As for you, O house of Israel, thus says the Lord GOD: This verse is the conclusion of God’s judgment on his disobedient people. Its importance is shown with the emphatic Hebrew expression rendered As for you, and the traditional prophetic formula thus says the Lord GOD (see Ezek 20.3). For house of Israel, see Ezek 20.5. It is good to begin this verse with a strong expression that stresses what follows; for example, Revised English Bible has “Now, you Israelites, the Lord GOD says.”

Go serve every one of you his idols, now and hereafter, if you will not listen to me; but my holy name you shall no more profane with your gifts and your idols: God’s words here can be understood in three different ways as follows:

(1) God gives up on the people and tells them that, if they do not listen to him and obey him, they may as well go and worship their idols from now on. At least then, if they no longer claim to worship Yahweh, they will not dishonor him. This is the interpretation of Revised Standard Version/New Revised Standard Version, King James Version / New King James Version, and New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh.
(2) God gives up on the people, but the conditional clause if you will not listen to me contains a hidden threat. He tells them that they may as well worship idols, but later, if they do not listen to him, look out! The words “look out” are not in the Hebrew text, but since the conditional clause is incomplete, it implies that something threatening will happen to the people. Many commentators prefer this interpretation (so Allen, Greenberg, New Jerusalem Bible).
(3) God does not give up on the people, but he uses irony to make the people stop and listen. Irony is where a person says something but means the opposite. Go serve every one of you his idols seems to be a command from God to worship false gods, but he is not really commanding them to do so. Good News Translation makes this clear by saying “suit yourselves! Go on and serve your idols!” Hereafter, if you will not listen to me can be understood as a very strong statement, almost as strong as an oath, which may be rendered “Afterward, you will surely listen to me” (compare Contemporary English Version, which has “You will have no choice but to obey me!”). Then, when they do obey God, they will no longer dishonor him. Many translations follow this interpretation (so Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, New International Version, New American Standard Bible, Revised English Bible, Jerusalem Bible, Moffatt, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). It is the best one for translators to use.

Some translations avoid the sarcasm in God’s words here by changing the verb serve to read “burn down” (so New American Bible, New English Bible, Septuagint). The Hebrew verbs for serve (ʿabad) and “burn down” (baʿ ar) are similar, so it is possible to confuse them, but we do not recommend this change.

For idols see Ezek 20.7; for profane see Ezek 20.9; and for gifts see verse 26. In this verse, as in verses 9, 14 and 22, God is concerned that his name should not be dishonored. Here his name is described as holy. Although the Hebrew word for holy has the sense of being set apart for a special purpose (see verse 12, where the verb rendered “sanctify” comes from the same root), it also has the sense of “pure” and “perfect” when it describes anything to do with God, as it does here.

A model for this verse is:

• And now, you people of Israel, I, the Lord Yahweh, say this to you: All right, all of you, go and worship your idols now, if that’s what you want to do! But later, you will have to listen to me and obey me. Then you will not dishonor my holy name by worshiping your idols and giving your gifts to them.

Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .