Ezekiel 9

¹ Then as I listened he shouted, ‘Come here, you scourges of the city, and bring your weapons of destruction’.

² Immediately six men advanced from the upper north gate, each holding a deadly weapon. In the middle of them was a man in white, with a scribe’s ink horn in his belt. They came in and halted in front of the bronze altar.

³ The glory of the God of Israel rose off the cherubs where it had been and went up to the threshold of the Temple. He called the man in white with a scribe’s ink horn in his belt

⁴ and said, ‘Go all through the city, all through Jerusalem, and mark a cross on the foreheads of all who deplore and disapprove of all the filth practised in it’.

⁵ I heard him say to the others, ‘Follow him through the city, and strike. Show neither pity nor mercy;

⁶ old men, young men, virgins, children, women, kill and exterminate them all. But do not touch anyone with a cross on his forehead. Begin at my sanctuary.’ So they began with the old men in front of the Temple.

⁷ He said to them, ‘Defile the Temple; fill the courts with corpses, and go’. They went out and hacked their way through the city.

⁸ While they were hacking them down, I stayed behind; I fell face downwards and exclaimed, ‘Ah, Lord Yahweh, are you going to annihilate all that is left of Israel as you turn your anger on Jerusalem?’

⁹ He said, ‘The guilt of the House of Israel and Judah is immense, boundless; the country is full of bloodshed, the city overflows with wickedness, for they say, “Yahweh has abandoned the country, Yahweh cannot see”.

¹⁰ Right, then, I too will show no pity, I too will not spare. I mean to call them to account for all their behaviour.’

¹¹ The man in white with the scribe’s ink horn in his belt then came back and made his report, ‘I have carried out your orders’.