{[Chapter 21:6 in Hebrew]}And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,
Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop thy word toward the sanctuaries, and prophesy against the land of Israel;
and say to the land of Israel, Thus saith Jehovah: Behold, I am against thee, and will draw forth my sword out of its sheath, and will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked.
Seeing then that I will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked, therefore shall my sword go forth out of its sheath against all flesh from the south to the north:
and all flesh shall know that I, Jehovah, have drawn forth my sword out of its sheath; it shall not return any more.
Sigh therefore, thou son of man; with the breaking of thy loins and with bitterness shalt thou sigh before their eyes.
And it shall be, when they say unto thee, Wherefore sighest thou? that thou shalt say, Because of the tidings, for it cometh; and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall {Or, be dim}faint, and all knees shall be weak as water: behold, it cometh, and it shall be done, saith the Lord Jehovah.
And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying,
Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith Jehovah: Say, A sword, a sword, it is sharpened, and also furbished;
it is sharpened that it may make a slaughter; it is furbished that it may be as lightning: shall we then make mirth? {Or, it contemneth the rod of my son, as every tree}the rod of my son, it contemneth every tree.
And it is given to be furbished, that it may be handled: the sword, it is sharpened, yea, it is furbished, to give it into the hand of the slayer.
Cry and wail, son of man; for it is upon my people, it is upon all the princes of Israel: {Or, terrors by reason of the sword are upon my people}they are delivered over to the sword with my people; smite therefore upon thy thigh.
For there is a trial; and {Or, what if the sword contemn even the rod? it shall be no more &c.}what if even the rod that contemneth shall be no more? saith the Lord Jehovah.
Thou therefore, son of man, prophesy, and smite thy hands together; and let the sword be doubled the third time, the sword of the deadly wounded: it is the sword of the great one that is deadly wounded, which {Or, compasseth them about}entereth into their chambers.
I have set the {Or, glittering}threatening sword against all their gates, that their heart may melt, and their stumblings be multiplied: ah! it is made as lightning, it is pointed for slaughter.
{Hebrew: Make thyself one.}Gather thee together, go to the right, set thyself in array, go to the left, {Or, whither is thy face set?}whithersoever thy face is set.
I will also smite my hands together, and I will cause my wrath to rest: I, Jehovah, have spoken it.
The word of Jehovah came unto me again, saying,
Also, thou son of man, appoint thee two ways, that the sword of the king of Babylon may come; they twain shall come forth out of one land: and mark out a {Hebrew: hand.}place, mark it out at the head of the way to the city.
Thou shalt appoint a way for the sword to come to Rabbah of the children of Ammon, and to Judah in Jerusalem the fortified.
For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination: he shook the arrows to and fro, he consulted the teraphim, he looked in the liver.
In his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem, to set battering rams, to open the mouth {Or, for}in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to set battering rams against the gates, to cast up mounds, to build forts.
And it shall be unto them as a false divination in their sight, who have sworn oaths unto them; but he bringeth iniquity to remembrance, that they may be taken.
Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Because ye have made your iniquity to be remembered, in that your transgressions are uncovered, so that in all your doings your sins do appear; because that ye are come to remembrance, ye shall be taken with the hand.
And thou, O deadly wounded wicked one, the prince of Israel, whose day is come, in the time of the {Or, punishment}iniquity of the end,
thus saith the Lord Jehovah: {Or, I will remove &c.}Remove the mitre, and take off the crown; this shall be {Hebrew: not this.}no more the same; exalt that which is low, and abase that which is high.
{Hebrew: An overthrow, overthrow, overthrow, will I make it.}I will overturn, overturn, overturn it: this also shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him.
And thou, son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah concerning the children of Ammon, and concerning their reproach; and say thou, A sword, a sword is drawn, for the slaughter it is furbished, {Or, to the uttermost}to cause it to devour, that it may be as lightning;
while they see for thee false visions, while they divine lies unto thee, to lay thee upon the necks of the wicked that are deadly wounded, whose day is come in the time of the {Or, punishment}iniquity of the end.
Cause it to return into its sheath. In the place where thou wast created, in the land of {Or, thine origin}thy birth, will I judge thee.
And I will pour out mine indignation upon thee; I will blow upon thee with the fire of my wrath; and I will deliver thee into the hand of brutish men, skilful to destroy.
Thou shalt be for fuel to the fire; thy blood shall be in the midst of the land; thou shalt be no more remembered: for I, Jehovah, have spoken it.
Querverweise zu Hesekiel 21,24 Hes 21,24
And thou didst take of thy garments, and madest for thee high places decked with divers colors, and playedst the harlot upon them: the like things shall not come, neither shall it be so.
Thou didst also take thy {Or, beautiful vessels}fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest for thee {Or, male images}images of men, and didst play the harlot with them;
and thou tookest thy broidered garments, and coveredst them, and didst set mine oil and mine incense before them.
My bread also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou didst even set it before them for a sweet savor; and thus it was, saith the Lord Jehovah.
Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured. Were thy whoredoms a small matter,
that thou hast slain my children, and delivered them up, in {Or, setting them apart Hebrew: making them pass over.}causing them to pass through the fire unto them?
And in all thine abominations and thy whoredoms thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked and bare, and wast weltering in thy blood.
Behold, Jehovah, {Or, O thou strong man}like a strong man, will hurl thee away violently; yea, he will {Or, lay fast hold on thee}wrap thee up closely.
And thou shalt say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: A city that sheddeth blood in the midst of her, that her time may come, and that maketh idols against herself to defile her!
Thou art become guilty in thy blood that thou hast shed, and art defiled in thine idols which thou hast made; and thou hast caused thy days to draw near, and art come even unto thy years: therefore have I made thee a reproach unto the nations, and a mocking to all the countries.
Those that are near, and those that are far from thee, shall mock thee, thou {Hebrew: defiled of name.}infamous one and full of tumult.
Behold, the princes of Israel, every one according to his {Hebrew: arm.}power, have been in thee to shed blood.
In thee have they set light by father and mother; in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the sojourner; in thee have they wronged the fatherless and the widow.
Thou hast despised my holy things, and hast profaned my sabbaths.
Slanderous men have been in thee to shed blood; and in thee they have eaten upon the mountains: in the midst of thee they have committed lewdness.
In thee have they uncovered their fathers' nakedness; in thee have they humbled her that was unclean in her impurity.
And one hath committed abomination with his neighbor's wife; and another hath lewdly defiled his daughter-in-law; and another in thee hath humbled his sister, his father's daughter.
In thee have they taken bribes to shed blood; thou hast taken interest and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbors by oppression, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord Jehovah.
He will surely wind thee round and round, and toss thee like a ball into a large country; there shalt thou die, and there shall be the chariots of thy glory, thou shame of thy lord's house.
Son of man, say unto her, Thou art a land that is not cleansed, nor rained upon in the day of indignation.
There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey: they have devoured souls; they take treasure and precious things; they have made her widows many in the midst thereof.
Her priests have done violence to my law, and have profaned my holy things: they have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they caused men to discern between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.
Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, that they may get dishonest gain.
And her prophets have daubed for them with {Or, whitewash}untempered mortar, seeing false visions, and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, when Jehovah hath not spoken.
The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery; yea, they have vexed the poor and needy, and have oppressed the sojourner wrongfully.
And I sought for a man among them, that should build up the wall, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found none.
Therefore have I poured out mine indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath: their own way have I brought upon their heads, saith the Lord Jehovah.
And it shall come to pass, when they say unto thee, Whither shall we go forth? then thou shalt tell them, Thus saith Jehovah: Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for captivity, to captivity.
And Oholah played the harlot when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbors,
who were clothed with blue, governors and {Or, deputies See Jeremiah 51:23, &c.}rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding upon horses.
And she bestowed her whoredoms upon them, the choicest men of Assyria all of them; and on whomsoever she doted, with all their idols she defiled herself.
Neither hath she left her whoredoms {Or, brought from Egypt}since the days of Egypt; for in her youth they lay with her, and they handled the bosom of her virginity; and they poured out their whoredom upon her.
Wherefore I delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, upon whom she doted.
These uncovered her nakedness; they took her sons and her daughters; and her they slew with the sword: and she became a {Hebrew: name.}byword among women; for they executed judgments upon her.
And her sister Oholibah saw this, yet was she more corrupt in her doting than she, and in her whoredoms which were more than the whoredoms of her sister.
She doted upon the Assyrians, governors and rulers, her neighbors, clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them desirable young men.
And I saw that she was defiled; they both took one way.
And she increased her whoredoms; for she saw men portrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion,
girded with girdles upon their loins, with flowing turbans upon their heads, all of them princes to look upon, after the likeness of the Babylonians in {Or, the land of whose nativity is Chaldea}Chaldea, the land of their nativity.
And {Hebrew: at the sight of her eyes.}as soon as she saw them she doted upon them, and sent messengers unto them into Chaldea.
And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoredom, and she was polluted with them, and her soul was alienated from them.
So she uncovered her whoredoms, and uncovered her nakedness: then my soul was alienated from her, like as my soul was alienated from her sister.
Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, remembering the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt.
And she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.
Thus thou calledst to remembrance the lewdness of thy youth, in the handling of thy bosom by the Egyptians for the breasts of thy youth.
I saw the Lord standing {Or, upon}beside the altar: and he said, Smite the capitals, that the thresholds may shake; and break them in pieces on the head of all of them; and I will slay the last of them with the sword: {Or, he that fleeth of them shall not flee away, and he that escapeth of them shall not be delivered}there shall not one of them flee away, and there shall not one of them escape.
Though they dig into Sheol, thence shall my hand take them; and though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down.
And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and it shall bite them.
For her blood is in the midst of her; she set it upon the bare rock; she poured it not upon the ground, to cover it with dust.
{Or, Their respecting of persons doth &c.}The show of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have done evil unto themselves.
Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the innocent poor: {Or, I have not found it by secret search, but upon all these}thou didst not find them breaking in; but it is because of all these things.
Lift up thine eyes unto the bare heights, and see; where hast thou not been lain with? By the ways hast thou sat for them, as an Arabian in the wilderness; and thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness.
As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and waxed rich.
They are waxed fat, they shine: yea, they overpass in deeds of wickedness; they plead not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge.
{Or, They shall be put to shame because they have committed abomination; yea, they are not &c.}Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall; at the time that I visit them they shall {Or, stumble}be cast down, saith Jehovah.
Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall; in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, saith Jehovah.
Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging-place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.
And they bend their tongue, as it were their bow, for falsehood; and they are grown strong in the land, but not for {Or, faithfulness}truth: for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith Jehovah.
Take ye heed every one of his neighbor, and trust ye not in any brother; for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will go about with slanders.
And they will {Or, mock}deceive every one his neighbor, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves to commit iniquity.
Thy habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith Jehovah.
Therefore thus saith Jehovah of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how else should I do, because of the daughter of my people?
There is nought but swearing and breaking faith, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery; they break out, and blood toucheth blood.
They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.
The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet they lean upon Jehovah, and say, Is not Jehovah in the midst of us? no evil shall come upon us.
Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.