Ezekiel 1-3
New Catholic Bible
Call of the Prophet[a]
Chapter 1
The Vision of Four Living Creatures.[b] 1 [c]In the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was among the exiles by the River Chebar, the heavens opened, and I saw divine visions. 2 On the fifth day of the month—it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin— 3 the word of the Lord came to the priest Ezekiel, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the River Chebar. There the hand of the Lord was upon him.
4 [d]As I looked, I beheld a stormy wind coming from the north: an immense cloud with flashing fire and a brilliant light surrounding it. In the middle of the fire there was something that looked like gleaming amber.[e] 5 Within it, there seemed to be four living creatures with human forms.[f] 6 Each had four faces; each had four wings. 7 Their legs were straight, and they had hooves like those of a calf, sparkling with a gleam like that of burnished bronze.
8 Below their wings, they had human hands on their four sides. All four of them had faces and wings. 9 They touched one another with their wings. They did not turn as they moved; each of them moved straight ahead.
10 As for their faces, each of the four had the face of a man, the face of a lion on the right side, the face of an ox on the left side, and the face of an eagle. 11 Their wings were spread upward. Each creature had one wing touching the wing of another creature on either side, and two wings covering its body. 12 Each one went straight ahead. Wherever the Spirit wished them to go, they would do so; they never turned as they moved.
13 In the middle of the living creatures was what appeared to be burning coals of fire, like torches darting to and fro between the living creatures. The fire was bright, and lightning issued forth from the fire. 14 The living creatures kept disappearing and reappearing like flashes of lightning.
15 As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the ground beside each of the four living creatures. 16 As for the appearance and the structure of the wheels, they all held the appearance of sparkling chrysolites, and all four of them looked alike; they were so constructed that each wheel appeared to have another wheel inside it. 17 They could move in any of the four directions they faced, without veering as they moved.
18 The four of them had rims that were awesome in their size, and those rims were filled with eyes all around. 19 When the living creatures moved, the wheels moved beside them, and when the living creatures rose from the ground, the wheels also rose with them. 20 They moved in whatever direction the Spirit wished to go, and the wheels rose with them, for the Spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. 21 When the creatures moved, the wheels also moved. When the creatures stood still, the wheels also stood still. When the creatures left the ground, the wheels also left the ground, for the Spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.
22 Over the heads of the living creatures, there was what appeared to be a firmament, glittering like crystal and spread out over their heads. 23 Beneath the firmament, their wings were stretched out straight, one toward another, and each of the creatures had two wings covering its body. 24 I also heard the sound of their wings, like the roar of mighty waters, like the thunder of the Almighty. When they moved, the sound was like the noise emanating from an armed camp. And when they stood still, they lowered their wings.[g]
25 And there came a voice from above the dome over their heads as they stood with lowered wings. 26 Above the dome over their heads there was something like a sapphire in the form of a throne, and seated high above the likeness of a throne there was a form with the appearance of a man.
27 Upward from what resembled his waist I beheld what looked like fire that gave forth a brilliant light all around. 28 The radiance of the encircling light was like a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day.
Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I beheld it, I prostrated myself on the ground, and I heard a voice speaking to me.
Chapter 2
The Vison of the Scroll. 1 He said to me: Stand up, son of man.[h] I wish to speak with you. 2 As he spoke to me, a Spirit entered into me and stood me on my feet, and I listened to him speaking.
3 He said to me: Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites, a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me. They and their ancestors have been in revolt against me to this very day. 4 Because they are obstinate and stubborn, I am sending you to them. You shall say to them, “Thus says the Lord God.” 5 Whether they listen to you or whether in their rebelliousness they refuse to listen, they will know that there is a prophet among them.
6 But as for you, son of man, do not be afraid of them or of what they say, even though they resist and reject you and you find yourself sitting on scorpions. Do not be afraid of their words or be alarmed by their looks, for they are a rebellious tribe. 7 You will deliver my words to them whether they listen or whether in their rebelliousness, they refuse to listen. 8 But as for you, son of man, listen to what I say to you and do not be rebellious like that rebellious tribe. Open your mouth and eat what I am about to give you.
9 I saw a hand stretched out to me, and in it was a written scroll. 10 He unrolled it in front of me. It had writing on the front and on the back, and written on it were words, of lamentation and dirges and woe.
Chapter 3
1 He said to me: Son of man, eat what is in front of you. Eat this scroll, and then go forth to speak to the house of Israel. 2 Therefore, I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat. 3 He said to me: Son of man, eat this scroll that I have given you, and eat your fill. Then I consumed it, and in my mouth it was as sweet as honey.
4 He then said to me: Son of man, go now to the house of Israel and deliver my message to them. 5 For you are not being sent to a people that speaks a difficult and barbaric language, but to the house of Israel. 6 I am not sending you to great nations, whose speech you would not be able to comprehend, although they would listen to what you had to say.
7 However, the house of Israel will not listen to you because it would not listen to me. The whole house of Israel is defiant and obstinate in heart. 8 But I will make you as defiant and obstinate as they are. 9 I will make your resolve as hard as a diamond. I have made your forehead like the hardest stone, harder than flint. Do not fear them, or be concerned about their appearance, for they are a rebellious house.
10 He went on: Listen carefully, son of man, to all my words. Receive them into your heart and hear them with your ears. 11 Then go to your countrymen in exile and say to them, “Thus says the Lord,” whether they listen or refuse to listen.
12 Then a Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me the sound of loud rumbling as the glory of the Lord rose from its place: 13 the sound of the wings of the living creatures brushing against one another, and the sound of the wheels beside them, a fierce rumbling sound. 14 The Spirit lifted me up and carried me away, and I departed in bitterness and anger, as the hand of the Lord rested heavily upon me. 15 I came to the exiles at Tel-abib[i] who lived by the River Chebar, and for seven days I sat among them in a state of consternation.
16 The Prophet as Sentry. At the end of seven days the word of the Lord came to me: 17 Son of man, I have appointed you as a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them my warning. 18 If I say to a wicked man, “You will surely die,” and you fail to warn him about this or do not advise him to cease his wicked conduct and thereby save his life, the wicked man will die because of his iniquity, but I will hold you responsible for his death. 19 But if you have warned him and he continues to persist in his evil ways, he will die for his sin, but you will have saved your life.
20 Again, if a virtuous man ceases to be virtuous and does wrong, and I set a trap for him, he will die because you failed to warn him. He will die for his sin, and his virtuous deeds will no longer be remembered. However, I will hold you responsible for his death because you did not warn him. 21 However, if you have warned an upright man not to sin and he does not sin, then he will have saved his life because he heeded your warning, and you will have saved your life.
22 Ezekiel Struck Dumb.[j]While I was there, the hand of the Lord was upon me, and he said to me: Rise up, go out into the valley, and there I will speak to you. 23 I arose, and when went out to the valley, the glory of the Lord was there, like the glory I had seen by the River Chebar, and I fell prostrate on the ground.
24 Then a Spirit entered into me and raised me to my feet, and he spoke with me and said: Go forth and shut yourself up in your house. 25 You will be tied and bound with ropes, O son of man, so that you cannot go out among the people. 26 I will make your tongue stick to your palate so that you will become dumb and be unable to reprove them, for they are a rebellious people. 27 But when I have spoken to you, I will open your mouth, and you will say to them, “This is what the Lord God said.” If anyone wishes to listen, he may listen. If anyone refuses to listen, he may refuse. For they are a rebellious house.
Footnotes
- Ezekiel 1:1 Ezekiel, a priest of Jerusalem, is torn away from the temple and the worship that he loves, and joins the caravan of deportees whom Nebuchadnezzar drags off to Babylon after the first capitulation of Jerusalem in 598 B.C. At this time, Ezekiel is a contemporary of Jeremiah and has insight into the evils that are coming. The prophet denounces the infidelity of the people. Moreover, he cannot accept any longer the ancient idea of collective responsibility. He seeks rather to point out the personal responsibility of each individual.
- Ezekiel 1:1 During a vision that reminds us of the prophet Isaiah’s vision (Isa 6:1-13), Ezekiel, the poor “son of man,” is abruptly placed in the presence of the glory of the Lord. He suddenly understands the holiness of the God who seeks his people, even in exile, there on the banks of the Kebar. He understands, too, the tragic fate of this people whose sin can be removed only by being burned in fire (Deut 4:24; Isa 33:14; Heb 12:29).
- Ezekiel 1:1 We are introduced to an amazing narrative that is difficult to read because numerous additions have been made to the original version, either by the prophet himself or by one of his disciples. This can be seen even in these first three verses. Kebar is a wide, navigable canal of water leading from the Euphrates in Babylonia.
- Ezekiel 1:4 The prophet Isaiah had had the same vision, but his took place in the temple of Jerusalem (Isa 6). Ezekiel’s comes to him in the midst of pagan Babylonia. The vision comes from the north. It was from the north that the refugees had come: they left Palestine, skirted the Desert of Syria, and followed the Fertile Crescent. The “glory” of the Lord is no longer in the Jerusalem temple—and it is a priest who says so! Surrounding this glory of God as he comes are fantastic beings, represented in images taken from Babylonian art. The text adds details without restraint in order to show that God is present everywhere; the wheels, which are decorated with motifs using eyes, symbolize the Lord who sees and knows everything. These beings form a throne, as it were, for the glory of God. So great is the distance between God and human beings that the prophet does not have words to suggest the ineffable divine reality, but he nonetheless asserts its presence.
- Ezekiel 1:4 Amber: electron, a naturally occurring alloy of four-fifths gold and one-fifth silver, and amber in color; it is from amber that the Greek name is derived.
- Ezekiel 1:5 The four living beings are imagined as Assyro-Babylonian cherubim, who are regarded as servants of the various divinities and placed as guardians before temples and palaces.
- Ezekiel 1:24 The picture which Ezekiel paints fits in with the way in which the throne of God appears to Moses (Ex 24:10). The same images will be used in the Apocalypse (Ezek 4:2f).
- Ezekiel 2:1 Son of man: the phrase is repeated about a hundred times in Ezekiel and is intended to say that the creature is nothing before God.
- Ezekiel 3:15 Tel-abib: an unidentified place in Babylonia; the name means “hill of the ear of grain.”
- Ezekiel 3:22 In words all the more impressive because preceded by mimed scenes, Ezekiel foretells the siege and destruction of Jerusalem. A first series of such scenes (Ezek 4:1-3, 9-17; 5:1-17) must date from the very year of the prophet’s call. A second must be closer to the moment of the fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.
