1"And you, son of man, take a sharp knife. Take a barber's razor and pass it over your head and over your beard. Then take scales for weighing, and divide the hair."
2"Burn a third of it with fire inside the city, when the days of the siege are over. Take another third and strike it with the knife all around the city. And a third you shall scatter in the wind, and I will draw out a sword after them."
3"You shall also take a few hairs from it and tie them up in the folds of your robe."
4"Then take some of these again, and throw them into the middle of the fire, and burn them in the fire. From there a fire will come out into all the house of Israel."
5This is what the Lord GOD says: "This is Jerusalem. I have set her in the middle of the nations and the countries that are around her."
6"But she has turned my judgments into wickedness, more than the nations, and my laws more than the countries that are around her. For they have refused my judgments and my laws, and have not walked in them."
7Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: "Because you were more unruly than the nations that are around you, and have not walked in my laws, and have not kept my judgments, and have not even lived by the rules of the nations that are around you,"
8therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: "Look, I, even I, am against you. I will carry out judgments among you where the nations can see."
9"I will do among you what I have never done before, and I will never do anything like it again, because of all the disgusting things you do."
10"So fathers among you will eat their sons, and sons will eat their fathers. I will carry out judgments on you, and all who are left of you I will scatter to every wind."
11"So, as surely as I live, says the Lord GOD, because you have made my sanctuary unclean with all your hateful things and all your disgusting practices, I will cut you down. My eye will not spare you, and I will have no pity."
12"A third of you will die of plague, and be finished off by famine inside you. A third will fall by the sword all around you. And a third I will scatter to every wind, and I will draw out a sword after them."
13"So my anger will be completed. I will make my fury rest upon them, and I will be satisfied. And they will know that I the LORD have spoken it in my zeal, when I have completed my fury on them."
14"I will make you a ruin, and a disgrace among the nations that are around you, in the sight of everyone who passes by."
15"So you will be a disgrace and a mockery, a warning and a horror to the nations that are around you, when I carry out judgments on you in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes. I the LORD have spoken it."
16"I will send against them the deadly arrows of famine, which are sent to destroy. I will send them to destroy you. I will make the famine worse for you, and break your supply of bread."
17"So I will send famine on you, and wild beasts, and they will take away your children. Plague and blood will pass through you, and I will bring the sword upon you. I the LORD have spoken it."