Six executioners come from the north gate, and among them one clothed in linen with a writer's inkhorn — the marking scribe set apart from the slayers. Jehovah's glory removes from the cherub to the threshold and commissions him to seal the foreheads of those who sigh and cry for the abominations in the city, the same sealing pattern that recurs in Revelation 7 and D&C 77. Judgment then begins at the sanctuary, at the ancient men before the house, because defilement of the holy place is the gravest charge. Those without the mark — old, young, women, children — are not spared. The principle is fixed: judgment commences at the house of God, and only the marked of the covenant stand. The slayers are told the Lord has forsaken the earth and seeth not; the chapter answers that lie with fury.