20. Yet you say, The way of the Lord is not perfect or [even] just. O you house of Israel, I will judge you, every one according to his own ways!
21. In the twelfth year of our captivity [in Babylon], in the tenth [month], on the fifth [day] of the month, a man who had escaped out of Jerusalem came to me [Ezekiel], saying, The city [Jerusalem] is taken.
22. Now the hand of the Lord had been upon me in the evening before this one who had escaped came, and He had opened my mouth [in readiness for the fugitives] coming to me in the morning, and my mouth was opened and I was no longer dumb.
23. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
24. Son of man, those [back in Palestine] who inhabit those wastes of the ground of Israel are saying, Abraham was only one man and he inherited the land, but we are many; the land is surely given to us to possess as our inheritance.
25. Therefore say to them, Thus says the Lord God: You eat meat with the blood [as an idolatrous rite] and lift up your eyes to your [filthy] idols and shed blood; shall you then possess the land? [Gen. 9:4; Lev. 3:17; 7:27; Acts 15:28, 29.]
26. You stand upon your sword [as your dependence]; you commit abominations and each of you defiles your neighbor's wife; shall you then possess the land?
27. Say this to them, Thus says the Lord God: As I live, surely those who are in the waste places shall fall by the sword, and him that is in the open field will I give to the beasts to be devoured, and those who are in strongholds and in caves shall die by pestilence.