12. “Therefore, son of man, say to your people, ‘If someone who is righteous disobeys, that person’s former righteousness will count for nothing. And if someone who is wicked repents, that person’s former wickedness will not bring condemnation. The righteous person who sins will not be allowed to live even though they were formerly righteous.’
13. If I tell a righteous person that they will surely live, but then they trust in their righteousness and do evil, none of the righteous things that person has done will be remembered; they will die for the evil they have done.
14. And if I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ but they then turn away from their sin and do what is just and right—
15. if they give back what they took in pledge for a loan, return what they have stolen, follow the decrees that give life, and do no evil—that person will surely live; they will not die.
16. None of the sins that person has committed will be remembered against them. They have done what is just and right; they will surely live.
17. “Yet your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But it is their way that is not just.
18. If a righteous person turns from their righteousness and does evil, they will die for it.
19. And if a wicked person turns away from their wickedness and does what is just and right, they will live by doing so.
20. Yet you Israelites say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But I will judge each of you according to your own ways.”
21. In the twelfth year of our exile, in the tenth month on the fifth day, a man who had escaped from Jerusalem came to me and said, “The city has fallen!”
22. Now the evening before the man arrived, the hand of the Lord was on me, and he opened my mouth before the man came to me in the morning. So my mouth was opened and I was no longer silent.
23. Then the word of the Lord came to me:
24. “Son of man, the people living in those ruins in the land of Israel are saying, ‘Abraham was only one man, yet he possessed the land. But we are many; surely the land has been given to us as our possession.’
25. Therefore say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Since you eat meat with the blood still in it and look to your idols and shed blood, should you then possess the land?
26. You rely on your sword, you do detestable things, and each of you defiles his neighbor’s wife. Should you then possess the land?’