The Berean Pursuit
And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, "O son of man, this is what the Lord GOD says to the land of Israel:
'The end! The end has come
upon the four corners of the land.
The end is now upon you,
and I will unleash My anger against you.
I will judge you according to your ways
and repay you for all your abominations.
I will not look on you with pity,
nor will I spare you,
but I will punish you for your ways
and for the abominations among you.
Then you will know that I am the LORD.'
This is what the Lord GOD says:
'Disaster! An unprecedented disaster -
behold, it is coming!
The end has come!
The end has come!
It has roused itself against you.
Behold, it has come!
Doom has come to you,
O inhabitants of the land.
The time has come;
the day is near;
there is panic on the mountains
instead of shouts of joy.
Very soon I will pour out My wrath upon you
and vent My anger against you;
I will judge you according to your ways
and repay you for all your abominations.
I will not look on you with pity,
nor will I spare you,
but I will punish you for your ways
and for the abominations among you.
Then you will know that it is I, the LORD,
who strikes the blow.
Behold, the day is here!
It has come!
Doom has gone out,
the rod has budded,
arrogance has bloomed.
Their violence has grown into a rod
to punish their wickedness.
None of them will remain:
none of their multitude,
none of their wealth,
and nothing of value.
The time has come;
the day has arrived.
Let the buyer not rejoice
and the seller not mourn,
for wrath is upon the whole multitude.
The seller will surely not recover what he sold
while both remain alive.
For the vision concerning the whole multitude
will not be revoked,
and because of their iniquity,
not one of them will preserve his life.
They have blown the trumpet
and made everything ready,
but no one goes to war,
for My wrath is upon the whole multitude.
The sword is outside;
plague and famine are within.
Those in the country will die by the sword,
and those in the city will be devoured
by famine and plague.
The survivors will escape
and live in the mountains,
moaning like doves of the valley,
each for his own iniquity.
Every hand will go limp,
and every knee will turn to water.
They will put on sackcloth,
and terror will overwhelm them.
Shame will cover all their faces,
and all their heads will be shaved.
They will throw their silver into the streets,
and their gold will seem unclean.
Their silver and gold cannot save them
in the day of the wrath of the LORD.
They cannot satisfy their appetites
or fill their stomachs with wealth,
for it became the stumbling block
that brought their iniquity.
His beautiful ornaments
they transformed into pride
and used them to fashion
their vile images and detestable idols.
Therefore I will make these
into something unclean for them.
And I will hand these things over
as plunder to foreigners
and loot to the wicked of the earth,
who will defile them.
I will turn My face away from them,
and they will defile My treasured place.
Violent men will enter it,
and they will defile it.
Forge the chain,
for the land is full of crimes of bloodshed,
and the city is full of violence.
So I will bring the most wicked of nations
to take possession of their houses.
I will end the pride of the mighty,
and their holy places will be profaned.
Anguish is coming!
They will seek peace, but find none.
Disaster upon disaster will come,
and rumor after rumor.
Then they will seek a vision from a prophet,
but instruction from the priests will perish,
as will counsel from the elders.
The king will mourn,
the prince will be clothed with despair,
and the hands of the people of the land will tremble.
I will deal with them according to their conduct,
and I will judge them by their own standards.
Then they will know that I am the LORD.'?"
In the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth month, I was sitting in my house, and the elders of Judah were sitting before me; and there the hand of the Lord GOD fell upon me.
Then I looked and saw a figure like that of a man. From His waist down His appearance was like fire, and from His waist up He was as bright as the gleam of amber. He stretched out what looked like a hand and took me by the hair of my head. Then the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and carried me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the inner court, where the idol that provokes jealousy was seated.
And there I saw the glory of the God of Israel, like the vision I had seen in the plain. "Son of man," He said to me, "now lift up your eyes to the north."
So I lifted up my eyes to the north, and in the entrance north of the Altar Gate I saw this idol of jealousy.
"Son of man," He said to me, "do you see what they are doing-the great abominations that the house of Israel is committing-to drive Me far from My sanctuary? Yet you will see even greater abominations."
Then He brought me to the entrance to the court, and I looked and saw a hole in the wall.
"Son of man," He told me, "dig through the wall."
So I dug through the wall and discovered a doorway.
Then He said to me, "Go in and see the wicked abominations they are committing here."
So I went in and looked, and engraved all around the wall was every kind of crawling creature and detestable beast, along with all the idols of the house of Israel. Before them stood seventy elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan standing among them. Each had a censer in his hand, and a fragrant cloud of incense was rising.
"Son of man," He said to me, "do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the darkness, each at the shrine of his own idol? For they are saying, 'The LORD does not see us; the LORD has forsaken the land.'?"
Again, He told me, "You will see them committing even greater abominations."
Then He brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the LORD, and I saw women sitting there, weeping for Tammuz.
"Son of man," He said to me, "do you see this? Yet you will see even greater abominations than these."
So He brought me to the inner court of the house of the LORD, and there at the entrance to the temple of the LORD, between the portico and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the LORD and their faces toward the east; and they were bowing to the east in worship of the sun.
"Son of man," He said to me, "do you see this? Is it not enough for the house of Judah to commit the abominations they are practicing here, that they must also fill the land with violence and continually provoke Me to anger? Look, they are even putting the branch to their nose! Therefore I will respond with wrath. I will not look on them with pity, nor will I spare them. Although they shout loudly in My ears, I will not listen to them."
Then I heard Him call out in a loud voice, saying, "Draw near, O executioners of the city, each with a weapon of destruction in hand."
And I saw six men coming from the direction of the Upper Gate, which faces north, each with a weapon of slaughter in his hand. With them was another man clothed in linen who had a writing kit at his side. And they came in and stood beside the bronze altar.
Then the glory of the God of Israel rose from above the cherubim, where it had been, and moved to the threshold of the temple. And He called to the man clothed in linen who had the writing kit at his side. "Go throughout the city of Jerusalem," said the LORD, "and put a mark on the foreheads of the men sighing and groaning over all the abominations committed there."
And as I listened, He said to the others, "Follow him through the city and start killing; do not show pity or spare anyone! Slaughter the old men, the young men and maidens, the women and children; but do not go near anyone who has the mark. Now begin at My sanctuary."
So they began with the elders who were before the temple.
Then He told them, "Defile the temple and fill the courts with the slain. Go forth!"
So they went out and began killing throughout the city.
While they were killing, I was left alone. And I fell facedown and cried out, "Oh, Lord GOD, when You pour out Your wrath on Jerusalem, will You destroy the entire remnant of Israel?"
He replied, "The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great. The land is full of bloodshed, and the city is full of perversity. For they say, 'The LORD has forsaken the land; the LORD does not see.' But as for Me, I will not look on them with pity, nor will I spare them. I will bring their deeds down upon their own heads."
Then the man clothed in linen with the writing kit at his side reported back, "I have done as You commanded."
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs You are doing if God were not with him."
Jesus replied, "Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."
"How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Can he enter his mother's womb a second time to be born?"
Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh is born of flesh, but spirit is born of the Spirit. Do not be amazed that I said, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes. You hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."
"How can this be?" Nicodemus asked.
"You are Israel's teacher," said Jesus, "and you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, and yet you people do not accept our testimony.
If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the One who descended from heaven-the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.
And this is the verdict: The Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness rather than the Light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come into the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever practices the truth comes into the Light, so that it may be seen clearly that what he has done has been accomplished in God."
After this, Jesus and His disciples went into the Judean countryside, where He spent some time with them and baptized.
Now John was also baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because the water was plentiful there, and people kept coming to be baptized. (For John had not yet been thrown into prison.)
Then a dispute arose between John's disciples and a certain Jew over the issue of ceremonial washing. So John's disciples came to him and said, "Look, Rabbi, the One who was with you beyond the Jordan, the One you testified about-He is baptizing, and everyone is going to Him."
John replied, "A man can receive only what is given him from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, 'I am not the Christ, but am sent ahead of Him.' The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom stands and listens for him, and is overjoyed to hear the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must increase; I must decrease.
The One who comes from above is above all. The one who is from the earth belongs to the earth and speaks as one from the earth. The One who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what He has seen and heard, yet no one accepts His testimony. Whoever accepts His testimony has certified that God is truthful. For the One whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit.
The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in His hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever rejects the Son will not see life. Instead, the wrath of God remains on him."