A Sword Against Jerusalem

5 “And you, son of man, take a sharp sword, take it as a barber’s razor, aand pass it over your head and your beard; then take scales to weigh and divide the hair. 2 bYou shall burn with fire one-third in the midst of cthe city, when dthe days of the siege are finished; then you shall take one-third and strike around it with the sword, and one-third you shall scatter in the wind: I will draw out a sword after ethem. 3 fYou shall also take a small number of them and bind them in the edge of your garment. 4 Then take some of them again and gthrow them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire. From there a fire will go out into all the house of Israel.

5 “Thus says the Lord God: ‘This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst of the nations and the countries all around her. 6 She has rebelled against My judgments by doing wickedness more than the nations, and against My statutes more than the countries that are all around her; for they have refused My judgments, and they have not walked in My statutes.’ 7 Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Because you have 1multiplied disobedience more than the nations that are all around you, have not walked in My statutes hnor kept My judgments, 2nor even done according to the judgments of the nations that are all around you’—8 therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Indeed I, even I, am against you and will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations. 9 iAnd I will do among you what I have never done, and the like of which I will never do again, because of all your abominations. 10 Therefore fathers jshall eat their sons in your midst, and sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments among you, and all of you who remain I will kscatter to all the winds.

11 ‘Therefore, as I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘surely, because you have ldefiled My sanctuary with all your mdetestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will also diminish you; nMy eye will not spare, nor will I have any pity. 12 oOne-third of you shall die of the pestilence, and be consumed with famine in your midst; and one-third shall fall by the sword all around you; and pI will scatter another third to all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after qthem.

13 ‘Thus shall My anger rbe spent, and I will scause My fury to rest upon them, tand I will be avenged; uand they shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it in My zeal, when I have spent My fury upon them. 14 Moreover vI will make you a waste and a reproach among the nations that are all around you, in the sight of all who pass by.

15 ‘So 3it shall be a wreproach, a taunt, a xlesson, and an astonishment to the nations that are all around you, when I execute judgments among you in anger and in fury and in yfurious rebukes. I, the Lord, have spoken. 16 When I zsend against them the terrible arrows of famine which shall be for destruction, which I will send to destroy you, I will increase the famine upon you and cut off your asupply of bread. 17 So I will send against you famine and bwild beasts, and they will bereave you. cPestilence and blood shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I, the Lord, have spoken.’ ”