Ezekiel 19:1The MessageSing the blues over the princes of Israel. Say: What a lioness was your mother among lions! She crouched in a pride of young lions. Her cubs grew large. She reared one of her cubs to maturity, a robust young lion. He learned to hunt. He ate men. Nations sounded the alarm. He was caught in a trap. They took him with hooks and dragged him to Egypt. See the chapter |
34 Cross References
Is Jehoiachin a leaky bucket, a rusted-out pail good for nothing? Why else would he be thrown away, he and his children, thrown away to a foreign place? O land, land, land, listen to God’s Message! This is God’s verdict: “Write this man off as if he were childless, a man who will never amount to anything. Nothing will ever come of his life. He’s the end of the line, the last of the kings.”
God showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the Temple of God. This was after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah from Jerusalem into exile in Babylon, along with the leaders of Judah, the craftsmen, and the skilled laborers. In one basket the figs were of the finest quality, ripe and ready to eat. In the other basket the figs were rotten, so rotten they couldn’t be eaten.
“But like the rotten figs, so rotten they can’t be eaten, is Zedekiah king of Judah. Rotten figs—that’s how I’ll treat him and his leaders, along with the survivors here and those down in Egypt. I’ll make them something that the whole world will look on as disgusting—repugnant outcasts, their names used as curse words wherever in the world I drive them. And I’ll make sure they die like flies—from war, starvation, disease, whatever—until the land I once gave to them and their ancestors is completely rid of them.”
I wish my head were a well of water and my eyes fountains of tears So I could weep day and night for casualties among my dear, dear people. At times I wish I had a wilderness hut, a backwoods cabin, Where I could get away from my people and never see them again. They’re a faithless, feckless bunch, a congregation of degenerates. * * *
“I’m lamenting the loss of the mountain pastures. I’m chanting dirges for the old grazing grounds. They’ve become deserted wastelands too dangerous for travelers. No sounds of sheep bleating or cattle mooing. Birds and wild animals, all gone. Nothing stirring, no sounds of life. I’m going to make Jerusalem a pile of rubble, fit for nothing but stray cats and dogs. I’m going to reduce Judah’s towns to piles of ruins where no one lives!” * * *
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