16. None of the sins they’ve committed will be remembered against them. They’ve done what is just and right, and they will live.
17. Yet your people say, "My Lord’s way doesn’t measure up." Isn’t it their ways that don’t measure up?
18. When the righteous turn from their righteousness to do wrong, they will die because of it.
19. And when the wicked turn from their wickedness to do what is just and right, it is for that reason they will live.
20. Yet you say, "My Lord’s way doesn’t measure up." I judge each one of you according to your ways, house of Israel!
21. In the twelfth year, on the fifth day of the tenth month of our exile, a survivor from Jerusalem came to me and reported, "The city has fallen!"
22. The Lord’s power was with me in the evening before the survivor arrived, and just before he arrived in the morning, God opened my mouth. So my mouth was opened, and I was no longer speechless.
23. The Lord’s word came to me:
24. Human one, those who live among those ruins in Israel’s fertile land are saying, "Abraham was just one man, and he inherited the land. We are many, so certainly the land has been given to us as an inheritance."