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And along with the famine, wild animals will attack you and rob you of your children. Disease and war will stalk your land, and I will bring the sword of the enemy against you. I, the Lord, have spoken!”
Ezekiel 5:17 · New Living Translation
Parallel translations
  • WEB I will send on you famine and evil animals, and they will bereave you. Pestilence and blood will pass through you; and I will bring the sword on you. I, Yahweh, have spoken it.’”
  • KJV So will I send upon you famine and evil beasts, and they shall bereave thee; and pestilence and blood shall pass through thee; and I will bring the sword upon thee. I the LORD have spoken it.
  • BSB I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring a sword against you. I, the LORD, have spoken.”
  • NKJV So I will send against you famine and wild beasts, and they will bereave you. Pestilence and blood shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I, the Lord, have spoken.’ ”
  • NASB I will send on you famine and vicious animals, and they will bereave you of children; plague and bloodshed also will pass through you, and I will bring the sword on you. I, the Lord, have spoken.’ ”

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 send famine, wild beasts, plague, bloodshed, and the sword against Jerusalem. The covenant curses fall together in full measure.

Overview

The Lord lists the converging judgments of famine, predatory animals, pestilence, and war that will bereave the city. These echo the covenant curses of Leviticus 26, now coming upon a people who broke faith. The verse closes the oracle with 'I, Yahweh, have spoken it,' grounding the certainty of judgment in God's own unfailing word.

Cross-references & the web

Cross-references · 24

  • Ezek 38:22With pestilence and with blood will I enter into judgment with him; and I will rain on him, and on his hordes, and on the many peoples who are with him, an overflowing shower, and great hailstones, fire, and sulfur.
  • Ezek 33:27You shall tell them, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: As I live, surely those who are in the waste places shall fall by the sword; and him who is in the open field will I give to the animals to be devoured; and those who are in the strongholds and in the caves shall die of the pestilence.
  • Lev 26:22I will send the wild animals among you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number. Your roads will become desolate.
  • Deut 32:24They shall be wasted with hunger, and devoured with burning heat and bitter destruction. I will send the teeth of animals on them, with the venom of vipers that glide in the dust.
  • Ezek 14:15“If I cause evil animals to pass through the land, and they ravage it, and it is made desolate, so that no man may pass through because of the animals;
  • Ezek 14:21For thus says the Lord Yahweh: “How much more when I send my four severe judgments on Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the evil animals, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and animal!
  • 2 Kgs 17:25So it was, at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they didn’t fear Yahweh. Therefore Yahweh sent lions among them, which killed some of them.
  • Ezek 21:3Tell the land of Israel, ‘Yahweh says: “Behold, I am against you, and will draw my sword out of its sheath, and will cut off from you the righteous and the wicked.
  • Ezek 5:15So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment, to the nations that are around you, when I shall execute judgments on you in anger and in wrath, and in wrathful rebukes — I, Yahweh, have spoken it —
  • Ezek 5:12–13A third part of you will die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed within you. A third part will fall by the sword around you. A third part I will scatter to all the winds, and will draw out a sword after them.
  • Ezek 37:14I will put my Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land: and you shall know that I, Yahweh, have spoken it and performed it, says Yahweh.
  • Ezek 34:25–28I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause evil animals to cease out of the land; and they shall dwell securely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods.
  • Ezek 26:14I will make you a bare rock; you shall be a place for the spreading of nets; you shall be built no more: for I Yahweh have spoken it, says the Lord Yahweh.
  • Ezek 17:21All his fugitives in all his bands shall fall by the sword, and those who remain shall be scattered toward every wind: and you will know that I, Yahweh, have spoken it.’
  • Exod 23:29I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the animals of the field multiply against you.
  • Ezek 21:32You will be for fuel to the fire. Your blood will be in the middle of the land. You shall be remembered no more; for I, Yahweh, have spoken it.”’”
  • Matt 24:35Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
  • Jer 15:3“I will appoint over them four kinds,” says Yahweh: “the sword to kill, and the dogs to tear, and the birds of the sky, and the animals of the earth, to devour and to destroy.
  • Ezek 6:12He who is far off will die of the pestilence. He who is near will fall by the sword. He who remains and is besieged will die by the famine. Thus I will accomplish my wrath on them.
  • Ezek 14:19“Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my wrath on it in blood, to cut off from it man and animal;
  • Ezek 23:47The company will stone them with stones, and dispatch them with their swords. They will kill their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses with fire.
  • Ezek 30:12I will make the rivers dry, and will sell the land into the hand of evil men; and I will make the land desolate, and all that is therein, by the hand of strangers: I, Yahweh, have spoken it.
  • Ezek 22:14Can your heart endure, or can your hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with you? I, Yahweh, have spoken it, and will do it.
  • Ezek 17:24All the trees of the field will know that I, Yahweh, have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree to flourish. I, Yahweh, have spoken and have done it.’”

Themes, concepts, people & topics

Topics (2)

Resources, by level

Commentaries & study tools

  • VideoBibleProject — Ezekiel videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.

  • VideoWatch teaching on Ezekiel 5:17YouTube · Lay · Free

    Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.

  • CommentaryEnduring Word — verse-by-verseDavid Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.

  • CommentaryClassic commentaries for this verseBibleHub (20+ works) · Pastoral · Free

    Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.

  • CommentaryMatthew Henry on EzekielMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical

    The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).

  • ReferenceInterlinear, lexicon & Strong'sBlue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free

    Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.

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 5:17 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.