And He said to me: Son of man, I send you to the Israelites, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against Me. They and their fathers have transgressed against Me even to this very day.
They rejected His statutes and His covenant that He had made with their fathers and the decrees He had given them. They followed idols, and became idolaters, and followed the surrounding nations, concerning whom the Lord commanded them, that they should not do like them.
Since the days of our fathers until this day, we have been in a great guilt. It is because of our iniquities that we, our kings, and our priests have been delivered—by the sword, by captivity, by spoil, and by being shamed—into the hand of the kings of the lands. This day is like that, too.
“Nevertheless they became disobedient, and rebelled against You, and cast Your law behind their backs, and killed Your prophets who had warned them to turn back to You. But they committed terrible provocations.
Woe to the rebellious children, says the Lord, who take counsel, but not from Me, and make an alliance, but not of My Spirit, in order to add sin to sin;
We lie down in our shame, and our humiliation covers us. For we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.”
Take a scroll of a book, and write in it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel and against Judah and against all the nations, from the day I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah, even to this day.
“The incense offerings that you burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you, and your fathers, your kings, and your officials, and the people of the land, did not the Lord remember them and did they not come into His mind?
Stand in the gate of the house of the Lord and proclaim there this word: Hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah, who enter at these gates to worship the Lord.
Say now to the rebellious house: Do you not know what these things mean? Tell them: Behold, the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem, and took its king and its officials, and led them to him in Babylon.
The man said to me, “Son of man, look with your eyes, and hear with your ears, and set your heart on all that I shall show you. For you have been brought here to show it to you. Declare all that you see to the house of Israel.”
From the days of your fathers you have gone away from My ordinances and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of Hosts. But you say, “How shall we return?”
And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring good news of good things!”