Ezekiel 7

EasyEnglish Bible

The day has come for the Lord to punish Israel

7 The Lord gave this message to me: ² ‘Son of man, this is what I, the Almighty Lord, say to the land of Israel: The end is now here! I will soon destroy the whole land. ³ The time has come for your final punishment! You will know that I am very angry with you. I will punish you because of the bad way that you have lived. You will receive the punishment that you deserve for all the disgusting things that you have done. ⁴ I will not be sorry for you. I will not be kind to you. I will punish you as you deserve. You have done disgusting things. So I will punish you and you will know that I am the Lord.

⁵ This is what the Almighty Lord says: Terrible trouble is coming to you! It will be worse than any other trouble. ⁶ The end has now come! It is finally here to destroy you! Look out! ⁷ You people who live in the land will now receive terrible punishment. The day for that to happen is very near. There will be no more sound of happy parties on the mountains. Instead there will be shouts of fear. ⁸ Very soon, I will punish you because of my great anger. You will know how angry I am. I will judge you for the way that you have lived. I will punish you as you deserve for the disgusting things that you have done. ⁹ I will not be sorry for you. I will not be kind to you. I will punish you as you deserve, because of the disgusting things that you have done. Then you will know that I, the Lord, am causing you pain.

¹⁰ Yes, the day of your punishment is here! Terrible trouble is coming to you! Like a tree that is ready to make flowers, your proud and wicked acts are ready for punishment. ¹¹ You use violence to help you to do wicked things. None of all those people will escape. None of their riches or valuable things will remain. ¹² The day of punishment has now come! The person who buys things will no longer be happy. Nor will the person who sells things. My anger will bring pain to all of them. ¹³ Any man who sells his land will never get it back as long as he lives. God has shown what he will do to all those people. He will not change his mind. Each one will lose his life because of their sins.

¹⁴ The soldiers make a noise with trumpets to prepare for war. But nobody goes out to fight a battle because my anger has brought punishment for all the people.

¹⁵ The enemy is ready to attack outside the city. Inside the city, there is disease and famine. Enemy soldiers will kill the people who are in the country. Famine and disease will kill everyone who is in the city. ¹⁶ Those who remain alive will escape. They will run to the mountains. They will be like doves that hunters have chased out of the valleys. They will cry aloud because of their sins. ¹⁷ Their hands will be weak. Their knees will shake. ¹⁸ They will wear sackcloth. They will be very afraid. Their faces will show that they are ashamed. They will cut all the hair from their heads. ¹⁹ They will throw their silver away in the streets. They will think that their gold has no value, like dirt. Their silver and their gold will not be able to save them on the day of the Lord's great anger. When they are hungry, their money will not buy them any food. It is their riches that have caused them to do wicked things. ²⁰ They were proud of their beautiful jewels. They used them to make disgusting idols and images. That is why I, the Lord, have made them hate their valuable things. ²¹ I will allow foreigners and wicked people to take those things from them. They will use those valuable things in a disgusting way. ²² Those foreigners and robbers will go into my holy temple. They will cause it to become unclean. But I will look away and I will allow them to do that.

²³ Prepare chains to tie my people. The whole land is full of murder and violence. ²⁴ I will bring the most wicked people from other nations to attack. They will take the houses of my people and they will live in them. The strong men among my people will no longer boast. Enemies will spoil the holy places where my people worshipped.

²⁵ Terrible trouble is coming to my people! When they are afraid, they will look for peace. But they will not find it. ²⁶ Many troubles will happen, one after another. There will be lots of news about terrible things. People will ask the prophets to tell them what will happen. The priests will not have anything to teach the people. The leaders will not have any good advice. ²⁷ The king will be very sad. His son will not hope for anything good to happen. The people will shake with fear.

I will punish them as they deserve for the way that they have lived. I will judge them in the same way that they have judged other people. Then they will know that I am the Lord.’