9. But if you have announced to the impious man, so that he may be converted from his ways, and he has not converted from his way, then he will die in his iniquity. Yet you will have freed your own soul.
10. You, therefore, O son of man, say to the house of Israel: You have spoken in this way, saying: 'Our iniquities and our sins are upon us, and we waste away in them. So then, how would we be able to live?'
11. Say to them: As I live, says the Lord God, I do not desire the death of the impious, but that the impious should convert from his way and live. Be converted, be converted from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?
12. And as for you then, son of man, say to the sons of your people: The justice of the just man will not deliver him, on whatever day he will have sinned. And the impiety of the impius man will not harm him, on whatever day he will have been converted from his impiety. And the just man will not be able to live by his justice, on whatever day he will have sinned.
13. Even now, if I say to the just man that he shall certainly live, and so, with confidence in his justice, he commits iniquity, all his justices will be delivered into oblivion, and by his iniquity, which he has done, by this he shall die.
14. And if I say to the impious man, 'You shall certainly die,' and yet he repents from his sin, and he does judgment and justice,
15. and if that impious man returns the collateral, and repays what he has taken by force, and if he walks in the commandments of life, and does not do anything unjust, then he shall certainly live, and he shall not die.
16. None of his sins, which he has committed, will be imputed to him. He has done judgment and justice, so he shall certainly live.
17. And the sons of your people have said, 'The way of the Lord is not a fair balance,' even while their own way is unjust.
18. For when the just man will have withdraw from his justice, and committed iniquities, he shall die by these.
19. And when the impious man will have withdrawn from his impiety, and have done judgment and justice, he shall live by these.
20. And yet you say, 'The way of the Lord is not right.' But I shall judge each one of you according to his own ways, O house of Israel."
21. And it happened that, in the twelfth year of our transmigration, in the tenth month, on the fifth of the month, one who had fled from Jerusalem arrived saying, "The city has been laid waste."
22. But the hand of the Lord had been upon me in the evening, before the one who had fled arrived. And he opened my mouth, until he came to me in the morning. And since my mouth had been opened, I was no longer silent.
23. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
24. "Son of man, as for those who live in these ruinous ways on the soil of Israel, when speaking, they say: 'Abraham was one man, and he possessed the land as an inheritance. But we are many; the land has been given to us as a possession.'
25. Therefore, you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord God: You who eat even the blood, and who lift up your eyes to your uncleannesses, and who shed blood: will you possess the land as an inheritance?
26. You stood by your swords, you committed abominations, and each one has defiled his neighbor's wife. And will you possess the land as an inheritance?