The Babylonian Exile

Yes, all the people of the land will be burying them; they will become famous for it. It will be a day for me to be glorified,' says Adonai ELOHIM.

'They will then pick men for the continual duty of going through the land and burying with the travelers the corpses still lying out on the ground, in order to cleanse it; they will begin their search after the seven months.

As they go through the land, if anyone sees a human bone, he will put a marker next to it until the gravediggers have buried it in the Valley of Hamon-Gog.

Moreover, "Hamonah" [its horde] will be the name of a city. Thus will they cleanse the land.'

"As for you, human, Adonai ELOHIM says that you are to speak to all kinds of birds and to every wild animal as follows: 'Assemble yourselves and come, gather yourselves from all around for the sacrifice I am preparing for you, a great sacrifice on the mountains of Isra'el, where you can eat flesh and drink blood!

You will eat the flesh of heroes and drink the blood of the earth's princes - rams, lambs, goats and bulls, fattened in Bashan, all of them.

You will eat fat till you are gorged and drink blood till you are drunk at the sacrifice I have prepared for you.

At my table you will be satiated with horses, horsemen, heroes and every kind of warrior,' says Adonai ELOHIM.

"'Thus will I display my glory among the nations, so that all the nations will see my judgment when I execute it and my hand when I lay it on them.

From that day on, the house of Isra'el will know that I am ADONAI their God;

while the Goyim will know that the house of Isra'el went into exile because of their guilt, because they broke faith with me; so that I hid my face from them and handed them over to their adversaries; and they fell by the sword, all of them.

Yes, I treated them as their uncleanness and crimes deserved; and I hid my face from them.'

"Therefore Adonai ELOHIM says this: 'Now I will restore the fortunes of Ya'akov and have compassion on the entire house of Isra'el, and I will be jealous for my holy name.

They will bear their shame and all their [guilt from] breaking faith with me, once they are living securely in their land, with no one to make them afraid.

This will be after I have brought them back from the peoples and gathered them out of their enemies' lands, thereby being consecrated through them in the sight of many nations.

Then they will know that I am ADONAI their God, since it was I who caused them to go into exile among the nations, and it was I who regathered them to their own land. I will leave none of them there any more,

and I will no longer hide my face from them, for I have poured out my Spirit on the house of Isra'el,' says Adonai ELOHIM."

In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month - this was the fourteenth year after the city [of Yerushalayim] was struck - it was on that very day that the hand of ADONAI was on me, and he took me there.

In visions God brought me into the land of Isra'el and put me down on a very high mountain; on it, toward the south, it seemed that a city was being built.

That is where he took me, and there in front of me was a man whose appearance was like bronze. He had a flax cord and a measuring rod in his hand, and he stood in the gateway.

The man said to me, "Human being, look with your eyes, hear with your ears, and pay attention to all the things I am showing you; because the reason you were brought here is so that I could show them to you. Tell everything you see to the house of Isra'el."

There was a wall surrounding the house. The man had in his hand a measuring rod six cubits long [ten-and-a-half feet], each cubit [twenty-one inches] being a normal cubit [eighteen inches] plus a handbreadth [three inches]. He measured the wall's width at ten-and-a-half feet and its height ten-and-a-half feet.

He went to the east gate, climbed its steps and measured one of the gate's doorposts at ten-and-a-half feet wide and the other one the same.

There were guardrooms, each ten-and-a-half feet square; the distance between the guardrooms was eight-and-three-quarters feet. The threshold of the gate adjoining the gate's entranceway facing the house measured ten-and-a-half feet.

He measured the gate's entranceway facing the house at ten-and-a-half feet.