the Lord: the brass of all these vessels was without weight.

²¹And concerning the pillars, the height of one pillar was eighteen cubits; and a fillet of twelve cubits did compass it; and the thickness thereof was four fingers: it was hollow.

²²And a chapiter of brass was upon it; and the height of one chapiter was five cubits, with network and pomegranates upon the chapiters round about, all of brass. The second pillar also and the pomegranates were like unto these.

²³And there were ninety and six pomegranates on a side; and all the pomegranates upon the network were an hundred round about.

¹O GOD, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps.

¹⁷I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will shew them the back, and not the face, in the day of their calamity.

²³¶ And the heathen shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity: because they trespassed against me, therefore hid I my face from them, and gave them into the hand of their enemies: so fell they all by the sword.

²⁴According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions have I done unto them, and hid my face from them.

¹¹He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it.

²²This thou hast seen, O Lord: keep not silence: O Lord, be not far from me.

¹⁰O God, how long shall the adversary reproach? shall the enemy blaspheme thy name for ever?

¹¹Why withdrawest thou thy hand, even thy right hand? pluck it out of thy bosom.

¹⁸Remember this, that the enemy hath reproached, O Lord, and that the foolish people have blasphemed thy name.

¹⁹O deliver not the soul of thy turtledove unto the multitude of the wicked: forget not the congregation of thy poor for ever.

²⁰Have respect unto the covenant: for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.

²¹O let not the oppressed return ashamed: let the poor and needy praise thy name.

²²Arise, O God, plead thine own cause: remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee daily.

²³Forget not the voice of thine enemies: the tumult of those that rise up against thee increaseth continually.