At the end of seven days the word of the Lord came to me: ¹ 

“They have blown the trumpet and everyone is ready, but no one goes to battle, because my anger is against their whole crowd. ¹ 

I will make you pass under ¹  the shepherd’s staff, ²  and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant.

It was beautiful in its loftiness, in the length of its branches; for its roots went down deep to plentiful waters.

When I had returned, I noticed ¹  a vast number of trees on the banks of the river, on both sides.

“‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: On the day it ¹  went down to Sheol I caused observers to lament. ²  I covered it with the deep and held back its rivers; its plentiful water was restrained. I clothed Lebanon in black for it, and all the trees of the field wilted because of it.

In a good field, by abundant waters, it was planted to grow branches, bear fruit, and become a beautiful vine.

Therefore it grew taller than all the trees of the field; its boughs grew large and its branches grew long, because of the plentiful water in its shoots. ¹ 

So I prophesied as I was commanded. There was a sound when I prophesied – I heard ¹  a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to bone.

At the beginning ¹  of the wall of the court toward the south, ²  facing the courtyard and the building, were chambers

You will also take the bull for the sin offering, and it will be burned in the appointed place in the temple, outside the sanctuary.

The Lord said to him, “Go through the city of Jerusalem ¹  and put a mark ²  on the foreheads of the people who moan and groan over all the abominations practiced in it.”

I said to them, “Each of you must get rid of the detestable idols you keep before you, ¹  and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.”

It is sharpened for slaughter, it is polished to flash like lightning! “‘Should we rejoice in the scepter of my son? No! The sword despises every tree! ¹ 

Into his right hand ¹  comes the portent for Jerusalem – to set up battering rams, to give the signal ²  for slaughter, to shout out the battle cry, ³  to set up battering rams against the gates, to erect a siege ramp, to build a siege wall.

On that day you will be able to speak again; ¹  you will talk with the fugitive and be silent no longer. You will be an object lesson for them, and they will know that I am the Lord.”

But when they arrived in the nations where they went, they profaned my holy name. It was said of them, ‘These are the people of the Lord, yet they have departed from his land.’

On the outside of the inner gate were chambers for the singers of the inner court, one ¹  at the side of the north gate facing south, and the other at the side of the south ²  gate facing north.

“On the second day, you will offer a male goat without blemish for a sin offering. They will purify the altar just as they purified it with the bull.

“‘They must not come near a dead person or they will be defiled; ¹  however, for father, mother, son, daughter, brother or sister, they may defile themselves.