Read the Modern Pastor’s Version

In the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth month, I was sitting at home with the elders of Judah when the hand of the Lord God came upon me. Then I saw a vision - a likeness like fire: flames burning from his loins downward, and an intense glow rising from his loins upward, like glowing metal.

He reached out and took me by my hair, lifting me up between earth and heaven with visions of God to Jerusalem at the entrance to the inner gate facing north. There stood the pedestal of the idol that stirred jealousy - a place where the glory of the God of Israel dwelled, as I had seen in the plain.

He said to me, "Son of man, lift your eyes toward the north." So I looked, and there at the gate of the altar was this image of jealousy in the entry. The house of Israel was committing great abominations here, so heinous that God should have gone far away from his sanctuary. But instead, he turned me back to behold even greater abominations.

He brought me to the door of the court, and I saw a hole in the wall. "Son of man," he said, "dig now in the wall." When I had dug, I found a door. He told me to go inside and see the wicked things they did.

I entered and saw every form of creeping thing, abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel depicted on the walls around me. Seventy men of the elders stood before them, with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan in their midst, each holding a censer that released a thick cloud of incense.

The Lord said to me, "Son of man, have you seen what the elders of Israel do in secret? They claim that I do not see them and have abandoned the earth." He told me to turn back again and see even greater abominations.

He brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house facing north. There, women were sitting and weeping for Tammuz. "Have you seen this, son of man?" he asked. I was to turn again and see even more wicked things than these.

He led me into the inner court of the Lord's house, where I saw men standing at the temple entrance with their backs to the temple and their faces turned toward the east as they worshiped the sun. "Hast thou seen this?" he asked, "Is it a light thing for the house of Judah that they commit these abominations? They fill the land with violence, return to provoke me, and put the branch to their nose."

Therefore, I will deal with them in fury; my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity. Though they cry out to me with a loud voice, yet I will not listen to them.