And the word of Yahweh came to me, saying, "And you, son of man, thus says the Lord Yahweh to the land of Israel: ‘The end comes, the end on the four corners of the land. Now the end is on you, and I will send my anger on you, and I will judge you according to your ways, and I will bring on you all your detestable things. And my eye will not take pity on you, and I will not show compassion for your ways; on you I will bring your detestable things; they will be in the midst of you, and you will know that I am Yahweh.’ Thus says the Lord Yahweh: ‘Look! Disaster after disaster is coming! The end comes, comes the end! It has awakened against you! Look! It comes! Doom is coming against you, the dweller of the land; the time comes, the day is near, panic and not joy is on the mountains. Soon I will pour out my rage on you, and I will fully vent my anger on you, and I will judge you according to your ways, and I will bring on you all of your detestable things. And my eye will not take pity, and I will not show compassion. According to your ways I will deal with you, and your detestable things will be in the midst of you, and you will know that I am Yahweh who strikes. Look! The day is coming; doom goes out, the staff blossoms, pride sprouts. Violence has grown to become a staff of wickedness; none from them will remain, and none from their abundance nor from their wealth; and prominence will not be among them. The time has come, the day has arrived; let not the buyer rejoice, and let the seller not mourn, for anger is on all their multitude. For the seller will not return to the merchandise while they are still alive, for the vision is about all of its multitude; it will not change, and a man because of his guilt will not be able to hold onto his life. They shall blow on the trumpet and prepare everything, but there is no one going to the battle, for my anger is on all of their multitude. The sword is outside, and the plague and the famine are inside; the one who is in the field will die by the sword, and the one who is in the city, famine and plague will devour him. And if their survivors will escape, they will be on the mountains, like the doves of the valley, all of them groaning, each because of his guilt. All of the hands will hang limp, and all of the knees will be wet with urine. And they will wear sackcloth, and horror will cover them, and on all of the faces will be shame, and baldness on all of their heads. Their silver they will discard on the streets, and filth will be their gold; their silver and their gold will not be able to rescue them on the day of the wrath of Yahweh. They will not satisfy their hunger and their stomachs they will not fill, for their guilt will be their stumbling block.

"‘And the beauty of its ornament he made into a prideful thing and made with it their detestable things and their vile idols; therefore I will make it into an impure thing for them. And I will give it into the hand of strangers as plunder and to the wicked people of the earth as spoil, and they will defile it. And I will turn my face from them, and they will defile my treasured place, and violent ones will enter and defile it. Make a chain for the land; it is full of bloody crimes and the city is full of violence. And I will bring the worst of the nations, and they will take possession of their houses, and I will put to an end the pride of the mighty ones, and their sanctuaries will be defiled. Anguish comes, and they will seek peace, and there will be none. Calamity upon calamity will come, and rumor will be upon rumor. And they will seek a vision from a prophet, but instruction will perish from the priest and counsel from the elders. The king will mourn, and the prince will be dressed with despair, and the hands of the people of the land will tremble. According to their way I will do to them, and according to their judgments I will judge them, and they will know that I am Yahweh.’"

And then in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, I was sitting in my house, and the elders of Judah were sitting before me. And the hand of the Lord Yahweh fell on me there, and I saw, and look! A figure like the appearance of a man; from the appearance of his waist and below was fire, and from his waist and upward was like the appearance of brightness, like the outward appearance of amber. And he sent out the form of a hand, and he took me by a lock of hair of my head, and the Spirit lifted me between earth and heaven, and it brought me to Jerusalem in visions of God to the doorway of the inner gate that faced north, at which there was the seat of the image of jealousy, which was making jealous. And look! There was the glory of the God of Israel like the vision that I saw in the valley. And he said to me, "Son of man, lift up now your eyes toward the north." And I lifted up my eyes toward the north, and, look, there was to the north of the gate of the altar this image of jealousy at the entrance. And he said to me, "Son of man, "Do you see what they are doing—great detestable things that the house of Israel is committing here so as to drive me from my sanctuary, and yet you will see again greater detestable things." And he brought me to the doorway of the courtyard, and I saw, and look! A hole in the wall. And he said to me, "Son of man, dig now through the wall." And I dug through the wall, and look! There was a doorway. And he said to me, "Come and see the detestable things, the evil that they are doing here. And I came, and I saw, and look, all kinds of creatures and detestable beasts; and all of the idols of the house of Israel were carved on the wall all around. And seventy men from the elders of the house of Israel, and Jaazaniah, the son of Shaphan, was standing in the midst of them, and they were standing before them. Each one had his censer in his hand, and the fragrance of the cloud of the incense was going up. And he said to me, "Have you seen, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in the inner rooms of his idol, for they are saying, ‘Yahweh is not seeing us; Yahweh has abandoned the land.’" And he said to me, "Still you will see again greater detestable things that they are doing." And he brought me to the doorway of the gate of the house of Yahweh that is toward the north, and look! There were the women sitting weeping for Tammuz. And he said to me, "Have you seen, son of man? Still you will see again greater detestable things than these." And he brought me to the inner courtyard of the house of Yahweh, and look, at the doorway of the temple of Yahweh, between the portico and the altar, there were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of Yahweh and their faces toward the east, and they were bowing down toward the east before the sun. And he said to me, "Have you seen, son of man? Was it too small a thing for the house of Judah to do the detestable things that they did here? For they filled up the land with violence, and they provoked me to anger again, and look! They are putting the branch to their nose. And so I will act in rage, and my eye will not take pity, and I will not have compassion, and they will cry in my ear with a loud voice, and I will not hear them."

And he called in my ears with a loud voice, saying, "They have come near, the punishers of the city, and each with his weapon of destruction in his hand. And look! Six men coming from the way of the upper gate that faced northward, and each with his weapon for shattering in his hand; and one man was in the midst of them, dressed in linen, and the writing case of the scribe was at his side. And they came and stood beside the bronze altar. And the glory of the God of Israel lifted itself up from upon the cherub that he was on and went to the threshold of the house, and he called to the man who was clothed in linen with a scribal writing case at his side. And Yahweh said to him, "Go through in the midst of the city, in the midst of Jerusalem, and you must place a mark on the foreheads of the men who are groaning and lamenting about all of the detestable things that are being done in the midst of her." And to the others he said in my hearing, "Go through the city behind him and kill! Your eyes shall not take pity, and you shall not have compassion. You must kill totally old man, young man and young woman, and little children and women, but concerning every man with the mark on him you must not approach; and from my sanctuary you must begin." And they began with the old men who were before the house. And he said to them, "Defile the house and fill the courtyards with the dead; go out! And they went out, and they killed in the city. And then as they were striking, and I was left behind, I fell on my face, and I cried out, and I said, "Ah, Lord Yahweh! "Will you be destroying all of the remnant of Israel while you pour out your rage on Jerusalem?" And he said to me, "The guilt of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land is filled with bloodguilt, and the city is full of injustice. For they say Yahweh abandoned the land, and Yahweh does not see. And I, my eye will not take pity, and I will not have compassion; their way I will bring on their head." And look! The man clothed in linen and with a writing case at his side was bringing back a word, saying, "I have done all that you commanded me."

Now there was a man of the Pharisees whose name was Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to him at night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one is able to perform these signs that you are performing unless God were with him." Jesus answered and said to him, "Truly, truly I say to you, unless someone is born from above, he is not able to see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus said to him, "How can a man be born when he is an old man? He is not able to enter into his mother’s womb for the second time and be born, can he?"

Jesus answered, "Truly, truly I say to you, unless someone is born of water and spirit, he is not able to enter into the kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘It is necessary for you to be born from above.’ The wind blows wherever it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit."

Nicodemus answered and said to him, "How can these things be?" Jesus answered and said to him, "Are you the teacher of Israel, and you do not understand these things? Truly, truly I say to you, we speak what we know, and we testify about what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony! If I tell you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? And no one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven—the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, thus it is necessary that the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life."

For in this way God loved the world, so that he gave his one and only Son, in order that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but will have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world in order that he should judge the world, but in order that the world should be saved through him. The one who believes in him is not judged, but the one who does not believe has already been judged, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. And this is the judgment: that the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who practices evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds be exposed. But the one who practices the truth comes to the light, in order that his deeds may be revealed, that they are done in God.

After these things Jesus and his disciples came into Judean territory, and there he spent time with them and was baptizing. Now John was also baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because water was plentiful there, and they were coming and were being baptized. (For John had not yet been thrown into prison.)

So a dispute occurred on the part of John’s disciples with a Jew concerning purification. And they came to John and said to him, "Rabbi, he who was with you on the other side of the Jordan, about whom you testified—look, this one is baptizing, and all are coming to him!"

John answered and said, "A man can receive not one thing unless it is granted to him from heaven! You yourselves testify about me that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I am sent before that one.’ The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. But the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. So this joy of mine is complete. It is necessary for that one to increase, but for me to decrease."

The one who comes from above is over all. The one who is from the earth is from the earth and speaks from the earth; the one who comes from heaven is over all. What he has seen and heard, this he testifies, and no one accepts his testimony. The one who accepts his testimony has attested that God is true. For the one whom God sent speaks the words of God, for he does not give the Spirit by measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who disobeys the Son will not see life—but the wrath of God remains on him.