The end will come
1The Lord talked to me and He said: 2‘Son of man, you must listen to what I say about the land_of_Israel. I, the Lord God, say:
The end will come.
The end of the whole land is coming.
3The end is here for all of you in the land,
because I am very angry with you.
I will punish you for the things you have done.
I hate those things that you did
and I will punish you.
4I will not forgive you.
I will not feel sorry for you.
Yes, I will punish you for what you have done.
You have done things that I hate.
You will know that I am the Lord.’
5The Lord God says:
‘You will suffer and have a lot of trouble.
Everything will become bad
and it will become even worse.
6This is the end that has come.
The end is here. It has come to you.
Look, it is already here.
7The worst things will happen
to you who live in the land.
The time has come, and the day is near.
No one on the mountains will know
what to do and no one will rejoice
or shout because he is happy.
8I am very angry with you
and I am going to punish you now.
I will punish you for the things that you did,
all those bad things that I hate.
9I will not forgive you.
I will not feel sorry for you.
I will punish you for the things that you did,
bad things that I hate.
You will know that I,
the Lord, am punishing you.
10The day is here. It has come.
The worst things will happen now.
The people who rule
will become even more cruel.
They will become more proud.
11They have done bad things to people
and they have ruled badly.
There will be nothing left of them,
nothing of what they had.
12The time has come, and the day is here.
People who buy must not rejoice,
and people who sell must not be sorry,
because the Lord will punish them all.
13The people who have sold their land
will not get it back as long as they live.
The vision that I showed the prophet
will happen. It will not change.
They have done wrong
and they will not keep on living.
14They have blown the trumpet
and everyone has prepared to go to war,
but no one will start the war,
because I am angry and I will punish them.
15Outside, there will be war.
In all the houses there will be disease and famine.
People in the field will die in war
and people in the towns and cities
will die of disease and hunger.
16The people who flee
to the mountains and escape
will all sit and moan like doves in the valleys.
Everyone will complain about the things
that he has done wrong.
17Their hands will be weak and hang down,
and their knees will become wet from their urine
because they will be afraid.
18They will put on sack-cloth
and shave their heads.
They will become so afraid
that they will not be able to do anything.
19They will throw away their silver on the roads,
and their gold will be useless.
Their silver and gold will not be able
to save them when the Lord
becomes angry and punishes them.
They can not eat the gold and stop being hungry.
It is this silver and gold
that has made them sin.
20They became proud about the temple
that was so beautiful,
and they took their jewellery to make idols,
ugly images that I hate.
That is how they made my house impure.
21I will give the temple
and everything in it to people
from other lands.
These sinful people of the world
will take everything they want
and they will make the temple impure.
22I will pretend that I don't see
what they are doing,
and they will make my precious temple impure.
Robbers will come into the temple
and it will not be holy anymore.
23You must have chains ready
to tie the prisoners because the land
is full of murderers and they do bad things
to the people in the city.
24I will bring the worst nations
and they will take your houses for themselves.
I will cause the proud rulers to die.
The enemies will make their temples impure.
25When they are suffering,
they will try to find peace,
but they will not get it.
26Very bad things will happen to them,
and people will tell them of
even more trouble that is coming.
Then they will ask the prophets
if the Lord has shown them any visions
and they will ask the priests
to tell them what God wants.
But the priests will not know
what to tell them and the leaders
will not be able to tell them what they should do.
27The king will also not know what to do.
The man who rules
will be too afraid to do anything.
The people in the land will be so afraid
that their hands will tremble.
I will punish them
for the things they have done.
I will do the same to them
as they did to other people.
Then they will know that I am the Lord.’
