The big picture
The oracle leaves Jerusalem's walls and addresses the mountains, hills, valleys, and dwelling places where Israel's illicit worship has spread. Altars are broken, images cease, and bodies fall at the very sites approached for religious benefit. The geography becomes an argument: the land has been filled with worship that cannot protect its worshippers, and the judgment reaches the same breadth as the practice. Yet the Book of Ezekiel interrupts the devastation with a remnant. Some survive the sword and are scattered among the nations, where remembering the LORD includes a changed judgment on their own former conduct. Survival is therefore not self-congratulation or an untouched escape. It becomes recognition. The chapter closes by surveying distance itself. Far away, nearby, or trapped under siege are not alternative routes around the sentence, and the repeated refrain keeps returning to the identity of the one speaking: "ye shall know that I am the LORD."
Central truth
The Lord announces judgment against Israel’s idolatrous mountains while preserving scattered survivors who will remember him and recognize the seriousness of their betrayal.
The study notes have a page of their own
The movement by movement analysis, the words to trace, the verse by verse notes and where readers differ are written for someone studying alone. They are on the Deep Personal Reflections page for this chapter. This page is the lesson.
A chapter-specific teaching brief
These anchors come from this chapter itself. They help a teacher use the Level 1 overview, the Level 2 study, and the Scripture text as one lesson.
Open with the chapter’s first image
Ezekiel 6:1: “And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,”
Slow down at the turning point
Ezekiel 6:13: “Then shall ye know that I am the LORD, when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, in all the tops of…”
Keep this word trail visible
LORD, idols, desolate, altars, Israel, know
What to explain, in order
Teach the passage in this order. Each step names the verses it rests on, so every point can be shown in the text before it is applied.
Ezekiel 6:1-3
Prophesy to the mountains
Begin with the strange address. Ezekiel turns his face toward the mountains of Israel, hundreds of miles away, and speaks to them. Explain that the hills were where Israel's shrines stood; "high places" were local worship sites, often on raised ground, where Canaanite gods were honoured alongside or instead of the LORD (1 Kings 14:23). Read 6:3 and notice the "I, even I". Teach this first so the class understands why rivers and valleys are in the sentence: the whole land had been claimed for other gods, and God now claims it back in judgment.
Ezekiel 6:4-7
Altars, images and the slain
Read these verses quickly and plainly. List the objects: altars, images, idols, high places, works. Then show what happens to each: desolate, broken, cut down, abolished. Explain "images" in 6:4 as incense altars or pillars connected with worship, as many readers understand the word. The slain fall before the idols that could not save them. Do not linger on the bones. End the step with the first "ye shall know that I am the LORD" (6:7) and write it on the board, because the class will meet it three more times.
Ezekiel 6:8-10
A remnant that remembers
This is the turn of the chapter. Read "Yet will I leave a remnant" (6:8) and let the word yet stand out. Then read 6:9 slowly. Explain the phrase "I am broken with their whorish heart" as the LORD wounded by unfaithfulness; the image of adultery is the Bible's frequent picture for idolatry, so treat it as covenant language without adding detail. Explain "lothe themselves" as being sickened by their own deeds. Teach this step after the judgment, because it is only after loss that the remembering comes, and it comes "among the nations".
Ezekiel 6:11-12
Clap, stamp, and cry alas
Read 6:11 and ask the class what it would look like. Explain that the gestures are vivid and public. The words are lament. Read 6:12 and draw three circles: far off, near, besieged. Pestilence, sword, famine reach each in turn, so no distance is safe. This echoes the three portions of hair in 5:12. Explain "accomplish my fury" as bringing his anger to its full end. Teach this here because it shows the prophet's own heart in the middle of the oracle: he grieves as he announces.
Ezekiel 6:13-14
Then shall ye know
Close with the last two refrains. Read 6:13 and its list of places of worship, and show that the slain now lie exactly where the idols were honoured. Then read 6:14 and explain Diblath as a place whose location is uncertain; some read Riblah, the city where Zedekiah would later be judged. Do not build the lesson on it. The chapter ends where it began, with the land, now "more desolate than the wilderness". Finish by reading all four refrains in a row, so the class hears the chapter's purpose.
Where learners get stuck
The misreadings this passage tends to produce, and how to answer each from the text.
"God is against mountains and nature worship, so being in nature is suspicious."
The mountains are addressed because of what was built on them: "your high places", "your altars", "your images" (6:3-4). Verse 13 explains that these were the places "where they did offer sweet savour to all their idols." The same book later promises that the mountains of Israel will bear fruit again (36:8). Nature is not the problem; worship given to something other than the LORD is. Help learners keep the line where the text draws it.
"The survivors were spared because they were the good ones."
Verse 9 says the opposite. The survivors "shall remember me" and "shall lothe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations." They escape the sword, and then they face their own guilt. Their survival is God's mercy, not a reward. This matters for learners who have survived disasters and wonder why, and also for those who might look down on the people who did not. Neither survival nor suffering is a simple measure of anyone's worth.
"Ye shall know that I am the LORD means God just wants to prove he is stronger."
The refrain in 6:10 explains itself: they will know "that I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them." The knowing is about God's faithfulness to his word, and in 6:9 it is joined to remembering God among the nations. God wants a people who know him truly, and the chapter shows that this knowledge can begin in exile. Present the refrain as God making himself known, not as a display of force for its own sake.
Learning objectives
- Identify the mountains as the address of the prophecy.
- Connect ruined altars with the failure of idols.
- Trace the repeated recognition of the Lord.
- Describe the remnant’s remembering among the nations.
- Explain the purpose of Ezekiel’s embodied lament.
- Distinguish announced national judgment from speculation about individual disasters.
Teacher preparation
- Read Ezekiel 5:11–17 and 6:1–14; connect sanctuary defilement with worship across the land.
- Prepare a landscape outline showing hills, valleys, trees, altars, and settlements from 6:3,6,13.
- Explain “high places” as worship sites in this context, not a condemnation of mountains themselves.
- Prepare to paraphrase the unfaithfulness imagery in 6:9 without adding graphic detail.
- Flag Diblath in 6:14 as an uncertain location; avoid making its identification carry the lesson.
Evidence and interpretation checks
Explicit
Anchor the charge in 6:3–6 and 6:13: altars, images, and offerings have filled the landscape with idolatrous worship.
Scripture-supported
Connect 6:8–10 with Deuteronomy 4:29–31: scattering does not make remembering and returning to the Lord impossible.
Strong inference
Infer from bodies lying before idols in 6:4–5 that the things trusted for protection cannot deliver their worshippers.
Possible or traditional reading
Present “I am broken” in 6:9 as strong language of wounded covenant relationship; theological accounts of divine suffering go beyond what this verse settles.
Limit
Do not treat the remnant’s survival as proof of prior innocence; 6:9 describes survivors remembering their own evil and abominations.
Discussion with answer guidance
1. Why does Ezekiel address mountains, hills, rivers, and valleys?
What a good answer contains
Because that is where the worship was. The LORD speaks "to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys" and says, "I will destroy your high places" (6:3). Verse 13 names the spots: "upon every high hill, in all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they did offer sweet savour to all their idols." A good answer sees that the landscape is addressed because it had been filled with altars. A weak answer thinks God is against hills and trees, when the problem is what was done on them.
Show teacher guidance
Read 6:2–3 beside 6:13. These places locate Israel’s worship practices; reject the suggestion that natural scenery itself is condemned.
2. What is the force of the slain lying before their idols?
What a good answer contains
It shows the idols helpless at the very moment their worshippers need them. "I will cast down your slain men before your idols" (6:4) and "I will lay the dead carcases of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars" (6:5). The places of trust become places of death. Bones at an altar also defiled it (2 Kings 23:14-16), so the judgment ruins the shrines as well. A good answer names the irony without dwelling on the image. A weak answer invents a separate symbol for each idol or turns the verse into a scene to describe.
Show teacher guidance
Use 6:4–5. The objects that received worship stand amid helplessness and ruin; do not invent a separate symbolic meaning for each idol.
3. Where will the survivors remember the Lord?
What a good answer contains
Among the nations: "they that escape of you shall remember me among the nations whither they shall be carried captives" (6:9). The remnant of 6:8 is scattered "through the countries", and it is there, far from Jerusalem and the hills, that memory turns toward God. A good answer notices the hope in this for Ezekiel's own hearers, who were already captives in Babylon. A weak answer assumes they can only remember God after they return home to the land.
Show teacher guidance
Point to 6:8–9: among the nations where they are carried captive, not only after returning to the land.
4. What do the survivors recognize about their own conduct?
What a good answer contains
Three things: that they broke God's heart, that their own deeds were evil, and that God's word was true. Verse 9 says, "I am broken with their whorish heart, which hath departed from me", and "they shall lothe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations." Verse 10 adds, "I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them." A good answer keeps all three. A weak answer makes the survivors heroes who escaped because they were better, when the verse says they remember their own evils.
Show teacher guidance
Read 6:9–10. Expect estrangement, evil, and the truth of God’s warning; do not portray survivors as automatically morally superior.
5. What does clapping and stamping accompany in this chapter?
What a good answer contains
Grief. The command is "Smite with thine hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Alas for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel" (6:11). Alas is a cry of lament, and what follows is sword, famine and pestilence. Some readers hear the clap and stamp as the gestures of a man announcing judgment with force; even so, the word on his lips is grief over what is coming. A good answer keeps the sorrow and the seriousness together. A weak answer turns the prophet into someone celebrating the fall of his own people.
Show teacher guidance
Read 6:11: “Alas” introduces grief over abominations and their consequences. Correct a celebratory or triumphant performance.
6. How does the repeated “ye shall know” hold the chapter together?
What a good answer contains
It sounds four times, in 6:7, 6:10, 6:13 and 6:14: "ye shall know that I am the LORD." Each time, the knowing follows something God has done or said. The point is not simply that Israel will notice a defeat, but that they will recognise who sent it and that his word was true (6:10). A good answer traces the refrain and says what each one follows. A weak answer reduces it to a fact about armies or reads it as gloating, when it is the purpose of the whole chapter.
Show teacher guidance
Trace 6:7,10,13–14. Recognition concerns the Lord’s identity and the reliability of his announced judgment, not merely awareness of military defeat.
Responsible application
Heart and habits
Have learners assess a fictional community that trusts religious objects while disregarding the Lord’s commands; anchor the discussion in 6:4–6.
Relationships and community
Ask how a congregation could speak honestly about wrongdoing while receiving displaced people without presuming that survival or suffering measures their worth.
Remembering away from home
Use 6:8–10 to draft a short teaching note for displaced worshippers: remembering God is possible beyond familiar buildings and locations.
Session plans
Two timings of the same lesson. The shorter keeps the reading, the central discussion and one response; the longer gives the confusions and the application their own time.
45 minutes
The mountains
Read 6:1-3 and take question one. Sketch hills, valleys and altars on the board.
Idols that cannot save
Read 6:4-7 briefly and take question two. Write the first refrain on the board.
The remnant
Read 6:8-10 slowly. Take questions three and four, and confusion two.
Alas
Read 6:11-14. Take questions five and six and read the four refrains aloud together.
Response and handout
Use the application on remembering God away from home. Read the key verse and give out the sheet.
90 minutes
Where people worship
Ask the group where people in their town look for safety or meaning. Keep the list for later.
Mountains and high places
Read 6:1-3 with 1 Kings 14:23. Take question one and confusion one.
The broken idols
Read 6:4-7. Take question two and draw out the irony without dwelling on the dead.
Remembering among the nations
Read 6:8-10 with Deuteronomy 4:29-31. Take questions three and four, and give real time to confusion two.
The prophet's lament
Read 6:11-12 with 5:12. Take question five and discuss what it means to announce judgment with grief.
The refrain
Read 6:13-14 and trace the four refrains. Take question six and confusion three.
Application
In pairs, work the application on trusting religious objects while ignoring God's commands, using 6:4-6.
Handout and prayer
Read the key verse together and pray for people far from home who are remembering God.
Adapting the lesson
Children
Draw hills with little altars on top. Explain that the people had put up statues of false gods on the hills and prayed to them instead of the true God. Say that God was sad, and that the false gods could not help them. Leave out the slain and the bones. Then tell them that God kept some people safe, and far away in another country they remembered him. God can be found anywhere.
Youth
Ask what people trust when they are scared. Then read 6:4-5 and talk about trusting things that cannot save. Spend time on 6:9, the idea that God can be heartbroken, and on remembering him far from home. Let them discuss the clapping and stamping and what kind of feeling it shows. Avoid graphic description of the dead, and keep the focus on what the people trusted.
Adults
Give time to the high places in Israel's history and to Josiah's reform in 2 Kings 23. Discuss the remnant theme and how it shapes the whole book. Read 6:9 carefully and discuss what it says about God and about repentance. Let the group talk about where loss has led people to remember God, and take care with anyone who is grieving. Leave theories about divine suffering open.
One to one
Read 6:8-10 together and ask whether they have ever remembered God more clearly when far from home or after a loss. Ask what 6:9 suggests about how God feels about unfaithfulness. If they carry shame about the past, let them see that remembering one's own evils is part of coming back, not the end of the road. Pray together briefly.
Song and video learning lab
A song or video may interpret, compress, or dramatize the text. Its value becomes clearer when its choices are compared with Scripture.
- Before the media: the exact passage and its central movement.
- During the media: the words, people, events, and emotions the artist emphasizes.
- After the media: what it clarifies, what it leaves out, and what belongs back in the biblical text.
Handout
One page for learners to take home. The print button prints this section alone.
Ezekiel 6:1–14
The passage in brief
God told Ezekiel to prophesy against the mountains of Israel, because the people had built altars and idols on the hills and worshipped false gods there. The idols would be broken and could not save anyone. But God promised to keep a remnant alive. Scattered among the nations, they would remember him, see how wrong they had been, and know that he is the LORD and that his word comes true.
A verse to keep
Yet will I leave a remnant, that ye may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries.
Ezekiel 6:8 · King James Version
Questions to take home
Why does God speak to the mountains and hills in 6:3?
Where will the survivors remember God, according to 6:9?
How many times does the chapter say "ye shall know that I am the LORD", and what does each follow?
This week
Wherever you are this week, take one moment each day to remember God by name and thank him.
Music and video connected to the passage
Related media appears when its Scripture reference overlaps this study. Music and video can illuminate a theme while the biblical text remains the foundation.
