Chapter 11

Punishment of the Rulers. ¹ The Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the gate of the temple of the Lord that faces eastward. There at the entrance to the gate twenty-five men were standing. Among them I saw Jaazaniah, the son of Azzur, and Pelatiah, the son of Benaiah, princes of the people.

² The Lord said to me, “Son of man, these are the men who are plotting evil deeds and offering wicked counsel in this city. ³ They say, ‘The time has not yet come to build houses. This city is the cooking pot and we are the meat.’ ⁴ Therefore, prophesy against them, son of man, prophesy!”

⁵ Then the Spirit of the Lord fell upon me, and he instructed me to say: Thus says the Lord. This is what you are saying to yourselves, house of Israel, and I am well aware of what you are plotting. ⁶ You have killed many in this city and filled its streets with the slain.

⁷ Therefore, thus says the Lord God: Those in the city whom you have slain are the meat, and the city is the pot, but I shall remove you from it.^{[a] 8} You are in dread of the sword, and I fully intend to bring the sword upon you, says the Lord God.

⁹ I will drive you from the city and hand you over to foreigners, and inflict punishments upon you. ¹⁰ You will fall by the sword, and I will pass judgment upon you at the border of Israel. You will know that I am the Lord.

¹¹ This city shall not be a cooking pot for you, nor shall you be the meat inside it. I will judge you at the border of Israel. ¹² Then you will know that I am the Lord whose statutes you have not obeyed and whose judgments you have not followed. Rather you have conformed to the ordinances of the nations around you.

^13 [b]While I was prophesying, Pelatiah, the son of Benaiah, fell dead. I threw myself on the ground and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord God, do you intend to wipe out completely the remnant of Israel?”

¹⁴ Restoration of the People in Exile. Then the word of the Lord was addressed to me: ¹⁵ Son of man, it is about your brothers and your kinsmen and the entire house of Israel that the inhabitants of Israel have said, “They have strayed far from the Lord. This land has been given to us as our possession.”

¹⁶ Therefore say: Thus says the Lord God: Although I removed them far away among the nations and scattered them over the earth, I have nevertheless been a sanctuary to them for a time in the countries where they settled.

¹⁷ Therefore say: Thus says the Lord God: I will gather you from the nations and bring you together from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.

¹⁸ When they return there, they will purge it of all its vile and abominable practices. ¹⁹ I will give them a new heart and put a new spirit within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their bodies and give them a heart of flesh.

²⁰ Thus, they will live according to my statutes and observe and obey my ordinances. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God. ²¹ However, those whose hearts are determined to continue their vile and abominable practices I will force to answer for all they have done. Thus says the Lord God.

²² Then the cherubim lifted their wings, with the wheels beside them and the glory of the God of Israel above them, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them. ²³ The glory of the Lord rose from the center of the city and halted on the mountain to the east of it. ²⁴ The Spirit lifted me up and brought me in a vision by the Spirit of God to the exiles in Chaldea. After the vision I had seen faded, ²⁵ I told the exiles everything that the Lord had revealed to me.