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profanity, depravity, brutality

Ezekiel 22:6-12 (JDV)

Ezekiel 22:6 ” ‘Notice, every prince of Israel within you has used his strength to shed blood.
Ezekiel 22:7 Father and mother are treated triflingly, and the resident alien is exploited within you. The fatherless and widow are oppressed in you.
Ezekiel 22:8 You think lightly of my devoted things and profane my Sabbaths.
Ezekiel 22:9 There are men within you who slander in order to shed blood. People who live in you eat at the mountain shrines; they commit depraved acts within you.
Ezekiel 22:10 Men within you have sexual intercourse with their father’s wife and violate women during their menstrual impurity.
Ezekiel 22:11 One man within you commits a repulsive act with his neighbor’s wife; another defiles his daughter-in-law with infamy; and yet another violates his sister, his father’s daughter.
Ezekiel 22:12 People who live in you accept bribes in order to shed blood. You take interest and profit on a loan and brutally extort your neighbors. You have forgotten me. This is the declaration of the Lord Yahveh.

profanity, depravity, brutality

These three words describe the kind of people the prophet was called to address. These are the kind of people who have forgotten God — living as if he does not exist. We read of such people in our newspapers and watch stories about them. They are the direct results of a society’s embrace of atheism. In Ezekiel’s day, the temple was still there, and the sabbaths were still being observed — although being profaned as well.

Disaster awaited these people. Can we imagine a scenario in which our own generation can be spared? Not without true repentance and a return to faith and obedience.

LORD, have mercy on us.