Ezekiel

9** And he cried in a loud voice in my hearing “Come on, punishments of the city!” 2 and there six men were coming from the direction of the upper gate, the one that is faced northward, each with his smashing-mace in his hand, and in the middle of them one man dressed in linen with writer’s pen and ink at his waist; and they came in and stood beside the bronze altar. 3 And the glory of the God of Israel moved up from the cherub it had been on to the threshold of the house, and he called out to the man dressed in linen that had the writer’s pen and ink at his waist 4 “Go through the middle of the city, through the middle of Jerusalem, and make crosses on the foreheads of the men that moan and groan for all the abominations that are committed within it.” 5 And to these he said in my hearing “Go through the city behind him and strike; let your eyes have no mercy, do not spare; 6 you are to kill old man and young and maiden and child and women in wholesale slaughter, but not come near any man that has the cross on him; and you are to begin at my sanctuary.” And they began with the old men before the house. 7* And he said to them “Defile the house and fill its courts with bleeding bodies, and go out and strike in the city.”

8 And when they went to striking I remained alive; and I threw myself on my face and cried “O, O, Lord Jehovah, are you going to make away with all the remnant of Israel in pouring out your ire on Jerusalem?” 9* And he said to me “The guilt of the house of Israel and Judah is very great indeed: the country has been filled with bloodshed and the city is full of crookedness, because they think ‘Jehovah has left the country and Jehovah does not see’; 10 and neither shall my eye have mercy nor will I spare—I have brought their course down on their own heads.”

11 And back came the man dressed in linen that had the writer’s pen and ink at his waist reporting “I have done as you ordered.”