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Ezekiel

About this book
Chapter 7

1 The Lord’s message came to me: 2 “You, son of man—this is what the Sovereign Lord says to the land of Israel: An end! The end is coming on the four corners of the land!⁠ 3 The end is now upon you, and I will release my anger against you. I will judge you according to your behavior; I will hold you accountable for all your abominable practices. 4 My eye will not pity you; I will not spare you. For I will hold you responsible for your behavior, and you will suffer the consequences of your abominable practices. Then you will know that I am the Lord! 5 “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: A disaster—a one-of-a-kind disaster—is coming! 6 An end comes—the end comes! It has awakened against you! Look, it is coming! 7 Doom is coming upon you who live in the land! The time is coming, the day is near. There are sounds of tumult, not shouts of joy, on the mountains. 8 Soon now I will pour out my rage on you; I will fully vent my anger against you. I will judge you according to your behavior. I will hold you accountable for all your abominable practices. 9 My eye will not pity you; I will not spare you. For your behavior I will hold you accountable, and you will suffer the consequences of your abominable practices. Then you will know that it is I, the Lord, who is striking you. 10 “Look, the day! Look, it is coming! Doom has gone out! The staff has budded, pride has blossomed!⁠ 11 Violence has grown into a staff that supports wickedness. Not one of them will be left—not from their crowd, not from their wealth, not from their prominence. 12 The time has come; the day has struck! The customer should not rejoice, nor the seller mourn; for divine wrath comes against their whole crowd. 13 The customer will no longer pay the seller while both parties are alive, for the vision against their whole crowd will not be revoked. Each person, for his iniquity, will fail to preserve his life. 14 “They have blown the trumpet and everyone is ready, but no one goes to battle, because my anger is against their whole crowd. 15 The sword is outside; pestilence and famine are inside the house.⁠ Whoever is in the open field will die by the sword, and famine and pestilence will consume everyone in the city. 16 Their survivors will escape to the mountains and become like doves of the valleys; all of them will moan—each one for his iniquity. 17 All their hands will hang limp; their knees will be wet with urine. 18 They will wear sackcloth, terror will cover them; shame will be on all their faces, and all their heads will be shaved bald. 19 They will discard their silver in the streets, and their gold will be treated like filth. Their silver and gold will not be able to deliver them on the day of the Lord’s fury.⁠ They will not satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs because their wealth was the obstacle leading to their iniquity. 20 They rendered the beauty of his ornaments into pride, and with it they made their abominable images—their detestable idols. Therefore I will render it filthy to them. 21 I will give it to foreigners as loot, to the world’s wicked ones as plunder, and they will desecrate it. 22 I will turn my face away from them, and they will desecrate my treasured place. Vandals will enter it and desecrate it. 23 (Make the chain, because the land is full of murder and the city is full of violence.) 24 I will bring the most wicked of the nations, and they will take possession of their houses. I will put an end to the arrogance of the strong, and their sanctuaries will be desecrated. 25 Terror is coming! They will seek peace, but find none. 26 Disaster after disaster will come, and one rumor after another. They will seek a vision from a prophet; priestly instruction will disappear, along with counsel from the elders. 27 The king will mourn and the prince will be clothed with shuddering; the hands of the people of the land will tremble. Based on their behavior I will deal with them, and by their standard of justice I will judge them. Then they will know that I am the Lord!”

Texts in conversation

Compare Ezekiel 7:2 and Amos 8:2

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Amos uses the word “end” to warn that Israel’s social order has collapsed because corruption passed the point of return. Ezekiel uses the same word for a bigger description of ruin that brings total devastation to the land and everything in it.

Passages

Ezekiel 7:2

Hebrew Bible
1 The Lord’s message came to me: 2 “You, son of man—this is what the Sovereign Lord says to the land of Israel: An end! The end is coming on the four corners of the land! 3 The end is now upon you, and I will release my anger against you. I will judge you according to your behavior; I will hold you accountable for all your abominable practices. 4 My eye will not pity you; I will not spare you. For I will hold you responsible for your behavior, and you will suffer the consequences of your abominable practices. Then you will know that I am the Lord!
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Ezekiel

Amos 8:2

Hebrew Bible
1 The Sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw a basket of summer fruit. 2 He said, “What do you see, Amos?” I replied, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me, “The end has come for my people Israel! I will no longer overlook their sins. 3 The women singing in the temple will wail in that day.” The Sovereign Lord is speaking. “There will be many corpses littered everywhere! Be quiet!” 4 Listen to this, you who trample the needy and do away with the destitute in the land.
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Amos

References

"... Recent treatments of Genesis 6–9 P have revealed numerous intertextual contacts with other biblical texts, in particular with other Priestly texts. Most scholars, due to their commitment to the theory of a unified Priestly document, see in these commonalities a confirmation of the theory of a coherent, homogeneous PG (PC) Since the present approach reckons with both literary pre-states and redactional reworking of the Priestly texts, the diachronic relationship between Genesis 6–9 P and the Priestly texts in question should be reassessed. Regarding the story’s climactic finale, the passage about the covenant with Noah, scholars see in the Priestly flood account an answer to both the prophetic theology of judgment and the Deuteronomistic theology of covenant. The author of Genesis 6–9 P maintains that prophecy about the “end” (קץ, see Amos 8:2; Ezekiel 7:2–6) addressed to Israel by its prophets was already formulated in the primeval history ... Yet here, in the Priestly flood story, the logic of God’s retribution is broken by God himself: God solemnly vows never again to destroy the world (Genesis 9:8–17). Furthermore, unlike the breakable covenant of the Deuteronomists, the covenant given to Noah and to postdiluvian humanity is eternal. Moreover, this covenant is universal rather than limited to only one nation (Israel) ..."
Jürg Hutzli, The Origins of P: Literary Profiles and Strata of the Priestly Texts in Genesis 1-Exodus 40 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2023), 124–125.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Ezekiel 7:2 and Amos 8:2

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