Bible Stories for the Young
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After Daniel and his friends had lived in Babylon for a while, King Nebuchadnezzar went back to Jerusalem and took more of God’s Children and more of God’s Treasures.
The first time, Nebuchadnezzar had taken mostly the young, strong, smart boys like Daniel. But this time, he took a lot more people. He took all of the rich, important, smart, or royal people. One of these was a man named Ezekiel.
When they got back to Babylon, not all of the captives got to go to the king’s palace like Daniel and his three friends did. Some of the captives were forced to do slave work by the rivers.
During this time of work beside the rivers of Babylon, God spoke to Ezekiel. He wanted Ezekiel to talk to His People about their lives and the things that still needed to change. Most of the people were still disobeying and making God sad.
To make things worse, there were many lying fake prophets in Babylon saying, “God is going to save His people and take them back home to His City right away!” But that was not what God was saying through His REAL prophets, Ezekiel and Jeremiah.
God had His real prophets tell the people that He was letting Babylon take control of their city and break down their houses. He was letting the people get taken far away from home and scattered to different places. This was their DISCIPLINE for disobeying.
But most people didn’t want to believe that. They didn’t like hearing that they were wrong and needed to change. They wanted the discipline to be over. They wanted to go home SOON. They wanted to believe the lies of the fake prophets who said “happy things will come soon.”
Even though the people were being stubborn about their discipline, God, their Father, continued to love His Children. And He kept trying to help them by giving them chances to hear the Truth through His prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel. (But He was not going to change His mind.) He was their Father! And a Father who love, love, loves His Children will discipline them when they need it.
So while Jeremiah kept crying and crying and trying and trying to talk to the people who were still left in God’s City, Jerusalem… Ezekiel started trying and trying to talk to God’s People who had been taken away to Babylon.
