¹Then the word of the Lord came to me and said, ²“Son of Adam, speak to the sons of your people and say to them, ‘When I bring a sword over a land, if the people of the land take one man from their borders and appoint him as their watchman, ³and he sees the sword coming over the land, and he blows the ramshorn and warns the people, ⁴if a person hears the sound of the ramshorn but does not take heed, and the sword comes and takes him, his blood will be on his head; ⁵he heard the sound of the ramshorn, but he did not take heed. His blood will be upon him. But he who takes heed will save his life. ⁶And if the watchman sees the sword coming, but he does not sound the ramshorn, and the people are not warned when the sword comes, it will take a person's life from them. That person will be taken in his iniquity, but I will require his blood from the hand of the watchman.’ ⁷And as for you, son of Adam, I have appointed you as a watchman for the house of Israel. When you hear anything from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. ⁸When I say to the wicked man, ‘You wicked man, you shall surely die’, but you don't speak to warn the wicked man about his way, that wicked man will die in his iniquity, but I will require his blood from your hand. ⁹But if you warn the wicked man about his way, for him to turn back from it, and he does not turn back from his way, he will die in his iniquity, but you will have saved your life. ¹⁰And you, son of Adam, say to the house of Israel, ‘You have spoken like this and said, «If our transgressions and our sins are on us, and we are wasting away in them, then how can we live?» ’ ¹¹Say to them, ‘As I live, says my Lord the Lord, I certainly do not take pleasure in the death of the wicked man, but in a wicked man turning back from his way, and living. Turn back, turn back from your wicked ways, for why should you die, O house of Israel?’ ¹²And you, son of Adam, say to the sons of your people, ‘The righteousness of the righteous man will not save him on the day of his transgression, and the wickedness of the wicked man is not something he will stumble in on the day of his turning away from his wickedness, whereas a righteous man cannot live by it on the day of his sin. ¹³When I say of the righteous man, «He will certainly live», and he trusts in his righteousness, but he commits injustice, none of his righteousness will be remembered, but it will be in his injustice which he has committed that he will die. ¹⁴And when I say to the wicked man, «You will certainly die», but he turns back from his sin and does justice and righteousness, ¹⁵and the wicked man restores what was given as security, and he repays what he has misappropriated, and he walks in the statutes of life, not committing injustice, he will certainly live; he shall not die. ¹⁶None of his sins which he has committed will be remembered regarding him. He has done justice and righteousness; he shall certainly live.’ ¹⁷Yet the sons of your people have said, ‘The way of the Lord^* is not fair.’ But it is their way which is not fair. ¹⁸If a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits injustice, then he will die in those things. ¹⁹And if a wicked man turns away from his wickedness and does justice and righteousness, he will live on account of them. ²⁰But you say, ‘The way of the Lord^* is not fair.’ But I will judge you each according to his ways, O house of Israel.” ²¹Then it came to pass in the twelfth year of our deportation, in the tenth month, on the fifth day of the month, that an escapee came to me from Jerusalem and said, “The city has been attacked.” ²²And the hand of the Lord had been on me in the evening before the escapee came, and he opened my mouth before he came to me in the morning, so my mouth was opened, and I was no longer mute. ²³Then the word of the Lord came to me and said, ²⁴“Son of Adam, the inhabitants of these wastelands, on the territory of Israel, are talking and saying, ‘Abraham was one man, and he inherited the land, whereas we are many, and the land has been given to us as an inheritance.’ ²⁵So say to them, ‘This is what my Lord the Lord says: «You have been eating with blood, and lifting your eyes up to your idols and shedding blood. So will you inherit the land? ²⁶You have confided in your swords, you have committed an abomination, and each has defiled his neighbour's wife. So will you inherit the land?» ’ ²⁷Say this to them: ‘This is what my Lord the Lord says: «As I live, they who are in the wastelands will certainly fall by the sword, and him who is in the open countryside I will give to the animals for them to eat, and those in fortresses or caves will die of a plague. ²⁸And I will make the land a desolation and a wasteland, and its pride in its strength will cease, and the mountains of Israel will become desolate, with no-one passing through. ²⁹And they will know that I am the Lord when I make the land a desolation and a wasteland on account of all their abominations which they committed.» ’ ³⁰And as for you, son of Adam, the sons of your people are talking about you at the walls and at the doors of the houses, and they speak to each other, each to his brother, saying, ‘Come now, and hear what the word is which proceeds from the Lord.’ ³¹And they will come to you as an influx of people, and my people will sit before you, and they will hear your words, but they will not do them, for they show love in their speech, but their heart goes after unjust gain. ³²And here you are like a lovely song to them, nice vocally, and a good musician. So they will hear your words, but they will not do them. ³³And when this comes to pass – behold, it is coming – they will know that there was a prophet among them.”