Judgement against Jerusalem
1 “You, son of man, take a sharp sword. You shall use it like a barber’s razor on yourself and shall shave your head and your beard. Then take balances to weigh and divide the hair. 2 A third of it, you shall burn in the fire in the middle of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled. You shall take a third of it and strike with the sword around it. A third of it you shall scatter to the wind, and I will draw out a sword after them.
3 You shall take a few pieces of it and bind them in the folds of your robe. 4 Of these, you shall take them again and cast them into the middle of the fire and burn them in the fire. From it a fire will come out into the whole house of Israel.
5 The Lord GOD says, ‘This is Jerusalem. I have set her in the midst of the nations, and countries are around her. 6 She has rebelled against my ordinances, in wickedness, surpassing the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries that are around her, for they have rejected my ordinances, and as for my statutes, they have not walked in them.’
7 Therefore the LORD God says, ‘Because you are more turbulent than the nations that are around you and have not walked in my statutes, nor have kept my ordinances, nor followed the ordinances of the nations that are around you, 8 therefore the Lord GOD says, ‘I, yes I, am against you, and I will execute judgments among you in the sight of the nations. 9 I will do among you that which I have never done and that which I will never do anything like it again, because of all your abominations. 10 Therefore the fathers will eat the sons within Jerusalem, and the sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments on you, and I will scatter to the winds, all your survivors.
Famine, Sword, and Dispersion
11 Therefore as surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will cut you off. I will not spare you, and I will have no pity.
12 A third of you will die from the pestilence, and they will be consumed with famine. A third of you will fall by the sword. A third, I will scatter to the winds and will draw a sword out after them.
13 Thus my anger will be spent, and I will cause my wrath toward them to rest, and I will be comforted. They will know that I, the LORD, have spoken in my zeal, when my fury on them has been spent.
14 Moreover, I will make you a desolation and a reproach among the nations that are around you, in the sight of all who pass by. 15 So it will be a reproach and a taunt, a lesson and a horror to the nations surrounding you, when I execute judgments on you in anger and in wrath, with furious rebuke—I, the LORD, have spoken it.
16 When I send on them the deadly arrows of famine that are intended for destruction, which I will send to destroy you. I will make your famine more severe and will cut off your food supply. 17 I will send on you famine and dangerous animals, and they will leave you without children. Disease and bloodshed will pass through you. I will bring the sword on you. I, the LORD, have spoken it.”