Ezekiel chapter 23

vs 21

It's as if God's people pined for their time in Egypt, which of course is crazy, because when they were there, they called out to God to save them. And yet, they are going to end up exactly in such a situation - far from home, and calling out to God to help them.

vs 22

Jerusalem's actions are coming home to roost. You can't play these sort of political games and expect to get away with it forever. But God despises even more the fact that they have played the game with him. It's betrayal. It's mutiny.

vs 23

I think we would find that many of these groups are now just under the one banner of Babylon, what with their huge empire and all.

vs 24

Heh, a wonderful bit of translation for people who want to know what the words were for all the different bits of armour and weaponry. But it also makes clear that God will punish his people by using another people, and interestingly, letting the punishment take place according to the ways of those people - so the burning out of the eyes of the leader, which is not really something sanctioned in the law, say - will be legitimised by God because he is using a people who will do that as a punishment.

In a way, though, God using another country to punish his people is merciful - he could have always held them up to his own standards, rather than to some barbaric country's standards.

vs 25

Having said merciful, it's still not going to be nice, as this verse makes clear. It is a truly scary verse, if you imagine that you were reading or hearing this and it hadn't yet happened, and it was aimed at you.

vs 26

Insult to injury - they can have my jewels if I can keep my ears, personally.

vs 27

This is what is called deterrence in the legal profession. The idea is that the punishment is so bad that people don't want to commit the crime for fear of the punishment. God uses this method, it seems.

This realisation actually made me really question the disciplinary (now called welfare) procedures that are done in Christian schools. God is not adverse to using negative reinforcement and deterrence, but schools seem to shy away from this now. Are we saying that God's ways don't work? Or that the models of justice that God institutes, say in his Law, were not supposed to be followed? I think that's pure balonium.

vs 28

Repetitive, but again, scary if you're about to cop it. And also makes you reflect on just how seriously God took this whole thing.

vs 29

Another win for the putting verses in weird places squad. God is actually dealing with them, not just in his own anger, but he will use the hatred of their enemies against them too. Even God's people's enemies think that his people deserve punishment for their betrayal, and so it's going to go quite pear shaped for them.

vs 30

God makes it clear why this is happening - they wanted powerful friends (that weren't God), and they were prepared to prostitute themselves to idols to get them. Their trust in God totally waned. Now God is going to show them just how powerful an enemy he can be.