Ezekiel 5

1You, son of man, take a sharp sword, take it as a barber's razor, and pass it over your head and your beard; then take scales for weighing and divide the hair.

2You shall burn a third in the fire amid the city when the days of the siege are completed; then take a third and strike it with the sword all around, and scatter a third to the wind while I draw out a sword after them.

3You shall take a few in number from it and bind them in your skirts.

4From them again you shall take and cast them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire; from it a fire will come out into all the house of Israel.

5Thus says the Lord Yahweh: This is Jerusalem; I have placed her among the nations, with lands all around her.

6She rebelled against my judgments more wickedly than the nations and against my statutes more than the lands around her, for they rejected my judgments and my statutes, not walking in them.

7Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Because your multitude exceeds that of the nations surrounding you, you have not followed my statutes, nor obeyed my ordinances, nor conformed to the ordinances of the nations surrounding you.

8Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: I, even I, am against you, and I will carry out judgments in your midst before the nations.

9I will do in you what I have not done, and I will not do its like again, because of all your abominations.

10Therefore fathers will eat sons among you, and sons will eat their fathers; I will execute judgments in you and scatter all your remnant to every wind.

11Therefore, as I live, declares the Lord Yahweh, surely because you defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things and all your abominations, I will also reduce you; neither will my eye spare, nor will I show pity.

12A third of you will die by plague and be consumed by famine in your midst; a third will fall by the sword around you; and a third I will scatter to all the winds, drawing a sword after them.

13My anger will be spent, and I will satisfy my fury against them and be comforted; they will know that I, Yahweh, have spoken in my jealousy when I spend my fury on them.

14I will make you a desolation and a reproach among the nations surrounding you, in the sight of all who pass by.

15It will be a reproach and taunt, chastening and astonishment, to the nations around you when I execute judgments against you in anger and wrath and furious rebukes. I, Yahweh, have spoken.

16When I send the arrows of famine against them—the evil ones among them, meant for destruction, which I will send to ruin you—I will increase the famine upon you and break your staff of bread.

17I will send famine and an evil beast upon you, and they will bereave you; pestilence and blood will pass through you, and I will bring the sword upon you—I, Yahweh, have spoken.