Prophecy against Israel’s Idolatry
6 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, face the mountains of Israel(A) and prophesy against them. 3 You are to say: Mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God! This is what the Lord God says to the mountains and the hills, to the ravines and the valleys: I am about to bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places.(B) 4 Your altars will be desolated and your shrines[a] smashed. I will throw down your slain in front of your idols. 5 I will lay the corpses of the Israelites in front of their idols and scatter your bones around your altars. 6 Wherever you live the cities will be in ruins and the high places will be desolate, so that your altars will lie in ruins and be desecrated,[b] your idols smashed and obliterated, your shrines cut down, and what you have made wiped out. 7 The slain will fall among you, and you will know that I am the Lord.
8 “Yet I will leave a remnant when you are scattered among the nations, for throughout the countries there will be some of you who will escape the sword.(C) 9 Then your survivors will remember me among the nations where they are taken captive,(D) how I was crushed by their promiscuous hearts that turned away from me and by their eyes that lusted after their idols.(E) They will loathe themselves because of the evil things they did,(F) their detestable actions of every kind. 10 And they will know that I am the Lord; I did not threaten to bring this disaster on them without a reason.
Lament over the Fall of Jerusalem
11 “This is what the Lord God says: Clap your hands, stamp your feet,(G) and cry out over all the evil and detestable practices of the house of Israel, who will fall by the sword, famine, and plague.(H) 12 The one who is far off will die by plague; the one who is near will fall by the sword; and the one who remains and is spared[c] will die of famine. In this way I will exhaust my wrath on them.(I) 13 You will all know that I am the Lord when their slain lie among their idols around their altars,(J) on every high hill,(K) on all the mountaintops, and under every green tree and every leafy oak—the places where they offered pleasing aromas to all their idols. 14 I will stretch out my hand against them,(L) and wherever they live I will make the land a desolate waste, from the wilderness to Riblah.[d] Then they will know that I am the Lord.”
Footnotes
- 6:4 Or incense altars, also in v. 6
- 6:6 Hb obscure
- 6:12 Or besieged
- 6:14 Some Hb mss, some LXX mss; other Hb mss read Diblah; 2Kg 23:33; Jr 39:5