Ezekiel 9

¹ Then he cried loud for me to hear: Come, you scourges of the city!

² With that I saw six men coming from the direction of the upper gate which faces the north, each with a destroying weapon in his hand. In their midst was a man dressed in linen, with a writer's case at his waist. They entered and stood beside the bronze altar.

³ Then he called to the man dressed in linen with the writer's case at his waist,

⁴ saying to him: Pass through the city (through Jerusalem) and mark an X on the foreheads of those who moan and groan over all the abominations that are practiced within it.

⁵ To the others I heard him say: Pass through the city after him and strike! Do not look on them with pity nor show any mercy!

⁶ Old men, youths and maidens, women and children--wipe them out! But do not touch any marked with the X; begin at my sanctuary. So they began with the men (the elders) who were in front of the temple.

⁷ Defile the temple, he said to them, and fill the courts with the slain; then go out and strike in the city.

⁸ As they began to strike, I was left alone. I fell prone, crying out, Alas, Lord GOD! Will you destroy all that is left of Israel when you pour out your fury on Jerusalem?"

⁹ He answered me: The sins of the house of Israel are great beyond measure; the land is filled with bloodshed, the city with lawlessness. They think that the LORD has forsaken the land, that he does not see them.

¹⁰ I, however, will not look upon them with pity, nor show any mercy. I will bring down their conduct upon their heads.

¹¹ Then I saw the man dressed in linen with the writing case at his waist make his report: "I have done as you ordered."

²⁴ Spirit lifted me up and brought me back to the exiles in Chaldea (in a vision, by God's spirit). Then the vision I had seen left me,

²⁵ and I told the exiles everything the LORD had shown me.