I will turn your cities into ruins, and you will become a desolation. Then you will know that I am the LORD.
Parallel translations
- WEB I will lay your cities waste, and you shall be desolate; and you shall know that I am Yahweh.
- KJV I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am the LORD.
- NKJV I shall lay your cities waste, And you shall be desolate. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.
- NASB “I will turn your cities to ruins, And you will become a desolation. Then you will know that I am the Lord.
- NLT I will demolish your cities and make you desolate. Then you will know that I am the Lord.
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 will lay Edom's cities waste, and through this judgment Edom will know that He is the LORD. Judgment reveals God's sovereignty even to His enemies.
Overview
The ruin of cities makes the desolation concrete and complete. The refrain 'you shall know that I am Yahweh,' usually spoken to Israel, here applies to Edom: even the nations will be forced to acknowledge the true God through His acts. God's universal lordship means no people lies outside His judgment or His self-revelation.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Ezek 35:9I will make you a perpetual desolation, and your cities will not be inhabited. Then you will know that I am the LORD.
- Mal 1:3–4but Esau I have hated, and I have made his mountains a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”
- Joel 3:19Egypt will become desolate, and Edom a desert wasteland, because of the violence done to the people of Judah, in whose land they shed innocent blood.
- Exod 9:14Otherwise, I will send all My plagues against you and your officials and your people, so you may know that there is no one like Me in all the earth.
- Exod 14:4And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he will pursue them. But I will gain honor by means of Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD.” So this is what the Israelites did.
- Ezek 35:12Then you will know that I, the LORD, have heard every contemptuous word you uttered against the mountains of Israel when you said, ‘They are desolate; they are given to us to devour!’
- Ezek 6:6–7Wherever you live, the cities will be laid waste and the high places will be demolished, so that your altars will be laid waste and desecrated, your idols smashed and obliterated, your incense altars cut down, and your works blotted out.
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 35:4 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
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.