| 5:1 | "Now, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a barber's razor to shave your head and your beard. Then take a set of scales and divide up the hair.
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| 5:2 | When the days of your siege come to an end, burn a third of the hair with fire inside the city. Take a third and strike it with the sword all around the city. And scatter a third to the wind. For I will pursue them with drawn sword.
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| 5:3 | But take a few strands of hair and tuck them away in the folds of your garment.
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| 5:4 | Again, take a few of these and throw them into the fire and burn them up. A fire will spread from there to the whole house of Israel.
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| 5:5 | "This is what the Sovereign LORD says |
| 5:6 | Yet in her wickedness she has rebelled against my laws and decrees more than the nations and countries around her. She has rejected my laws and has not followed my decrees.
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| 5:7 | "Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says |
| 5:8 | "Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says |
| 5:9 | Because of all your detestable idols, I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again.
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| 5:10 | Therefore in your midst fathers will eat their children, and children will eat their fathers. I will inflict punishment on you and will scatter all your survivors to the winds.
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| 5:11 | Therefore as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your vile images and detestable practices, I myself will withdraw my favor; I will not look on you with pity or spare you.
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| 5:12 | A third of your people will die of the plague or perish by famine inside you; a third will fall by the sword outside your walls; and a third I will scatter to the winds and pursue with drawn sword.
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| 5:13 | "Then my anger will cease and my wrath against them will subside, and I will be avenged. And when I have spent my wrath upon them, they will know that I the LORD have spoken in my zeal.
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| 5:14 | "I will make you a ruin and a reproach among the nations around you, in the sight of all who pass by.
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| 5:15 | You will be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and an object of horror to the nations around you when I inflict punishment on you in anger and in wrath and with stinging rebuke. I the LORD have spoken.
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| 5:16 | When I shoot at you with my deadly and destructive arrows of famine, I will shoot to destroy you. I will bring more and more famine upon you and cut off your supply of food.
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| 5:17 | I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I the LORD have spoken."
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| 6:1 | The word of the LORD came to me |
| 6:2 | "Son of man, set your face against the mountains of Israel; prophesy against them
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| 6:3 | and say |
| 6:4 | Your altars will be demolished and your incense altars will be smashed; and I will slay your people in front of your idols.
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| 6:5 | I will lay the dead bodies of the Israelites in front of their idols, and I will scatter your bones around your altars.
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| 6:6 | Wherever you live, the towns will be laid waste and the high places demolished, so that your altars will be laid waste and devastated, your idols smashed and ruined, your incense altars broken down, and what you have made wiped out.
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| 6:7 | Your people will fall slain among you, and you will know that I am the LORD.
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| 6:8 | ""But I will spare some, for some of you will escape the sword when you are scattered among the lands and nations.
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| 6:9 | Then in the nations where they have been carried captive, those who escape will remember me-- how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts, which have turned away from me, and by their eyes, which have lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their detestable practices.
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| 6:10 | And they will know that I am the LORD; I did not threaten in vain to bring this calamity on them.
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| 6:11 | ""This is what the Sovereign LORD says |
| 6:12 | He that is far away will die of the plague, and he that is near will fall by the sword, and he that survives and is spared will die of famine. So will I spend my wrath upon them.
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| 6:13 | And they will know that I am the LORD, when their people lie slain among their idols around their altars, on every high hill and on all the mountaintops, under every spreading tree and every leafy oak-- places where they offered fragrant incense to all their idols.
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| 6:14 | And I will stretch out my hand against them and make the land a desolate waste from the desert to Diblah--wherever they live. Then they will know that I am the LORD.""
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| 7:1 | The word of the LORD came to me |
| 7:2 | "Son of man, this is what the Sovereign LORD says to the land of Israel |
| 7:3 | The end is now upon you and I will unleash my anger against you. I will judge you according to your conduct and repay you for all your detestable practices.
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| 7:4 | I will not look on you with pity or spare you; I will surely repay you for your conduct and the detestable practices among you. Then you will know that I am the LORD.
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| 7:5 | "This is what the Sovereign LORD says |
| 7:6 | The end has come! The end has come! It has roused itself against you. It has come!
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| 7:7 | Doom has come upon you-- you who dwell in the land. The time has come, the day is near; there is panic, not joy, upon the mountains.
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| 7:8 | I am about to pour out my wrath on you and spend my anger against you; I will judge you according to your conduct and repay you for all your detestable practices.
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| 7:9 | I will not look on you with pity or spare you; I will repay you in accordance with your conduct and the detestable practices among you. Then you will know that it is I the LORD who strikes the blow.
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| 7:10 | "The day is here! It has come! Doom has burst forth, the rod has budded, arrogance has blossomed!
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| 7:11 | Violence has grown into a rod to punish wickedness; none of the people will be left, none of that crowd-- no wealth, nothing of value.
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| 7:12 | The time has come, the day has arrived. Let not the buyer rejoice nor the seller grieve, for wrath is upon the whole crowd.
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| 7:13 | The seller will not recover the land he has sold as long as both of them live, for the vision concerning the whole crowd will not be reversed. Because of their sins, not one of them will preserve his life.
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| 7:14 | Though they blow the trumpet and get everything ready, no one will go into battle, for my wrath is upon the whole crowd.
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| 7:15 | "Outside is the sword, inside are plague and famine; those in the country will die by the sword, and those in the city will be devoured by famine and plague.
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| 7:16 | All who survive and escape will be in the mountains, moaning like doves of the valleys, each because of his sins.
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| 7:17 | Every hand will go limp, and every knee will become as weak as water.
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| 7:18 | They will put on sackcloth and be clothed with terror. Their faces will be covered with shame and their heads will be shaved.
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| 7:19 | They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will be an unclean thing. Their silver and gold will not be able to save them in the day of the LORD's wrath. They will not satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs with it, for it has made them stumble into sin.
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| 7:20 | They were proud of their beautiful jewelry and used it to make their detestable idols and vile images. Therefore I will turn these into an unclean thing for them.
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| 7:21 | I will hand it all over as plunder to foreigners and as loot to the wicked of the earth, and they will defile it.
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| 7:22 | I will turn my face away from them, and they will desecrate my treasured place; robbers will enter it and desecrate it.
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| 7:23 | "Prepare chains, because the land is full of bloodshed and the city is full of violence.
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| 7:24 | I will bring the most wicked of the nations to take possession of their houses; I will put an end to the pride of the mighty, and their sanctuaries will be desecrated.
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| 7:25 | When terror comes, they will seek peace, but there will be none.
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| 7:26 | Calamity upon calamity will come, and rumor upon rumor. They will try to get a vision from the prophet; the teaching of the law by the priest will be lost, as will the counsel of the elders.
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| 7:27 | The king will mourn, the prince will be clothed with despair, and the hands of the people of the land will tremble. I will deal with them according to their conduct, and by their own standards I will judge them. Then they will know that I am the LORD."
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| 12:1 | Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
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| 12:2 | Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
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| 12:3 | Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
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| 12:4 | In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
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| 12:5 | And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons |
| 12:6 | because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son."
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| 12:7 | Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?
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| 12:8 | If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.
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| 12:9 | Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live!
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| 12:10 | Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.
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| 12:11 | No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
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| 12:12 | Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees.
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| 12:13 | "Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.
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| 12:14 | Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.
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| 12:15 | See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.
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| 12:16 | See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son.
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| 12:17 | Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears.
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| 12:18 | You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm;
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| 12:19 | to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them,
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| 12:20 | because they could not bear what was commanded |
| 12:21 | The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, "I am trembling with fear."
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| 12:22 | But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly,
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| 12:23 | to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect,
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| 12:24 | to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
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| 12:25 | See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven?
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| 12:26 | At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, "Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens."
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| 12:27 | The words "once more" indicate the removing of what can be shaken-- that is, created things-- so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
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| 12:28 | Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe,
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| 12:29 | for our "God is a consuming fire."
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