The Message of the Watchman

Ezekiel is told to answer Israel's despair with God's oath that He desires the wicked to turn and live, not die. The chapter then rejects any reliance on past status: the righteousness of the righteous will not save him if he turns to sin, and the wickedness of the wicked will not condemn him if he turns and does what is just and right. Restitution, justice, and obedience mark real repentance. Though the people accuse the Lord of injustice, He insists that He judges each person according to his present ways.

N¹⁰ow as for you, son of man, tell the house of Israel that this is what they have said: ‘Our transgressions and our sins are heavy upon us, and we are wasting away because of them! How can we live?’ ¹¹Say to them: ‘As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked should turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’ ¹²Therefore, son of man, say to your people: ‘The righteousness of the righteous man will not deliver him in the day of his transgression; neither will the wickedness of the wicked man cause him to stumble on the day he turns from his wickedness. Nor will the righteous man be able to survive by his righteousness on the day he sins.’ ¹³If I tell the righteous man that he will surely live, but he then trusts in his righteousness and commits iniquity, then none of his righteous works will be remembered; he will die because of the iniquity he has committed. ¹⁴But if I tell the wicked man, ‘You will surely die,’ and he turns from his sin and does what is just and right— ¹⁵if he restores a pledge, makes restitution for what he has stolen, and walks in the statutes of life without practicing iniquity— then he will surely live; he will not die. ¹⁶None of the sins he has committed will be held against him. He has done what is just and right; he will surely live. ¹⁷Yet your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But it is their way that is not just. ¹⁸If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, he will die for it. ¹⁹But if a wicked man turns from his wickedness and does what is just and right, he will live because of this. ²⁰Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But I will judge each of you according to his ways, O house of Israel.”