I must admit that Ezekiel 17 confused me a bit. I couldn’t keep track of the Eagles and kings.
The lesson seems to be that a divided loyalty cannot stand, particularly when we divide our loyalty between God and something else. Trying to please both masters just weakens us. IN God, we are planted by a stream, watered and nourished, yet we often strain ourselves looking after the wealth of the world. Material things, power, ‘happiness’, etc all draw our eyes from Him and as we strain, we weaken our roots.
Israel did it, it seems, with both God and man. They pursued other gods after making a covenant with The Lord and they pursued help from Egypt after making a deal with Babylon.
Ezekiel 17 ends with a prophesy about Jesus, how God will take him from the topmost twig of a lofty cedar (the cream of the crop of mankind, the line of David I assume) and plant him on a high mountain in Israel. He will grow up to be mighty and noble cedar and every kind of bird (people) will come to it. All the trees (people again?) will know that God is The Lord because of the cedar.
Israel is told over and over that they will know that He is The Lord from his judgement. wrath and punishment; we can know that God is The Lord through Jesus and the fruit he bears in the lives that come to Him.

Ezekiel 16:4-14 – A reminder to Israel where they came from and to whom they owe their life. What a picture of God, rescuing the abandoned infant, protecting and sheltering the innocent and vulnerable teenage girl. Not only that, but raising the low to glory and splendor. We would do well to remember how God has done this for us. It is not our doing that we have gone from wallowing in blood and filth to a member of God’s own family.
Ezekiel 16:15-22 – The picture of God as a rescuer and then the husband and lover, raising Israel, his bride, to glorious heights is crushed here with the description of what Israel did with what God provided. Verse 17:

You also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men, and with them played the whore.

All the things that God provided, Israel, His bride, used to seduce other Gods. Imagine, pouring out your life for your wife, rescuing them, giving you all to provide for them, raising them form poverty, no certain death, to wealth beyond their earlier dreams and then them using your provisions, your loving gifts, to seduce another. Treating it, and you, with contempt. Even the least religious, one who knows nothing of got and doesn’t care, would be crushed by this or would decry it if seen in another. Verses 20-22:

And you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your whorings so small a matter that you slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by fire to them? And in all your abominations and your whorings you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, wallowing in your blood.

Ezekiel 16:30-34 – You can hear God’s anguish and hurt for how Israel has treated him “How sick is your heart …” he says in v. 30., verse 32:

Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband!

God then contrasts Israel’s behaviors with a prostitute. Though she acted like one, having man after man, she did not solicit payment, in fact she paid them with gifts. So she was different, and actually worse. She did not do it for money, but instead she actually desired them in her heart.
It is no wonder that God is angry and understandable that he is judging Israel. He spends the rest of the chapter telling what he will do to Israel as a result of their sins. Not only wrath and judgement, but ultimately restoration. For God’s anger is rooted in love, his discipline is meant to correct and instruct. In verses 62-63 He says:

I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord God.”

Isn’t that the truth. After all that Israel has done, after all that we have done, it’s confounding that God would establish a covenant with us & restore us, “atoning for all that we have done“.

A very short chapter. He compares Israel to the wood of a vine. Even when whole, that wood is not good for anything. No one makes anything from vine wood. How much more worthless is it after being consumed by fire?
It seems a harsh assessment of Israel, you’re worthless now, even more so after the wrath of God comes. But we know that God has loved Israel, calling them His treasured possession. He’s given them the law to guide them and to reveal himself to them as well as prophets and leaders. So, even though worthless, he has loved them dearly. Because of His love, they are made valuable and strong. Israel would have been nothing in history, unremembered today, if it weren’t for God being with them.
Isn’t it the same today? Very few who God has called were worth anything to the world before hand. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 (ESV):

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Who am I that I should do anything of importance? I’d like to think I can, but in reality nothing I’ve done will make much difference to anyone. Except through Jesus. Through Him I can change a person’s destiny, through Him I can become important, even if it’s only in His eyes.

Ezekiel 14
Ezekiel 14:3 – “these men have taken their idols into their hearts” Not only paying lip service to an idol, but taking it into their hearts.
Ezekiel 14:4-5 – If you come to God, through his prophet, with idols in you heart, He will answer as if you brought them all with you. “Oh, I see you’ve brought your job, a TV, your family and your bank account along to speak to Me … ”
Ezekiel 14:9 – Huh? If the prophet is deceived and speaks, it’s because God deceived him? Yet, he’s still to be destroyed by God? I’m confused.
Ezekiel 14:22-23 – God answers Ezekiel’s earlier question. Some will survive the wrath and judgement to come. Ezekiel will see them come out and be consoled as he sees their deeds and ways.
I wonder if those who survived were able to read Ezekiel’s words? Did they look back and see that God compares them here, indirectly, to Noah, Daniel and Job?