“As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, I will cut you off completely. I will show you no pity at all because you have defiled my Temple with your vile images and detestable sins.
Parallel translations
- WEB Therefore as I live,’ says the Lord Yahweh, ‘surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things, and with all your abominations, therefore I will also diminish you. My eye won’t spare, and I will have no pity.
- KJV Wherefore, as I live, saith the Lord GOD; Surely, because thou hast defiled my sanctuary with all thy detestable things, and with all thine abominations, therefore will I also diminish thee; neither shall mine eye spare, neither will I have any pity.
- BSB Therefore as surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable idols and abominations, I Myself will withdraw My favor; I will not look upon you with pity, nor will I spare you.
- NKJV ‘Therefore, as I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘surely, because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will also diminish you; My eye will not spare, nor will I have any pity.
- NASB Therefore as I live,’ declares the Lord God, ‘Because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable idols and with all your abominations, I definitely will also withdraw and My eye will have no pity, and I also will not spare.
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
Because Jerusalem defiled God's sanctuary with idols, He will withdraw His pity and diminish her. Defiling worship provokes unsparing judgment.
Overview
The Lord swears by His own life that, because His temple was defiled with detestable idols, His eye will not spare. The defiling of holy worship is singled out as a chief offense provoking judgment. God's jealousy for the purity of His worship is fierce, and only the perfect, undefiled sacrifice of Christ can cleanse what sin has profaned.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 39
- Ezek 7:20As for the beauty of his ornament, he set it in majesty; but they made the images of their abominations and their detestable things therein. Therefore I have made it to them as an unclean thing.
- Ezek 7:9My eye won’t spare, neither will I have pity. I will bring on you according to your ways. Your abominations will be among you; and you will know that I, Yahweh, strike.
- Ezek 11:18“‘They will come there, and they will take away all its detestable things and all its abominations from there.
- 2 Chr 36:14Moreover all the chiefs of the priests, and the people, trespassed very greatly after all the abominations of the nations; and they polluted Yahweh’s house which he had made holy in Jerusalem.
- Ezek 7:4My eye will not spare you, neither will I have pity; but I will bring your ways on you, and your abominations will be among you. Then you will know that I am Yahweh.’
- Ezek 8:5–6Then he said to me, “Son of man, lift up your eyes now the way toward the north.” So I lifted up my eyes the way toward the north, and saw, northward of the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry.
- Jer 7:9–11Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known,
- Ezek 9:10As for me also, my eye won’t spare, neither will I have pity, but I will bring their way on their head.”
- Ezek 9:5To the others he said in my hearing, “Go through the city after him, and strike. Don’t let your eye spare, neither have pity.
- Jer 16:18First I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable things, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.”
- 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.
- Ezek 24:14I, Yahweh, have spoken it: it shall happen, and I will do it: I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent; according to your ways, and according to your doings, shall they judge you, says the Lord Yahweh.
- Ezek 8:18Therefore will I also deal in wrath. My eye won’t spare, neither will I have pity. Though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, yet I will not hear them.”
- Ezek 11:21But as for them whose heart walks after the heart of their detestable things and their abominations, I will bring their way on their own heads,’ says the Lord Yahweh.”
- Lam 2:21“The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets. My virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have killed them in the day of your anger. You have slaughtered, and not pitied.
- Deut 7:25–26You shall burn the engraved images of their gods with fire. You shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it for yourself, lest you be snared in it; for it is an abomination to Yahweh your God.
- 2 Kgs 21:4He built altars in Yahweh’s house, of which Yahweh said, “I will put my name in Jerusalem.”
- Ezek 44:7in that you have brought in foreigners, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary, to profane it, even my house, when you offer my bread, the fat and the blood, and they have broken my covenant, to add to all your abominations.
- Jer 10:24Yahweh, correct me, but in measure: not in your anger, lest you bring me to nothing.
- Zech 11:6For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land,” says Yahweh; “but, behold, I will deliver the men everyone into his neighbor’s hand, and into the hand of his king. They will strike the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them.”
- Rom 8:32He who didn’t spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things?
- Rom 11:12Now if their fall is the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fullness?
- 2 Chr 33:7He set the engraved image of the idol, which he had made, in God’s house, of which God said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name forever.
- Jer 32:34But they set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it.
- Ezek 29:15It shall be the base of the kingdoms; neither shall it any more lift itself up above the nations: and I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations.
- 2 Chr 33:4He built altars in Yahweh’s house, of which Yahweh said, “My name shall be in Jerusalem forever.”
- Heb 6:13For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself,
- 2 Kgs 23:12The king broke down the altars that were on the roof of the upper room of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of Yahweh’s house, and beat them down from there, and cast their dust into the brook Kidron.
- Num 14:28–35Tell them, ‘As I live, says Yahweh, surely as you have spoken in my ears, so will I do to you.
- Amos 8:7Yahweh has sworn by the pride of Jacob, “Surely I will never forget any of their works.
- Ezek 23:28“For thus says the Lord Yahweh: ‘Behold, I will deliver you into the hand of them whom you hate, into the hand of them from whom your soul is alienated.
- 2 Pet 2:4–5For if God didn’t spare angels when they sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved for judgment;
- Mal 3:17They shall be mine,” says Yahweh of Armies, “my own possession in the day that I make, and I will spare them, as a man spares his own son who serves him.
- Jer 44:4However I sent to you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, “Oh, don’t do this abominable thing that I hate.”
- Ps 95:11Therefore I swore in my wrath, “They won’t enter into my rest.”
- Rom 11:21for if God didn’t spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.
- 2 Kgs 21:7He set the engraved image of Asherah that he had made in the house of which Yahweh said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name forever;
- Ps 107:39Again, they are diminished and bowed down through oppression, trouble, and sorrow.
- Deut 29:20Yahweh will not pardon him, but then Yahweh’s anger and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and all the curse that is written in this book will fall on him, and Yahweh will blot out his name from under the sky.
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