Ezekiel 33:31

So My people come to you as usual, sit before you, and hear your words; but they do not put them into practice. Although they express love with their mouths, their hearts pursue dishonest gain.

Berean Standard Bible

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Study note

Setting — God speaks to Ezekiel, describing the exiled community's habitual pattern: they gather to hear the word as routine, not as summons to change.

The words — שָׁמְעוּ (shamo'u, H8085) "they hear" — the same root as shema, carrying the force of attentive obedience, not passive listening. The verse's charge is that they stop at the first sense.

The thread — The pattern recurs in Psalms 78:36 (deceiving with the mouth), Matthew 13:22 (hearing the word but choked by worldly pursuit), and James 1:22 (hearing without doing is self-deception).

Why it lands — It names the specific failure of treating Scripture as content to be consumed rather than a standard against which one is measured. The reader is asked to check whether their engagement ends at the ear.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.

The Hebrew words

King James Version

And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they shew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness.

Cross-references

Psalms 78:36 But they deceived Him with their mouths, and lied to Him with their tongues.
Matthew 13:22 The seed sown among the thorns is the one who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.
James 1:22 Be doers of the word, and not hearers only. Otherwise, you are deceiving yourselves.
Isaiah 29:13 Therefore the Lord said: “These people draw near to Me with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. Their worship of Me is but rules taught by men.
Luke 11:28 But He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”
James 2:14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone claims to have faith, but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?
Jeremiah 44:16 “As for the word you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD, we will not listen to you!
Ezekiel 8:1 In the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth month, I was sitting in my house, and the elders of Judah were sitting before me; and there the hand of the Lord GOD fell upon me.
Luke 6:48 He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid his foundation on the rock. When the flood came, the torrent crashed against that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.
1 Timothy 6:9 Those who want to be rich, however, fall into temptation and become ensnared by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction.