Warnings From Enki
Table of Contents
1-3 [To Ezekiel] Son of man, speak to the children of your people and tell them: Set up a watchman for their coasts to blow the trumpet to warn the people when he sees the sword that I will bring on the land.
4 In this way, those who do not heed the warning will be responsible for his own blood by that sword.
5 But those who heed the warning shall deliver his soul.
6 But if the watchman see the sword come but does not blow the trumpet, the people are not warned.
If the sword comes and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity. But his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand.
7 You are the watchman for the Israelites. Hear my words, and warn them from me.
8 I say to the wicked: O wicked man, you shall surely die.
If you do not warn the wicked, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity. But his blood I will require at your hand.
9 Nevertheless, if you warn the wicked but he does not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity. But you would have delivered your soul.
10 Tell the Israelites: If our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live?
11 Tell tham that Enki says: [As] I live, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
But that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn you from your evil ways; for why will you die, O Israelites?
12 Therefore, son of man, say to the children of your people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression.
As for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall in the day that he turned from his wickedness.
Neither shall the righteous be able to live for his [righteousness] in the day that he sinneth.
13 When I shall say to the righteous, [that] he shall surely live; if he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity, all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it.
14 When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; if he turn from his sin, and do that which is lawful and right;
15 [If] the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in the statutes of life, without committing iniquity.
He shall surely live, he shall not die. 16} None of his sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him: he hath done that which is lawful and right; he shall surely live.
17 Yet the children of your people say, The way of the Lord is not equal: but as for them, their way is not equal.
18 When the righteous turns from his righteousness, and commits iniquity, he shall die thereby.
19 But if the wicked turn from his wickedness, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby.
20 Yet you say, The way of the Lord is not equal.
O you Israelites, I will judge you every one after his ways.
21 And it came to pass in the 12th year of our captivity, in Month 10, Day 5, one that had escaped out of Jerusalem came to me, saying: The city is smitten!
22 The hand of Emki was on me in the evening, afore he that was escaped came; and had opened my mouth, until he came to me in the morning; and my mouth was opened, and I was no more dumb.
23 Then the word of Enki came unto me, saying:
24 Son of man, they that inhabit those wastes of the land of Israel speak, saying, Abraham was one, and he inherited the land: but we [are] many; the land is given us for inheritance.
25 Tell them that I said: You eat with the blood, and lift up your eyes toward your idols, and shed blood: and shall you possess the land?
26 Ye stand upon your sword, you work abomination, and you defile every one his neighbour’s wife: and shall you possess the land?
27 [As] I live, surely they that [are] in the wastes shall fall by the sword, and him that [is] in the open field will I give to the beasts to be devoured, and they that be in the forts and in the caves shall die of the pestilence.
28 For I will lay the land most desolate, and the pomp of her strength shall cease; and the mountains of Israel shall be desolate, that none shall pass through.
29 Then shall they know that I am the Lord, when I have laid the land most desolate because of all their abominations which they have committed.
30 Also, you son of man, the children of your people still are talking against you by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another, every one to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from Enki.
31 They come unto you as the people cometh, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they shew much love, [but] their heart goeth after their covetousness.
32 You are to them as a very lovely song of one that has a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear your words, but they do them not.
33 When this happens then they shall know that a prophet hath been among them.