9. Nevertheless, if you warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he does not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.
10. Therefore, O you son of man, speak unto the house of Israel; Thus you speak, saying, If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we waste away in them, how should we then live?
11. Say unto them, As I live, says the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn you, turn you from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel?
12. Therefore, you son of man, say unto 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 by it in the day that he turns from his wickedness; neither shall the righteous be able to live because of his righteousness in the day that he sins.
13. When I shall say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trusts in his own righteousness, and commits iniquity, all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he has committed, he shall die for it.
14. Again, when I say unto the wicked, You shall surely die; if he turns from his sin, and does that which is lawful and right;
15. If the wicked restores the pledge, gives back that which he has stolen, walks in the statutes of life, without committing iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die.
16. None of his sins that he has committed shall be mentioned unto him: he has 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 even die for it.
19. But if the wicked turns from his wickedness, and does that which is lawful and right, he shall live by it.
20. Yet you say, The way of the Lord is not equal. O you house of Israel, I will judge you every one after his ways.
21. And it came to pass in the twelfth year of our captivity, in the tenth month, on the fifth day of the month, that one that had escaped out of Jerusalem came unto me, saying, The city is smitten.