Ezekiel 22:1-5

God does not tolerate calling good _ evil or evil _ good. As a society we have lost the ability to judge fairly. Greed and the pursuit of money is our idol and the standard we use to judge the worth of an idea, a person or a cultural moral. How sad for all of humanity that our consciences have been seared and the commandments of God have been cast aside even in His house. 

We are living in Babylon. 

Jerusalem’s princes had shed the blood of innocent people. These evil leaders had been: (1) taking advantage of parents and the weak (2) rejecting God and His covenant, leading to ungodliness and inhumanity (3) murdering the innocent by slandering them (4) preferring idolatrous religion and its immoral rituals (5) engaging in sexual immorality with neighbors, family, and relatives and (6) loving money and using it to get ahead of fellow citizens.

These verses focus on the sins of Jerusalem, principally bloodshed (social sin) as a result of idolatry (spiritual sin). A problem in the vertical relationship with God inevitably leads to some degree of injustice and injury in horizontal, human affairs. The city was ripe for judgment. When such hypocrisy is exposed and punishment is executed before the world, God’s people become lasting objects of ridicule.

The worlds only hope is the return of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Ezekiel appears to have been articulate, intelligent, and dramatic. He was a person that could withstand great opposition in order to obey the demands God placed on His life.

Ezekiel 22:1-5

22 Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ² “Now, son of man, will you judge, will you judge the bloody city? Yes, show her all her abominations! ³ Then say, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “The city sheds blood in her own midst, that her time may come; and she makes idols within herself to defile herself. ⁴ You have become guilty by the blood which you have shed, and have defiled yourself with the idols which you have made. You have caused your days to draw near, and have come to the end of your years; therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations, and a mockery to all countries. ⁵ Those near and those far from you will mock you as infamous and full of tumult.

3 Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies and robbery. Its victim never departs. 

Nahum 3:1

¹⁶ Moreover Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another, besides his sin by which he made Judah sin, in doing evil in the sight of the Lord. 

2 Kings 21:16