EZEKIEL 3:16-6:14
HEBREWS 4:1-16
PSALM 104:24-35
PROVERBS 26:27
EZEKIEL 3:16-6:14
At the end of the seven days, the LORD gave me [Ezekiel] a message. He said, 17 " Son of man, I have appointed you as a watchman for Israel. Whenever you receive a message from me, pass it on to the people immediately. 18 If I warn the wicked, saying, ` You are under the penalty of death,' but you fail to deliver the warning, they will die in their sins. And I will hold you responsible, demanding your blood for theirs. 19 If you warn them and they keep on sinning and refuse to repent, they will die in their sins. But you will have saved your life because you did what you were told to do. 20 If good people turn bad and don't listen to my warning, they will die. If you did not warn them of the consequences, then they will die in their sins. Their previous good deeds won't help them, and I will hold you responsible, demanding your blood for theirs. 21 But if you warn them and they repent, they will live, and you will have saved your own life, too." 22 Then the LORD took hold of me, and he said to me, " Go out into the valley, and I will talk to you there." 23 So I got up and went, and there I saw the glory of the LORD, just as I had seen it in my first vision by the Kebar River. And I fell face down in the dust. 24 Then the Spirit came into me and set me on my feet. He talked to me and said, " Go, shut yourself up in your house. 25 There you will be bound with ropes so you cannot go out among the people. 26 And I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so you won't be able to pray for them, for they are rebellious. 27 But whenever I give you a message, I will loosen your tongue and let you speak. Then you will say to them, ` This is what the Sovereign LORD says!' Some of them will listen, but some will ignore you, for they are rebels.4:1 " AND now, son of man, take a large brick and set it down in front of you. Then draw a map of the city of Jerusalem on it. 2 Build siege ramps against the city walls. Surround it with enemy camps and battering rams. 3 Then take an iron griddle and place it between you and the city. Turn toward it and demonstrate how the enemy will attack Jerusalem. This will be a warning to the people of Israel. 4 " Now lie on your left side and place the sins of Israel on yourself. You are to bear their sins for the number of days you lie there on your side. 5 You will bear Israel's sins for 390 days--one day for each year of their sin. 6 After that, turn over and lie on your right side for 40 days--one day for each year of Judah's sin. 7 " Meanwhile, continue your demonstration of the siege of Jerusalem. Lie there with your arm bared and prophesy her destruction. 8 I will tie you up with ropes so you won't be able to turn from side to side until the days of your siege have been completed.9 " Now go and get some wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, and mix them together in a storage jar. Use this food to make bread for yourself during the 390 days you will be lying on your side. 10 Ration this out to yourself, eight ounces of food for each day, and eat it at set times. 11 Then measure out a jar of water for each day, and drink it at set times. 12 Each day prepare your bread as you would barley cakes. While all the people are watching, bake it over a fire using dried human dung as fuel and then eat the bread. 13 For this is what the LORD says: Israel will eat defiled bread in the Gentile lands, where I will banish them!" 14 Then I said, " O Sovereign LORD, must I be defiled by using human dung? For I have never been defiled before. From the time I was a child until now I have never eaten any animal that died of sickness or that I found dead. And I have never eaten any of the animals that our laws forbid." 15 " All right," the LORD said. " You may bake your bread with cow dung instead of human dung." 16 Then he told me, " Son of man, I will cause food to be very scarce in Jerusalem. It will be weighed out with great care and eaten fearfully. The water will be portioned out drop by drop, and the people will drink it with dismay. 17 Food and water will be so scarce that the people will look at one another in terror, and they will waste away under their punishment.5:1 " SON of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a razor to shave your head and beard. Use a scale to weigh the hair into three equal parts. 2 Place a third of it at the center of your map of Jerusalem. After acting out the siege, burn it there. Scatter another third across your map and slash at it with a sword. Scatter the last third to the wind, for I will scatter my people with the sword. 3 Keep just a bit of the hair and tie it up in your robe. 4 Then take a few of these hairs out and throw them into the fire, burning them up. A fire will then spread from this remnant and destroy all of Israel. 5 " This is what the Sovereign LORD says: This is an illustration of what will happen to Jerusalem. I placed her at the center of the nations, 6 but she has rebelled against my regulations and has been even more wicked than the surrounding nations. She has refused to obey the laws I gave her to follow. 7 So this is what the Sovereign LORD says: Since you have refused to obey my laws and regulations and have behaved even worse than your neighbors, 8 I myself, the Sovereign LORD, am now your enemy. I will punish you publicly while all the nations watch. 9 Because of your detestable idols, I will punish you more severely than I have punished anyone before or ever will again. 10 Parents will eat their own children, and children will eat their parents. And I will punish you by scattering the few who survive to the far reaches of the earth. 11 " As surely as I live, says the Sovereign LORD, I will cut you off completely. I will show you no pity at all because you have defiled my Temple with idols and vile practices. 12 A third of your people will die in the city from famine and disease. A third of them will be slaughtered by the enemy outside the city walls. And I will scatter a third to the winds and chase them with my sword. 13 Then at last my anger will be spent, and I will be satisfied. And when my fury against them has subsided, all Israel will know that I, the LORD, have spoken to them in my jealous anger. 14 " So I will turn you into a ruin, a mockery in the eyes of the surrounding nations and to everyone who travels by. 15 You will become an object of mockery and taunting and horror. You will be a warning to all the nations around you. They will see what happens when the LORD turns against a nation in furious rebuke. I, the LORD, have spoken! 16 " I will shower you with the deadly arrows of famine to destroy you. The famine will become more and more severe until every crumb of food is gone. 17 And along with the famine, wild animals will attack you, robbing you of your children. Disease and war will stalk your land, and I will bring the sword of the enemy against you. I, the LORD, have spoken!"6:1 AGAIN a message came to me from the LORD: 2 " Son of man, look over toward the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them. 3 Give the mountains of Israel this message from the Sovereign LORD. This is what the Sovereign LORD says to the mountains and hills and to the ravines and valleys: I am about to bring war upon you, and I will destroy your pagan shrines. 4 All your altars will be demolished, and your incense altars will be smashed. I will kill your people in front of your idols. 5 I will lay your corpses in front of your idols and scatter your bones around your altars. 6 Wherever you live there will be desolation. I will destroy your pagan shrines, your altars, your idols, your incense altars, and all the other religious objects you have made. 7 Then when the place is littered with corpses, you will know that I am the LORD. 8 " But I will let a few of my people escape destruction, and they will be scattered among the nations of the world. 9 Then when they are exiled among the nations, they will remember me. They will recognize how grieved I am by their unfaithful hearts and lustful eyes that long for other gods. Then at last they will hate themselves for all their wickedness. 10 They will know that I alone am the LORD and that I was serious when I predicted that all this would happen to them. 11 " This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Clap your hands in horror, and stamp your feet. Cry out, ` Alas!' because of all the evil that the people of Israel have done. Now they are going to die from war and famine and disease. 12 Disease will strike down those who are far away in exile. War will destroy those who are nearby. And anyone who survives will be killed by famine. So at last I will spend my fury on them. 13 When their dead lie scattered among their idols and altars, on every hill and mountain and under every green tree and great oak where they offered incense to their gods, then they will know that I alone am the LORD. 14 I will crush them and make their cities desolate from the wilderness in the south to Riblah in the north. Then they will know that I am the LORD."
HEBREWS 4:1-16
God's promise of entering his place of rest still stands, so we ought to tremble with fear that some of you might fail to get there. 2 For this Good News--that God has prepared a place of rest--has been announced to us just as it was to them. But it did them no good because they didn't believe what God told them. 3 For only we who believe can enter his place of rest. As for those who didn't believe, God said, " In my anger I made a vow:
` They will never enter my place of rest,' "
even though his place of rest has been ready since he made the world. 4 We know it is ready because the Scriptures mention the seventh day, saying, " On the seventh day God rested from all his work." 5 But in the other passage God said, " They will never enter my place of rest." 6 So God's rest is there for people to enter. But those who formerly heard the Good News failed to enter because they disobeyed God. 7 So God set another time for entering his place of rest, and that time is today. God announced this through David a long time later in the words already quoted: " Today you must listen to his voice.
Don't harden your hearts against him."
8 This new place of rest was not the land of Canaan, where Joshua led them. If it had been, God would not have spoken later about another day of rest. 9 So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God. 10 For all who enter into God's rest will find rest from their labors, just as God rested after creating the world. 11 Let us do our best to enter that place of rest. For anyone who disobeys God, as the people of Israel did, will fall. 12 For the word of God is full of living power. It is sharper than the sharpest knife, cutting deep into our innermost thoughts and desires. It exposes us for what we really are. 13 Nothing in all creation can hide from him. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes. This is the God to whom we must explain all that we have done. 14 That is why we have a great High Priest who has gone to heaven, Jesus the Son of God. Let us cling to him and never stop trusting him. 15 This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same temptations we do, yet he did not sin. 16 So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it.
PSALM 104:24-35
O LORD, what a variety of things you have made!
In wisdom you have made them all.
The earth is full of your creatures.
25 Here is the ocean, vast and wide,
teeming with life of every kind,
both great and small.
26 See the ships sailing along,
and Leviathan, which you made to play in the sea.
27 Every one of these depends on you
to give them their food as they need it.
28 When you supply it, they gather it.
You open your hand to feed them, and they are satisfied.
29 But if you turn away from them, they panic.
When you take away their breath, they die
and turn again to dust.
30 When you send your Spirit, new life is born
to replenish all the living of the earth.
31 May the glory of the LORD last forever!
The LORD rejoices in all he has made!
32 The earth trembles at his glance;
the mountains burst into flame at his touch.
33 I will sing to the LORD as long as I live.
I will praise my God to my last breath!
34 May he be pleased by all these thoughts about him,
for I rejoice in the LORD.
35 Let all sinners vanish from the face of the earth;
let the wicked disappear forever.
As for me--I will praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD!
PROVERBS 26:27
If you set a trap for others, you will get caught in it yourself. If you roll a boulder down on others, it will roll back and crush you.
