Ezekiel 14:11

14:11 so that the house of Israel will no longer go astray from me, nor continue to defile themselves by all their sins. They will be my people and I will be their God, ¹  declares the sovereign Lord.’”

Ezekiel 20:31

20:31 When you present your sacrifices ²  – when you make your sons pass through the fire – you defile yourselves with all your idols to this very day. Will I allow you to seek me, ³  O house of Israel? As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, I will not allow you to seek me! ⁴ 

Ezekiel 29:3

29:3 Tell them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:

“‘Look, I am against ⁵  you, Pharaoh king of Egypt,

the great monster ⁶  lying in the midst of its waterways,

who has said, “My Nile is my own, I made it for myself.” ⁷ 

Ezekiel 37:23

37:23 They will not defile themselves with their idols, their detestable things, and all their rebellious deeds. I will save them from all their unfaithfulness ⁸  by which they sinned. I will purify them; they will become my people and I will become their God.

¹ sn I will be their God. See Exod 6:7; Lev 26:12; Jer 7:23; 11:4.

² tn Or “gifts.”

³ tn Or “Will I reveal myself to you?”

⁴ tn Or “I will not reveal myself to you.”

³ tn Or “I challenge you.” The phrase “I am against you” may be a formula for challenging someone to combat or a duel. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:201-2, and P. Humbert, “Die Herausforderungsformel ‘h!nn#n' ?l?K>,’” ZAW 45 (1933): 101-8.

⁴ tn Heb “jackals,” but many medieval Hebrew mss read correctly “the serpent.” The Hebrew term appears to refer to a serpent in Exod 7:9-10, 12; Deut 32:33; and Ps 91:13. It also refers to large creatures that inhabit the sea (Gen 1:21; Ps 148:7). In several passages it is associated with the sea or with the multiheaded sea monster Leviathan (Job 7:12; Ps 74:13; Isa 27:1; 51:9). Because of the Egyptian setting of this prophecy and the reference to the creature’s scales (v. 4), many understand a crocodile to be the referent here (e.g., NCV “a great crocodile”; TEV “you monster crocodile”; CEV “a giant crocodile”).

⁵ sn In Egyptian theology Pharaoh owned and controlled the Nile. See J. D. Currid, Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament, 240-44.

⁴ tc Heb “their dwellings.” The text as it stands does not make sense. Based on the LXX, a slight emendation of two vowels, including a mater, yields the reading “from their turning,” a reference here to their turning from God and deviating from his commandments. See BDB 1000 s.v. מְשׁוּבָה, and D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:407.