Ezekiel 6 Devotional

Grieved by Wandering Hearts

“Then in the nations to which they have been carried captive, your survivors will remember Me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts that turned away from Me, and by their eyes that lusted after idols. So they will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their abominations.”Ezekiel 6:9 (BSB)

Ezekiel prophesies against the mountains of Israel, where the people built their shrines (6:2-3). Altars will be broken, idols smashed, and the dead will lie scattered before the very idols they trusted (6:4-6). A refrain runs through the chapter: through all of this, they will come to know that he is the LORD (6:7, 10, 13-14). The hilltop gods could not save.

Yet in the middle is a sentence that reveals God's heart. A remnant will survive among the nations, and there they will remember him and how he was grieved by their unfaithful hearts and wandering eyes (6:8-9). Idolatry was never a mere rule broken. It wounded the One who had bound himself to his people. Paul urges believers not to grieve the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30), so the turning of our hearts still matters to God. That is sobering, but also tender. Repentance begins with remembering him, and a God who can be grieved is a God who has truly given himself to you.

To think about: What would change in how you think about your sin if you saw it first as something that grieves God rather than as a broken rule?