Ezekiel 35:4

Modern

I will turn your cities into ruins, and you will become a desolation. Then you will know that I am the LORD.

Traditional

I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord.

Literal

I will make your cities a ruin, and you will become a desolation. And you will know that I am YHWH.

Latin

Urbes tuas demoliar, et tu desertus eris: et scies quia ego Dominus.

Hebrew

English

I will turn your cities into ruins, and you will become a desolation. Then you will know that I am the LORD.

This message of judgment is directed to Edom, Israel’s neighbor to the southeast. It is also called Mount Seir, the main mountain region of Edom.

Edom stands as a symbol of all Israel’s enemies. For example, Edom rejoiced when Israel fell (Ezekiel 36:2; see also 25:12–14).

When Babylon destroyed Judah, Edom may have thought it had a chance to grow stronger. However, the Lord said that its success would not last long.

Ezekiel 35:9
I will make you a perpetual desolation, and your cities will not be inhabited. Then you will know that I am the LORD.
Malachi 1:3–4
…but Esau I have hated, and I have made his mountains a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”
Joel 3:19
Egypt will become desolate, and Edom a desert wasteland, because of the violence done to the people of Judah, in whose land they shed innocent blood.
Ezekiel 6:6–7
Wherever you live, the cities will be laid waste and the high places will be demolished, so that your altars will be laid waste and desecrated, your idols smashed and obliterated, your incense altars cut down, and your works blotted out.
Exodus 9:14
Otherwise, I will send all My plagues against you and your officials and your people, so you may know that there is no one like Me in all the earth.
Exodus 14:4
And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he will pursue them. But I will gain honor by means of Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD.” So this is what the Israelites did.
Ezekiel 35:12
Then you will know that I, the LORD, have heard every contemptuous word you uttered against the mountains of Israel when you said, ‘They are desolate; they are given to us to devour!’