Ezekiel

14 And some of the elders of Israel came in where I was and sat down before me; 2 and Jehovah’s word came to me 3 “Man, these men have taken to their fetishes and put before their faces their stumbling-blocks to guilt; am I to let myself be inquired of by them? 4* So speak with them and say to them ‘Says the Lord Jehovah, Whatever man of the house of Israel takes to his fetishes and lays before his face his stumbling-block to guilt and comes to a prophet, I Jehovah respond to him therein for his multitude of fetishes, 5 in order to trap the house of Israel by their own hearts inasmuch as they have made themselves strangers to me by all their fetishes.’ 6 So say to the house of Israel ‘Says the Lord Jehovah, Come back and face about away from your fetishes, and from all your abominations face about. 7* For whatever man of the house of Israel and of the immigrants that are living in Israel performs rites of separation from me takes to his fetishes and lays before his face his stumbling-block to guilt and comes to a prophet to inquire of me, I Jehovah am going to reply to him for myself, 8 and set my face against that man and render him a token and a byword, and cut him off from my people, and you shall know that I am Jehovah; 9 and when the prophet is inveigled so that he speaks a word, I Jehovah have inveigled that prophet and will swing my hand over him and root him out from among my people Israel; 10 and they shall bear their guilt—inquirer’s guilt and prophet’s shall be equal— 11 in order that the house of Israel may not again stray from following me and may not again defile themselves with all their crimes, but I may have them for my people and they may have me for their God, quoth the Lord Jehovah.’”

12 And Jehovah’s word came to me 13 “Man, when a country sins against me, committing an unfaithfulness, and I stretch out my hand over it and break bread-stocks for it and send famine upon it and cut off man and beast from it, 14 were these three men in its midst, Noah, Daniel, and Job, they by their saintliness should be delivering their own selves, quoth Jehovah. 15* If I sent savage beasts through the country and depopulated it and it became an untraveled desolation because of the beasts, 16 these three men being in its midst, by my life, quoth the Lord Jehovah, neither sons nor daughters should they deliver, they alone should be delivered, but the country should become a desolation. 17 Or were I to bring warfare upon that country and say ‘Let warfare go through the country’ and cut of man and beast from it, 18 these three men being in its midst, by my life, quoth the Lord Jehovah, they should not deliver sons nor daughters, but they alone should be delivered. 19 Or were I to send an epidemic to that country and pour out my ire on it with blood, cutting off man and beast from it, 20 Noah, Daniel, and Job being in its midst, by my ire, quoth the Lord Jehovah, neither son nor daughter should they deliver; they by their saintliness should be delivered their own selves.

21* “Whereas the Lord Jehovah says, How much more when I have sent to Jerusalem my four worst judgments, warfare and famine and savage beasts and epidemic, to cut off man and beast from it— 22 but here there are survivors left in it, who are to be brought out, sons and daughters. Here they will be coming out to you, and you will see their courses and practices and be reconciled to the disaster I have brought upon Jerusalem, everything I have brought upon her: 23 they will reconcile you when you see their courses and practices, and you will know it was not for nothing I did all that I did to her, quoth the Lord Jehovah.”