Ezekiel 33:11–18

¹¹ Say to them: ‘As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked should turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’ ¹² Therefore, son of man, say to your people: ‘The righteousness of the righteous man will not deliver him in the day of his transgression; neither will the wickedness of the wicked man cause him to stumble on the day he turns from his wickedness. Nor will the righteous man be able to survive by his righteousness on the day he sins.’ ¹³ If I tell the righteous man that he will surely live, but he then trusts in his righteousness and commits iniquity, then none of his righteous works will be remembered; he will die because of the iniquity he has committed. ¹⁴ But if I tell the wicked man, ‘You will surely die,’ and he turns from his sin and does what is just and right— ¹⁵ if he restores a pledge, makes restitution for what he has stolen, and walks in the statutes of life without practicing iniquity—then he will surely live; he will not die. ¹⁶ None of the sins he has committed will be held against him. He has done what is just and right; he will surely live. ¹⁷ Yet your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But it is their way that is not just. ¹⁸ If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, he will die for it.