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.
13. When I say to the righteous that he shall surely live and he so trusts in his righteousness that he commits iniquity, all his righteousness shall not be remembered. But for that iniquity of his that he has committed, he shall die.
14. Again, when I say to the wicked, “You shall surely die,” and he turns from his sin and does that which is lawful and right,
15. if the wicked man restores a pledge, gives back what he had robbed, 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 remembered against him. He has done what is lawful and right. He shall surely live.
17. Yet the sons of your people say, “The way of the Lord is not right,” when their way is not right.
18. When the righteous turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, he shall die by it.
19. But if the wicked turns from his wickedness and does that which is lawful and right, he shall live by them.
20. Yet you say, “The way of the Lord is not right.” O house of Israel, I will judge you, every one according to his ways.
21. In the twelfth year of our captivity, in the tenth month, on the fifth day of the month, one who had escaped out of Jerusalem came to me, saying, “The city is taken.”
22. Now the hand of the Lord was upon me in the evening, before those who escaped came. And He opened my mouth at the time they came to me in the morning. Therefore my mouth was opened and I was speechless no more.
23. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
24. Son of man, those who inhabit these wastes in the land of Israel are saying, “Abraham was one, yet he inherited the land. But to us who are many, the land has been given for an inheritance.”