“Look, the day! Look, it is coming! Doom has gone out! The staff has budded, pride has blossomed!

Indeed! All lives are mine – the life of the father as well as the life of the son is mine. The one who sins will die.

An end comes – the end comes! It has awakened against you – the end is upon you! Look, it is coming!

“‘Observe – everyone who quotes proverbs will quote this proverb about you: “Like mother, like daughter.”

Look, you are wiser than Daniel; no secret is hidden from you.

When all this comes true – and it certainly will – then they will know that a prophet was among them.”

“I have made your face adamant to match their faces, and your forehead hard to match their foreheads.

As for you, son of man, they will put ropes on you and tie you up with them, so you cannot go out among them.

“This is what the sovereign Lord says: A disaster – a one-of-a-kind disaster – is coming!

“‘See how each of the princes of Israel living within you has used his authority to shed blood.

This is what the sovereign Lord says to these bones: Look, I am about to infuse breath into you and you will live.

Realize that it is coming and it will be done, declares the sovereign Lord. It is the day I have spoken about.

“Take note, son of man, the house of Israel is saying, ‘The vision that he sees is for distant days; he is prophesying about the far future.’

No! It is thrown in the fire for fuel; when the fire has burned up both ends of it and it is charred in the middle, will it be useful for anything?

Indeed! If it was not made into anything useful when it was whole, how much less can it be made into anything when the fire has burned it up and it is charred?

But upright men will punish them appropriately for their adultery and bloodshed, because they are adulteresses and blood is on their hands.

“This is what the sovereign Lord says: ‘Moab and Seir say, “Look, the house of Judah is like all the other nations.”

On that day messengers will go out from me in ships to frighten overly confident Ethiopia; panic will overtake them on the day of Egypt’s doom; for beware – it is coming!

Consider Assyria, a cedar in Lebanon, with beautiful branches, like a forest giving shade, and extremely tall; its top reached into the clouds.

Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are all the house of Israel. Look, they are saying, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope has perished; we are cut off.’