12 And the word of the Lord came to me: 13 “Son of man, when a land sins against me by acting faithlessly, and I stretch out my hand against it and break its supply of bread and send famine upon it, and cut off from it man and beast, 14 even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness, declares the Lord God.
15 “If I cause wild beasts to pass through the land, and they ravage it, and it be made desolate, so that no one may pass through because of the beasts,16 even if these three men were in it, as I live, declares the Lord God, they would deliver neither sons nor daughters. They alone would be delivered, but the land would be desolate.
17 “Or if I bring a sword upon that land and say, Let a sword pass through the land, and I cut off from it man and beast, 18 though these three men were in it, as I live, declares the Lord God, they would deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they alone would be delivered.
19 “Or if I send a pestilence into that land and pour out my wrath upon it with blood, to cut off from it man and beast, 20 even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live, declares the Lord God, they would deliver neither son nor daughter. They would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness.
21 “For thus says the Lord God: How much more when I send upon Jerusalem my four disastrous acts of judgement, sword, famine, wild beasts, and pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast! 22 But behold, some survivors will be left in it, sons and daughters who will be brought out; behold, when they come out to you, and you see their ways and their deeds, you will be consoled for the disaster that I have brought upon Jerusalem, for all that I have brought upon it. 23 They will console you, when you see their ways and their deeds, and you shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, declares the Lord God.”
The final section of the chapter completes the grim message of judgment. The emphasis here is deeply interesting. It seems that some were saying that God would not be as ruthless in judgment as Ezekiel was prophesying, and that He would not, could not, ignore the righteousness of the remnant, and would save the nation because of them. Ezekiel speedily disabused them of this false hope and confidence. Even the presence of such saintly people as Noah, Daniel and Job could not act as an 'insurance' for the evil city of Jerusalem. When judgment came, these men could only save themselves, not others. This goes against the known tradition of scriptural precedent, of course: the people would have been thinking of incidents such as Abraham's intercession for Sodom, when the presence of even a few righteous would have been sufficient to preserve the city from judgment by fire. But Ezekiel's point is that Jerusalem is now too far gone in her sin for even that provision to be made in her case. There was no hope left for the city. And if any survivors were left (22) and spared, it would not be that they were righteous and had thus saved themselves; rather they would be allowed to go into exile 'that those already there may see their ways and their doings, and realise how utterly justified God was in His judgments' (Tyndale). Such was Ezekiel's message, a grim and dark one indeed! But it is only against the backcloth of such grimness that his later words of hope can properly be understood.