1. Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
2. Son of man, speak to the children of your people and say to them: If I bring a sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from among them and set him for their watchman,
3. and he sees the sword come upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people,
4. then whoever hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning, and a sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be upon his own head.
5. He heard the sound of the trumpet yet did not take warning. His blood shall be upon himself. But he who takes warning delivers his soul.
6. But if the watchman sees the sword come and does not blow the trumpet and the people are not warned and a sword comes and takes a person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity. But his blood I will require from the hand of the watchman.
7. Now as for you, son of man: I have set you a watchman to the house of Israel. Therefore you shall hear a word from My mouth and warn them from Me.
8. When I say to the wicked, “O wicked man, you shall surely die,” and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity. But his blood I will require from your hand.
9. Nevertheless, if you on your part warn the wicked to turn from his way and he does not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity. But you have delivered your soul.
10. Therefore as for you, son of man, say to the house of Israel: Thus you have spoken, saying, “Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we pine away in them. How should we then live?”
11. Say to them: As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why will you die, O house of Israel?
12. Therefore you, son of man, say to the sons of your people: The righteousness of a righteous man 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. Nor shall the righteous be able to live for his righteousness in the day that he sins.