A Sword Against Jerusalem

5 As for you, son of man, take a sharp sword. Take and cause it to pass upon your head and upon your beard as a barber’s razor. Then take balances to weigh and divide the hair. ² You shall burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city when the days of the siege are fulfilled. Then you shall take a third part and strike it with the sword all around the city. And a third part you shall scatter in the wind. And I will draw out a sword after them. ³ You shall also take a few in number from them and bind them in the edges of your robes. ⁴ Then take some of them again and cast them into the midst of the fire and burn them in the fire. For a fire shall come out into all the house of Israel.

⁵ Thus says the Lord God: This is Jerusalem. I have set it in the midst of the nations, with countries that are all around her. ⁶ But she has rebelled against My judgments more wickedly than the nations, and against My statutes more than the countries that are all around her. For they have refused My judgments and My statutes, and have not walked in them.

⁷ Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have more turmoil than the nations that are round about you and have not walked in My statutes, or have kept My judgments, and have not even acted according to the judgments of the nations that are all around you, ⁸ therefore thus says the Lord God: Pay attention. I, even I, am against you and will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations. ⁹ I will do in you what I have not done, and the like of which I will not do anymore, because of all your abominations. ¹⁰ Therefore the fathers shall eat their sons in your midst, and the sons shall eat their fathers. For I will execute judgments on you, and the whole remnant of you I will scatter into all the winds. ¹¹ Therefore, as I live, says the Lord God, surely, because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will also diminish you, and My eye shall have no pity, nor will I spare. ¹² A third part of you shall die by pestilence or by famine; they shall be consumed in your midst. And a third part shall fall by the sword all around you. And I will scatter a third part into all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them.

¹³ Thus My anger shall be accomplished, and I will cause My fury to rest upon them, and I will be comforted. Then they shall know that I the Lord have spoken it in My zeal when I have accomplished My fury in them.

¹⁴ Moreover I will make you a desolation and a reproach among the nations that are all around you, in the sight of all who pass by. ¹⁵ So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and an astonishment to the nations that are all around you, when I execute judgments in you in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes. I the Lord have spoken it. ¹⁶ When I send upon them the deadly arrows of famine which shall be for their destruction and which I will send to destroy you, then I will also increase the famine upon you and break your staff of bread. ¹⁷ So I will send upon you famine and wild beasts, and they shall bereave you of children. And pestilence and bloodshed shall pass through you. And I will bring the sword upon you. I the Lord have spoken it.