Ezekiel to be God’s spokesman
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📚✭Moreover he said to me, “Son of man, eat what you are encountering; eat this scroll, and go speak to the house of Israel”. 2 📚So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that scroll. 3 📚And he said to me, “Son of man, feed your stomach, and fill your belly with this scroll that I am giving you”. Then I ate it; and in my mouth it was like honey in sweetness✭.
4 📚And he said to me, “Son of man, go to the house of Israel, and speak to them with my words. 5 📚For you are not sent to a people of obscure speech and difficult language, but to the house of Israel; 6 📚not to many people of obscure speech and difficult language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely, if I had sent you to them, they would have listened to you. 7 📚✭But the house of Israel will not listen to you, for they will not listen to me; for the whole house of Israel is obstinate and hard-hearted. 8 📚✭See, I have made your face strong against their faces, and your forehead strong against their foreheads. 9 📚I have made your forehead like adamant, harder than flint. Do not fear them, or be dismayed by their looks, though they are a rebellious house”.
10 📚✭Moreover he said to me, “Son of man, hear with your ears and receive in your heart all my words that I speak to you. 11 📚✭And go to those of the captivity, to the children of your people, and speak to them, and tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord God’, whether they listen or refuse to listen”.
12 📚✭Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me a voice sounding like a great rushing, saying, “Blessed be the glory of the LORD in his place”. 13 📚Also I heard the sound of the wings of the living beings that touched one another, and the sound of the wheels beside them, and a sound of a great rushing. 14 📚So the Spirit lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit; but the hand of the LORD was strong on me. 15 📚✭Then I came to those of the captivity at Tel-Abib, who lived by the Kebar River, and I sat where they sat, and remained there astonished among them seven days.
Ezekiel a watchman
16 📚And at the end of seven days it happened that the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 17 📚“Son of man, I have made you a watchman✭ for the house of Israel. Therefore hear the word from my mouth, and give them warning from me. 18 📚✭When I say to the wicked, ‘You will surely die’, and you do not give him warning or speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way to save his life, that wicked man will die in his guilt, but I will require his blood at your hand. 19 📚But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he will die in his guilt, but you will have delivered your soul.
20 📚“Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and does evil, and I put a stumbling block before him, he will die. Because you did not warn him, he will die✭ in his sin, and his righteousness which he has done will not be remembered; but I will require his blood at your hand. 21 📚But if you warn the righteous man that the righteous are not to sin, and he does not sin, he will surely live, because he was warned; also you have delivered your soul”.
God shut Ezekiel’s mouth and opened it
22 📚And the hand of the LORD✭ was on me there; and he said to me, “Arise, go out✭ to the plain, and there I will talk with you”. 23 📚✭Then I arose, and went out to the plain; and the glory of the LORD appeared standing there, like the glory which I saw by the Kebar River; and I prostrated myself.
24 📚✭Then the Spirit came into me, and set me on my feet, and spoke to me, and said to me, “Go, shut yourself up inside your house. 25 📚But, son of man, see, they are going to put ropes on you and tie you up with them; and you will not go out among them. 26 📚✭And I will make your tongue cling to the roof of your mouth, so that you will be mute, and will not be one who rebukes them; for they are a rebellious house. 27 📚But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’ He who will listen, let him listen; and he who refuses to listen, let him refuse; for they are a rebellious house.