Episode 201: A mark on the forehead

Ezekiel 7-10

I won't pity you, and you'll know I'm God

7 ¹ God came to me [Ezekiel] and said,

² Son of man, this is what I say to Israel,

This is the end of the four corners of the land.

³ I'm sending my anger upon you.

I'll punish you for all of your abominations.

⁴ I won't spare or pity. And you'll know that I'm God.

⁵ Evil and only evil is coming.

¹¹ None of you will survive, and no one will mourn for you.

¹² It's coming soon.

¹⁴ I'm angry at everyone.

¹⁵ Those in the city will die from famine and pestilence, and those in the country will die with the sword.

¹⁷ All hands will be feeble; all knees will be weak.

¹⁸ Everyone will gird themselves with sackcloth. Horror and shame will cover their faces. And every head will be bald.

¹⁹ People will throw their silver onto the streets, and their gold will be worthless.

²³ Violent crime will be everywhere.

²⁵ Everything will be destroyed, and there'll be no peace.

²⁶ Mischief will follow mischief, and rumors upon rumor.

²⁷ I'll make trouble for everyone, and everyone will know that I'm God.

Ezekiel sees God's loins again!

8 ¹ One day, as I sat in my house with the elders of Judah, the hand of God fell upon me.

² And I saw what looked like God's loins. They were amber-colored and seemed to be on fire.

Special delivery

³ God sent down what looked like a hand, which grabbed me by my hair and lifted me up between heaven and earth and transported me to the seat of jealousy.

⁴ And the glory of the God was there.

⁷ God brought me to the door, where I saw a hole in the wall.

⁸ God said to me, "Son of man, dig a hole in the wall."

So I did that and found a door.

⁹ Then he said to me, "Go in and see all the abominations they do here."

¹⁰ So I went in and saw all kinds of creeping things, abominable beasts, and idols pictured on the wall.

¹⁶ God brought me to the inner court of his house, and there were twenty men facing east, worshiping the sun.

¹⁷ God said to me,

Did you see that, son of man? They commit abominations by putting the branch to their nose.

¹⁸ Therefore I won't spare or pity. I won't hear them when they cry to me.

A man in linen kills everyone in Jerusalem

9 ¹ God cried in my ears with a loud voice, saying,

Tell the men with destroying weapons to come here.

² Six men with slaughter weapons came and stood beside the altar. One was dressed in linen and had writing utensils in his hand.

³ God called to the man in linen, and said to him,

⁴ Put a mark on the foreheads of the men that sigh and cry about the abominations.

⁵ Then he said to the other men,

Go through the city and kill everyone. Don't spare or have pity on anyone.

⁶ Kill everyone: young, old, little children, and women, except for men who have the mark on their foreheads. Start in the temple by killing all the elders.

⁷ Defile my house by dumping the dead bodies in the courtyard.

And the men went through the city killing people.

⁸ While they were doing that, I fell on my face and said to God,

OMG! Will you in your fury kill everyone in Jerusalem?

⁹ God said

Yes, they deserve it, because they said, "God has forsaken the earth and can't see."

¹⁰ So I won't spare or have pity on any of them.

¹¹ And the man in linen with the writing instruments said to God, "I've done what you commanded."

Oh wheel!

10 ¹ I looked up and saw a sapphire throne appear in the sky.

² God said to a man in linen, "Go between the wheels and scatter hot coals over the city."

So he did that.

⁴ Then the glory of the Lord stood over the house.

^9-11 I saw wheels and wheels within wheels.

¹² Their entire bodies were covered with eyes.

¹³ I heard someone cry out to the wheels, saying, "Oh wheel!"

¹⁴ Each body had four faces: the face of a cherub, man, lion, and eagle.

¹⁵ These are the same creatures that I saw before.

¹⁸ The glory of the Lord left the house and stood over the cherubim.

¹⁹ The cherubim, with the wheels beside them, flew over to the east gate of God's house. The glory of the Lord was above them.

^20-21 The cherubim had four faces and four wings, with human hands under their wings.