Ezekiel 9:6

Slay utterly; my purpose is to exterminate and make desolate, therefore slay all that are designed to destruction. Old; whose venerable age, if innocent, might have awed you, whose wisdom might preserve some and themselves. Young; who should be a seed-plot, or nursery, for posterity, cut them off too. Regard no state or sex, neither the loveliness of the virgin, nor the prettiness of the infant, nor the comeliness and gravity of the matron; spare none: yet in your fervours of revenge look you come not near to any sealed forehead; you may see them; though they blush for their own sins, and for the sins of others, yet they look up to me and wait for me in the way of my judgments, they will lift up their heads, and look you in the faces. And begin, both the execution and the distinction, at my sanctuary; there are the great sinners, and the abominable sins which have brought this on them; and that all Israel may know nothing but repentance can secure them. The ancient men; the seventy, or sanhedrim, Ezekiel 8:10,11. Which were before the house; who were governors in the temple and house of God by office, but idolaters by practice and principles.