We're in the home stretch now. This is day 21 out of 30 episodes of recording the entire Bible out loud. I found Ezekiel a lot smoother and faster reading and more enjoyable than Isaiah and Jeremiah. Even though Isaiah had so many lovely insights into Jesus prophesies you can't really find anywhere else in Scripture. Still, Ezekiel was interesting.
Some verses that stood out to me today. Still the bleeding heart of a loving God calling to His Bride:
3:18-21-If I say to the wicked, You shall surely die, and you do not give him warning or speak to warn the wicked to turn from his wicked way, to save his life, the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. Yet if you warn the wicked and he turn not from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity, but you have delivered yourself. Again, if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and some gift or providence which I lay before him he perverts into an occasion to sin and he commits iniquity, he shall die; because you have not given him warning he shall die in his sin and his righteous deeds which he has done shall not be remembered, but his blood I will require at your hand. Nevertheless, if you warn the righteous man not to sin and he does not sin, he shall surely live because he is warned; also you have delivered yourself from guilt.
11:18-21-And when they return there, they shall take away from it all traces of its detestable things and all its abominations. And I will give them one heart an new heart and I will put a new spirit within them; and I will take awy the stony hardened heart out of their flesh, and give them a new heart of flesh sensitive and responsive to My touch. That they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances, and do them. And they shall be My people, and I will be their God. But as for those whose heart yearns for and goes after their detestable things and their loathsome abominations, I will repay their deeds upon their own heads, says the Lord.
16:8-Now I passed by you again and looked upon you; behold you were maturing and at the time for love, and I spread My skirt over you and covering your nakedness. Yes, I plighted My troth to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord, and you became Mine.
16:14,15-And your renown went forth among the nations for your beauty, for it was perfect through My majesty and splendor which I had put on you, says the Lord. But you trusted in and relied on your own beauty and were unfaithful to God, played the harlot because of your renown, and you poured out your fornications upon anyone who passed by and your beauty was his.
Sounds like our world now. 16:49,50-Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: pride, overabundance of food, prosperous ease, and idleness were hers and her daughters'; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty and committed abominable offenses before Me; therefore I removed them when I saw fit.
18:4,5...9-Behold all souls are Mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is Mine; the soul that sins it shall die. But if a man is righteous and does what is lawful and right.... and Who has walked in My statutes and kept My ordinances, to deal justly; then he is truly righteous, he shall surely live, says the Lord God.
18:23,24- Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked? says the Lord, and not rather that he should turn from his evil way and return to his God and live?
But if the righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live? None of his righteous deeds which he has done shall be remembered. In his trespass that he has trespassed and in his sin that he has sinned, in them shall he die.
18:32- For I have no pleasure in the death of him who dies, says the Lord. Therefore turn and live!
