“Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Repent, turn away from your idols, and turn your faces away from all your abominations.
Parallel translations
- WEB “Therefore tell the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Return, and turn yourselves from your idols! Turn away your faces from all your abominations.
- KJV Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations.
- BSB Therefore tell the house of Israel that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Repent and turn away from your idols; turn your faces away from all your abominations.
- NASB “Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what the Lord God says: “Repent and turn away from your idols, and turn your faces away from all your abominations.
- NLT “Therefore, tell the people of Israel, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Repent and turn away from your idols, and stop all your detestable sins.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God calls Israel to repent: 'Return, and turn from your idols, and turn your faces from all your abominations.'
Overview
At the heart of this oracle is a gracious summons to repentance. The threefold call to turn underscores that the way back is open if they forsake their idols. It echoes the gospel pattern: God exposes sin in order to call sinners home, a call fulfilled in Christ's own preaching of repentance.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 27
- Ezek 18:30“Therefore I will judge you, house of Israel, everyone according to his ways,” says the Lord Yahweh. “Return, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin.
- Ezek 36:31–32Then you shall remember your evil ways, and your doings that were not good; and you shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.
- Isa 30:22You shall defile the overlaying of your engraved images of silver, and the plating of your molten images of gold. You shall cast them away as an unclean thing. You shall tell it, “Go away!”
- Jas 4:8–10Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
- Isa 2:20In that day, men shall cast away their idols of silver, and their idols of gold, which have been made for themselves to worship, to the moles and to the bats;
- Lam 3:39–41Why does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
- Jer 8:5–6Why then have the people of Jerusalem fallen back by a perpetual backsliding? They cling to deceit, they refuse to return.
- Matt 3:8–10Therefore produce fruit worthy of repentance!
- Hos 14:8Ephraim, what have I to do any more with idols? I answer, and will take care of him. I am like a green cypress tree; from me your fruit is found.”
- Acts 3:19“Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, so that there may come times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord,
- Rom 6:21What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.
- Acts 17:30The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now he commands that all people everywhere should repent,
- Ezek 14:4Therefore speak to them, and tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Every man of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart, and puts the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and comes to the prophet; I Yahweh will answer him therein according to the multitude of his idols;
- 1 Kgs 8:47–49yet if they repent in the land where they are carried captive, and turn again, and make supplication to you in the land of those who carried them captive, saying, ‘We have sinned, and have done perversely; we have dealt wickedly;’
- Acts 26:20but declared first to them of Damascus, at Jerusalem, and throughout all the country of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, doing works worthy of repentance.
- Jer 50:4–5“In those days, and in that time,” says Yahweh, “the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together; they will go on their way weeping, and will seek Yahweh their God.
- Hos 14:1–3Israel, return to Yahweh your God; for you have fallen because of your sin.
- Isa 55:6–7Seek Yahweh while he may be found. Call on him while he is near.
- 1 Sam 7:3Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, “If you are returning to Yahweh with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you, and direct your hearts to Yahweh, and serve him only; and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.”
- Jer 13:27I have seen your abominations, even your adulteries, and your neighing, the lewdness of your prostitution, on the hills in the field. Woe to you, Jerusalem! You will not be made clean; how long shall it yet be?”
- Jer 31:18–20“I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus, ‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as an untrained calf: turn me, and I shall be turned; for you are Yahweh my God.
- 2 Chr 29:6For our fathers were unfaithful, and have done that which was evil in Yahweh our God’s sight, and have forsaken him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of Yahweh, and turned their backs.
- Jonah 3:7–9He made a proclamation and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, “Let neither man nor animal, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, nor drink water;
- Zeph 3:11In that day you will not be disappointed for all your doings, in which you have transgressed against me; for then I will take away out from among you your proudly exulting ones, and you will no more be haughty in my holy mountain.
- Neh 1:8–9“Remember, I beg you, the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you trespass, I will scatter you among the peoples;
- Ezek 16:63that you may remember, and be confounded, and never open your mouth any more, because of your shame, when I have forgiven you all that you have done,” says the Lord Yahweh.’”
- Ezek 8:16He brought me into the inner court of Yahweh’s house; and I saw at the door of Yahweh’s temple, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men, with their backs toward Yahweh’s temple, and their faces toward the east; and they were worshiping the sun toward the east.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The promise of one Shepherd-King David, a new heart and new Spirit, and the river of life flowing from the temple all stream toward Christ, the good Shepherd who gives the Spirit.
How Ezekiel 14:6 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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