1   Man, take a sharp sword, take it like a barber's razor and run it over your head and your chin. Then take scales and divide the hair into three. 2   When the siege comes to an end, burn one third of the hair in a fire in the centre of the city; cut up one third with the sword all round the city; scatter one third to the wind, and I will follow it with drawn sword. 3   Take a few of these hairs and tie them up in a fold of your robe. 4   Then take others of them, throw them into the fire and burn them, and out of them fire will come upon all Israel.

5   These are the words of the Lord God: This city of Jerusalem I have set among the nations, 6   with other countries around her, and she has rebelled against my laws and my statutes more wickedly than those nations and countries; for her people have rejected my laws and refused to conform to my statutes.

7   Therefore the Lord God says: Since you have been more ungrateful than the nations around you and have not conformed to my statutes and have not kept my laws or even the laws of the nations around you, therefore, says the Lord God, I, in my turn, will be against you; 8   I will execute judgements in your midst for the nations to see, 9   such judgements as I have never executed before nor ever will again, so abominable have your offences been. 10   Therefore, O Jerusalem, fathers will eat their children and children their fathers in your midst; I will execute judgements on you, and any who are left in you I will scatter to the four winds. 11   As I live, says the Lord God, because you have defiled my holy place with all your vile and abominable rites, I in my turn will consume you without pity; I in my turn will not spare you. 12   One third of your people shall die by pestilence and perish by famine in your midst; one third shall fall by the sword in the country round about; and one third I will scatter to the four winds and follow with drawn sword. 13   Then my anger will be spent, I will abate my fury against them and be calm; when my fury is spent they will know that it is I, the Lord, who spoke in jealous passion. 14   I have made you a scandal ^note and a reproach to the nations around you, and all who pass by will see it. 15   You ^note will be an

The impending ruin of Jerusalem object of reproach and abuse, a terrible lesson to the nations around you, when I pass sentence on you and do judgement in anger and fury. 16   I, the Lord, have spoken. When I shoot the deadly arrows of famine against you, ^note arrows of destruction, I will shoot to destroy you. I will bring famine upon you and cut short your daily bread; ^note 17   I will unleash famine and beasts of prey upon you, and they will leave you childless. Pestilence and slaughter will sweep through you, and I will bring the sword upon you. I, the Lord, have spoken.

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