Daily Devotional For Tuesday, September 22, 2026
Good morning Southside! I am following the One Year Chronological Bible reading suggestion and any Bible verses you see highlighted in bold (ex. John 3:16), means it is a link to that verse. All you have to do is click on the reference and it will take you to the verse online. Our daily devotional reading for today comes from Ezekiel 22:17-22:
“And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, (18) “Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to Me; all of them are bronze and tin and iron and lead in the furnace; they are the dross of silver. (19) Therefore, thus says the Lord God, ‘Because all of you have become dross, therefore, behold, I am going to gather you into the midst of Jerusalem. (20) As they gather silver and bronze and iron and lead and tin into the furnace to blow fire on it in order to melt it, so I will gather you in My anger and in My wrath and I will lay you there and melt you. (21) I will gather you and blow on you with the fire of My wrath, and you will be melted in the midst of it. (22) As silver is melted in the furnace, so you will be melted in the midst of it; and you will know that I, the Lord, have poured out My wrath on you’” (NASB).
After you read this, do you think the Lord is angry at His chosen people? This is one of the most brutally honest depictions of God’s anger against His own people when they sin, and repeatedly take advantage of His grace. God was going to bring so much heat down on His people that they would melt and become dross – the leftover impurities from smelting that is worthless. In verses 13-22 of this chapter, the word “you” is used 21 times indicating Judah’s guilt of sin, rebellion and idolatry. The pronoun “I” is used 11 times in verses 13-22 to indicate that God personally would bring this judgment down and against His own chosen people.
In those days smelting was the way to burn away the dross and impurities, leaving only the purified precious metal. We see this mention often in Scripture (Isa. 1:22, 25; Isa. 48:10; Jer. 9:7; Zech. 13:9; and Mal. 3:2-3). In this case Jerusalem was the smelting furnace and Judah was the object to be refined. The wrath of God supplied the heat and when it was all said and done, Judah would know it was the Lord who had done this to them. God hates sin. He hates our tolerance of sin in our own lives. Old Testament Scholar Anderson Forbes explains how smelting was done in biblical days:
“The process of extracting and refining silver involved two principal stages. First, using charcoal or wood as fuel, the ore was gently roasted in a furnace, which might have been nothing more than a hole in the ground. This process caused the sulfur to escape as sulfur dioxide gas and the lead to oxidize, producing litharge. When the ore had been appropriately desulfurized, the temperature was raised, producing a metallic lead-silver alloy that collected at the bottom of the furnace. Second, the silver was separated from the lead by a process of cupellation, which involved the melting down of the alloy in a shallow, porous clay or bone ash receptacle called a cupel. By sending a stream of air across the surface of the molten mass, the lead and other impurities were preferentially oxidized, producing a dross on the surface of the liquid ore. This dross, which contained most of the lead, was then skimmed off. The remaining lead was absorbed by the porous cupel, and the silver, still in solution, was drained away” (Source: Anderson Forbes, Studies in Ancient Technology, Vol. 8, pp. 196–266).
In our passage for today, Yahweh is the smelter who is operating the refining furnace. The impurities consisted of four metals: copper, tin, lead and iron. Ezekiel’s point is that far from being Yahweh’s chosen people, the house of Judah was nothing more than slag – the waste produced in the extraction of silver from ore. Thus Yahweh was separating the genuine followers of Yahweh from the fake ones.
It was as if Judah was hemorrhaging and needed that artery cauterized. Burning of flesh is always intensely painful but healing. Ezekiel’s point is that when Yahweh is finished with them they will know and understand the fury of both Yahweh’s love and wrath against them. This should remind you of Jesus’ words in the New Testament in John 15:1-11. Jesus’ words give us Christians a warning we must never take for granted our salvation. We must never think salvation is now a license to sin against a holy God (Rom. 6:1-4).
Reflection Assignment: When you read Jesus’ words in John 15:1-11, what do the words of Jesus say to you? When has the Lord taken you through the heat to purify you, to remove sin in your life? How did you deal with it? How did it change you?
Scripture To Meditate On: Matthew 3:10,”The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (NASB).
Prayer To Pray: “Dear Lord, I welcome you taking me through any kind of spiritual smelting to separate sin from my life. I praise You and thank You that You love me that much. I pray that I will always thank You that You desire to produce spiritual fruit in my life that honors You and helps the Gospel impact the lives of others. I love You Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”
I love you Southside! – Pastor Kelly