Ezekiel 33

Thomson^{(i) 1} Again a word of the Lord came to me, saying, ² Son of man speak to the children of thy people and thou shalt say to them, With regard to a land on which I am about to bring a sword, when the people of that land take a man, one of themselves, and make him their watchman; ³ if he upon seeing the sword coming against the land, sound the trumpet and warn the people; ⁴ and he who heareth the trumpet doth not take warning; and the sword cometh and cutteth him off; his blood shall be on his own head. ⁵ Because upon hearing the sound of the trumpet he did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself; for had he taken warning he might have saved his life. ⁶ But if the watchman, upon seeing the sword coming, doth not sound the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword cometh and taketh the life of any of them; that person is taken off because of his iniquity; but his blood I will require at the watchman's hands. ⁷ Now, as for thee son of man, I have made thee a watchman to the house of Israel, therefore thou shalt hear a word from my mouth. ⁸ When I say to the sinner, Thou shalt die: if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way; that unrighteous man shall die for his iniquity; but his blood I will require at thy hand. ⁹ But if thou forewarn the wicked of his way to turn him from it; and he turn not from it, he shall die for his wickedness and thou hast delivered thy soul. ¹⁰ Now son of man, say to the house of Israel, Thus have you spoken, saying, Our errors and our iniquities are upon us; and in them we are pining away; how then can we live? ¹¹ Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked should turn from his way and live. Turn ye, turn ye from your way. Why do you die, house of Israel. ¹² Say to the children of thy people, The righteousness of a righteous man will not save him on the day when he goeth astray. Nor shall the iniquity of a wicked man bring ruin on him, on the day when he turneth away from his iniquity. What! cannot a righteous man be saved. ¹³ When I have spoken to the righteous, if he, trusting to his righteousness, shall commit iniquity, none of his righteous acts shall be remembered; for the iniquity which he hath done, even for it he shall die. ¹⁴ And when I say to the wicked, Thou shalt die: ¹⁵ if he turn from his sin and execute judgment and justice and restore a pledge and make compensation for acts of rapine and walk in the statutes of life without committing injustice, he shall live and not die. None of his sins which he committed shall be remembered. ¹⁶ Because he hath executed judgment and justice, for this he shall live. ¹⁷ Now will the children of thy people say, The way of the Lord is not straight? It is their own way which is not straight. ¹⁸ When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness and shall commit iniquities, for them he shall die. ¹⁹ And when the sinner turneth away from his iniquity and shall execute judgment and justice, for them he shall live. ²⁰ Yet this is what gave occasion to your saying, The way of the Lord is not straight. I will judge you, house of Israel, every one according to his ways. ²¹ Now it came to pass in the twelfth year of our captivity, in the twelfth month, on the fifth of the month, that one who had escaped from Jerusalem came to me and said, The city is taken. ²² Now the hand of the Lord had been upon me the evening before he arrived, and had opened my mouth. So when he came to me in the morning my mouth was opened and no more shut. ²³ And a word of the Lord came to me, saying, ²⁴ Son of man, they who dwell in the waste places in the land of Israel, say, Abraham was a single person, yet he had this land, now we are many; to us this land is given for a possession. ²⁵ [Omitted] ²⁶ [Omitted] ²⁷ Therefore say to them, Thus saith the Lord, Lord, As I live, they who dwell in the wastes shall fall by the sword; and they in the open country shall be delivered to the wild beasts of the field for food: and those in walled towns and those in caves I will destroy with pestilence ²⁸ and I will make the land a desert. And the pride of its strength shall be destroyed, and the mountains of Israel shall be desolate by reason of none passing through it. ²⁹ And they shall know that I am the Lord. For I will make their land a desert and it shall be wasted, because of all their abominations which they have committed. ³⁰ Now son of man, with regard to these children of thy people who speak of thee by the walls and in the porches of their houses, they indeed speak to one another, saying, "Let us assemble and hear what come from the Lord." ³¹ They come to thee as people assemble; and they sit before thee and hear thy words, but will not do them, because there is a lie in their mouth, and their heart goeth after their pollutions; ³² therefore thou art to them like the sound of a tuneful psaltery: they will hear thy words, but will not do them: ³³ but when they come to pass they will say, "Lo! they are come!" And they will know that there was a prophet among them.