Evening Bible reading

November 22nd Ezekiel, 21
1: And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 2: Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop thy word toward the holy places, and prophesy against the land of Israel, 3: And say to the land of Israel, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I am against thee, and will draw forth my sword out of his sheath, and will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked. 4: Seeing then that I will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked, therefore shall my sword go forth out of his sheath against all flesh from the south to the north: 5: That all flesh may know that I the LORD have drawn forth my sword out of his sheath: it shall not return any more. 6: Sigh therefore, thou son of man, with the breaking of thy loins; and with bitterness sigh before their eyes. 7: And it shall be, when they say unto thee, Wherefore sighest thou? that thou shalt answer, For the tidings; because it cometh: and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and all knees shall be weak as water: behold, it cometh, and shall be brought to pass, saith the Lord GOD. 8: Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 9: Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith the LORD; Say, A sword, a sword is sharpened, and also furbished: 10: It is sharpened to make a sore slaughter; it is furbished that it may glitter: should we then make mirth? it contemneth the rod of my son, as every tree. 11: And he hath give it to be furbished, that it may be handled: this sword is sharpened, and it is furbished, to give it into the hand of the slayer. 12: Cry and howl, son of man: for it shall be upon my people, it shall be upon all the princes of Israel: terrors by reason of the sword shall be upon my people: smite therefore upon thy thigh. 13: Because it is a trial, and what if the sword contemn even the rod? it shall be no more, saith the Lord GOD. 14: Thou therefore, son of man, prophesy, and smite thine hands together, and let the sword be doubled the third time, the sword of the slain: it is the sword of the great men that are slain, which entereth into their privy chambers. 15: I have set the point of the sword against all their gates, that their heart may faint, and their ruins be multiplied: ah! it is made bright, it is wrapped up for the slaughter. 16: Go thee one way or other, either on the right hand, or on the left, whithersoever thy face is set. 17: I will also smite mine hands together, and I will cause my fury to rest: I the LORD have said it. 18: The word of the LORD came unto me again, saying, 19: Also, thou son of man, appoint thee two ways, that the sword of the king of Babylon may come: both twain shall come forth out of one land: and choose thou a place, choose it at the head of the way to the city. 20: Appoint a way, that the sword may come to Rabbath of the Ammonites, and to Judah in Jerusalem the defenced. 21: For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination: he made his arrows bright, he consulted with images, he looked in the liver. 22: At his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem, to appoint captains, to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to appoint battering rams against the gates, to cast a mount, and to build a fort. 23: And it shall be unto them as a false divination in their sight, to them that have sworn oaths: but he will call to remembrance the iniquity, that they may be taken. 24: Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because ye have made your iniquity to be remembered, in that your transgressions are discovered, so that in all your doings your sins do appear; because, I say, that ye are come to remembrance, ye shall be taken with the hand. 25: And thou, profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end, 26: Thus saith the Lord GOD; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. 27: I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him. 28: And thou, son of man, prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD concerning the Ammonites, and concerning their reproach; even say thou, The sword, the sword is drawn: for the slaughter it is furbished, to consume because of the glittering: 29: Whiles they see vanity unto thee, whiles they divine a lie unto thee, to bring thee upon the necks of them that are slain, of the wicked, whose day is come, when their iniquity shall have an end. 30: Shall I cause it to return into his sheath? I will judge thee in the place where thou wast created, in the land of thy nativity. 31: And I will pour out mine indignation upon thee, I will blow against thee in the fire of my wrath, and deliver thee into the hand of brutish men, and skillful to destroy. 32: 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 the LORD have spoken it.

Ezekiel, 22
1: Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 2: Now, thou son of man, wilt thou judge, wilt thou judge the bloody city? yea, thou shalt shew her all her abominations. 3: Then say thou, Thus saith the Lord GOD, The city sheddeth blood in the midst of it, that her time may come, and maketh idols against herself to defile herself. 4: Thou art become guilty in thy blood that thou hast shed; and hast defiled thyself 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 heathen, and a mocking to all countries. 5: Those that be near, and those that be far from thee, shall mock thee, which art infamous and much vexed. 6: Behold, the princes of Israel, every one were in thee to their power to shed blood. 7: In thee have they set light by father and mother: in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger: in thee have they vexed the fatherless and the widow. 8: Thou hast despised mine holy things, and hast profaned my sabbaths. 9: In thee are men that carry tales to shed blood: and in thee they eat upon the mountains: in the midst of thee they commit lewdness. 10: In thee have they discovered their fathers' nakedness: in thee have they humbled her that was set apart for pollution. 11: And one hath committed abomination with his neighbour's wife; and another hath lewdly defiled his daughter in law; and another in thee hath humbled his sister, his father's daughter. 12: In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood; thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbours by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord GOD. 13: Behold, therefore I have smitten mine hand at thy dishonest gain which thou hast made, and at thy blood which hath been in the midst of thee. 14: Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee? I the LORD have spoken it, and will do it. 15: And I will scatter thee among the heathen, and disperse thee in the countries, and will consume thy filthiness out of thee. 16: And thou shalt take thine inheritance in thyself in the sight of the heathen, and thou shalt know that I am the LORD. 17: And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 18: Son of man, the house of Israel is to me become dross: all they are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace; they are even the dross of silver. 19: Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because ye are all become dross, behold, therefore I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem. 20: As they gather silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it; so will I gather you in mine anger and in my fury, and I will leave you there, and melt you. 21: Yea, I will gather you, and blow upon you in the fire of my wrath, and ye shall be melted in the midst thereof. 22: As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof; and ye shall know that I the LORD have poured out my fury upon you. 23: And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 24: Son of man, say unto her, Thou art the land that is not cleansed, nor rained upon in the day of indignation. 25: There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls; they have taken the treasure and precious things; they have made her many widows in the midst thereof. 26: Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shewed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them. 27: Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain. 28: And her prophets have daubed them with untempered morter, seeing vanity, and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord GOD, when the LORD hath not spoken. 29: The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery, and have vexed the poor and needy: yea, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully. 30: And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none. 31: Therefore have I poured out mine indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath: their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord GOD.

Ezekiel, 23
1: The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying, 2: Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother: 3: And they committed whoredoms in Egypt; they committed whoredoms in their youth: there were their breasts pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity. 4: And the names of them were Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her sister: and they were mine, and they bare sons and daughters. Thus were their names; Samaria is Aholah, and Jerusalem Aholibah. 5: And Aholah played the harlot when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbours, 6: Which were clothed with blue, captains and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding upon horses. 7: Thus she committed her whoredoms with them, with all them that were the chosen men of Assyria, and with all on whom she doted: with all their idols she defiled herself. 8: Neither left she her whoredoms brought from Egypt: for in her youth they lay with her, and they bruised the breasts of her virginity, and poured their whoredom upon her. 9: Wherefore I have delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, upon whom she doted. 10: These discovered her nakedness: they took her sons and her daughters, and slew her with the sword: and she became famous among women; for they had executed judgment upon her. 11: And when her sister Aholibah saw this, she was more corrupt in her inordinate love than she, and in her whoredoms more than her sister in her whoredoms. 12: She doted upon the Assyrians her neighbours, captains and rulers clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them desirable young men. 13: Then I saw that she was defiled, that they took both one way, 14: And that she increased her whoredoms: for when she saw men pourtrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans pourtrayed with vermilion, 15: Girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to, after the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldea, the land of their nativity: 16: And as soon as she saw them with her eyes, she doted upon them, and sent messengers unto them into Chaldea. 17: 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 mind was alienated from them. 18: So she discovered her whoredoms, and discovered her nakedness: then my mind was alienated from her, like as my mind was alienated from her sister. 19: Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt. 20: For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. 21: Thus thou calledst to remembrance the lewdness of thy youth, in bruising thy teats by the Egyptians for the paps of thy youth. 22: There, O Aholibah, thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will raise up thy lovers against thee, from whom thy mind is alienated, and I will bring them against thee on every side; 23: The Babylonians, and all the Chaldeans, Pekod, and Shoa, and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them: all of them desirable young men, captains and rulers, great lords and renowned, all of them riding upon horses. 24: And they shall come against thee with chariots, wagons, and wheels, and with an assembly of people, which shall set against thee buckler and shield and helmet round about: and I will set judgment before them, and they shall judge thee according to their judgments. 25: And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee: they shall take away thy nose and thine ears; and thy remnant shall fall by the sword: they shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire. 26: They shall also strip thee out of thy clothes, and take away thy fair jewels. 27: Thus will I make thy lewdness to cease from thee, and thy whoredom brought from the land of Egypt: so that thou shalt not lift up thine eyes unto them, nor remember Egypt any more. 28: For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will deliver thee into the hand of them whom thou hatest, into the hand of them from whom thy mind is alienated: 29: And they shall deal with thee hatefully, and shall take away all thy labour, and shall leave thee naked and bare: and the nakedness of thy whoredoms shall be discovered, both thy lewdness and thy whoredoms. 30: I will do these things unto thee, because thou hast gone a whoring after the heathen, and because thou art polluted with their idols. 31: Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister; therefore will I give her cup into thine hand. 32: Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou shalt drink of thy sister's cup deep and large: thou shalt be laughed to scorn and had in derision; it containeth much. 33: Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation, with the cup of thy sister Samaria. 34: Thou shalt even drink it and suck it out, and thou shalt break the sherds thereof, and pluck off thine own breasts: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD. 35: Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast forgotten me, and cast me behind thy back, therefore bear thou also thy lewdness and thy whoredoms. 36: The LORD said moreover unto me; Son of man, wilt thou judge Aholah and Aholibah? yea, declare unto them their abominations; 37: That they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands, and with their idols have they committed adultery, and have also caused their sons, whom they bare unto me, to pass for them through the fire, to devour them. 38: Moreover this they have done unto me: they have defiled my sanctuary in the same day, and have profaned my sabbaths. 39: For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; and, lo, thus have they done in the midst of mine house. 40: And furthermore, that ye have sent for men to come from far, unto whom a messenger was sent; and, lo, they came: for whom thou didst wash thyself, paintedst thy eyes, and deckedst thyself with ornaments, 41: And satest upon a stately bed, and a table prepared before it, whereupon thou hast set mine incense and mine oil. 42: And a voice of a multitude being at ease was with her: and with the men of the common sort were brought Sabeans from the wilderness, which put bracelets upon their hands, and beautiful crowns upon their heads. 43: Then said I unto her that was old in adulteries, Will they now commit whoredoms with her, and she with them? 44: Yet they went in unto her, as they go in unto a woman that playeth the harlot: so went they in unto Aholah and unto Aholibah, the lewd women. 45: And the righteous men, they shall judge them after the manner of adulteresses, and after the manner of women that shed blood; because they are adulteresses, and blood is in their hands. 46: For thus saith the Lord GOD; I will bring up a company upon them, and will give them to be removed and spoiled. 47: And the company shall stone them with stones, and dispatch them with their swords; they shall slay their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses with fire. 48: Thus will I cause lewdness to cease out of the land, that all women may be taught not to do after your lewdness. 49: And they shall recompense your lewdness upon you, and ye shall bear the sins of your idols: and ye shall know that I am the Lord GOD.

Ezekiel receives a prophecy from the Lord regarding the Land of Israel. Both the righteous and the wicked will die together. Ezekiel is to sigh before Israel and when they ask why he will tell them that there will come day when all Israel will be weak and they will be faint. Then Ezekiel is to prophesy that a sword has been sharpened to bring about a great slaughter. The Lord tells Ezekiel to make a parting of the ways so that the king of Babylon will see a possibility of attacking in two ways and he will consult divination to decide his path of attack. The people are to be destroyed and none shall remember them. Then the Lord spoke to Ezekiel asking him will you judge this bloody city? You will show her all her abominations. They have defiled themselves in their idols. Then the Lord lists their evils. They have done wickedness and defiled everything that the Lord gave them for good. They have lain with their mothers and raped the women that are in their time. They lay with their daughters in law and others defile their sisters. They take bribes to murder the innocent. I will burn this evil out of you. Then the Lord said Israel is like the dross of silver - the scum of the earth. There was no hope for Israel in that the prophets deceive and the priests are unholy and the princes are like ravening wolves. They oppress the poor and strangers. I sought says the Lord for a man who would stand in the gap, while evil rushes upon the people, but found none. Therefore I will destroy this people. The Lord spoke again to Ezekiel saying there were two women – sisters who were prostitutes in Egypt called Aholah and Ahilibah. They belonged to the Lord and they had sons and daughters. Aholah was Samaria. Aholiah was Jerusalem. Aholah committed adultery with Assyria, but the men of Assyria killed her children. Her sister was more evil than her; she lusted for the men of Babylon. Yet says the Lord l will bring Babylon and all the people of that land to destroy her. In this way the Lord will remove lewdness from the land.

Steve