Ezekiel / Visions of Temple Abominations

Visions of Temple Abominations

Ezekiel 8:1-18

Chapter 8

¹ And it was in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth of the month—I sitting in my house and the elders of Judah sitting before me—there the hand of the Lord GOD fell upon me. ² I saw, and there was a likeness like the appearance of fire—from the appearance of his loins downward, fire, and from his loins upward, like the appearance of a glow, like the eye of the ḥašmal. ³ And he put out a form of a hand, and it took me by the tassel of my head. And a spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heavens and brought me to Jerusalem in visions of God, to the entrance of the inner gate that faces north, where there was the seat of the image, the jealousy provoker. ⁴ And behold, there was the glory of the God of Israel, like the vision that I had seen in the valley. ⁵ And he said to me, "Son of Adam, please lift your eyes the way north." And I lifted my eyes the way north, and behold, from north to the gate of the altar, the image of jealousy, this one at the entrance. ⁶ And he said to me, "Son of Adam, have you seen what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel is doing here, so as to make it far from my sanctuary? Yet return, see greater abominations." ⁷ He brought me to the entrance of the courtyard of the tabernacle, and I looked, and there was a hole in the wall. ⁸ And he said to me, "Son of Adam, dig please in the wall." And I dug in the wall, and behold, one opening. ⁹ He said to me, "Come and see the abominations, the evils, which they are doing here." ¹⁰ I went in and saw, and there were every form of creeping thing and beast, detestable thing, and all the idols of the house of Israel, engraved on the wall all around. ¹¹ And seventy men from the elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan standing in their midst before them, each with his censer in his hand; and the cloud of incense was rising in abundance. ¹² He said to me, "Have you seen, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the darkness, each man in the inner chambers of his tabernacle? For they are saying, 'The LORD does not see us; the LORD has abandoned the earth.'" ¹³ And he said to me, "Yet return, see greater abominations that they are doing." ¹⁴ He brought me to the entrance of the gate of the house of the LORD which is toward the north, and behold, there the women sitting weeping for Tammuz. ¹⁵ He said to me, "Have you seen this, son of Adam? Turn back, see greater abominations than these." ¹⁶ And he brought me to the inner court of the house of the LORD, and behold, at the entrance of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the LORD and their faces eastward, and they were prostrating themselves eastward to the sun. ¹⁷ He said to me, "Have you seen, son of Adam? Is it a light thing for the house of Judah to do the abominations that they have done here? For they have filled the earth with violence and have sat to provoke me to anger—and behold, they are sending the branch to their nostrils." ¹⁸ And I will also act in anger; my eyes will not pity, and I will not spare. And they will cry out in my ears with a loud voice, but I will not hear them.