1 "As for you, son of man, get a sharp sword and use it as a barber's razor. Shave your head and beard with it. Then get a scale and divide the hair. 2 Burn a third of it inside the city, when the days of the siege are completed. Take a third of it, and strike it with the sword around the city. Scatter a third of it to the wind, for I will draw out a sword after them. 3 Take from those a few strands, and tie them on the edge of your robe. 4 Then take a few of these and cast them into the fire and burn them. From there a fire will spread into all the house of Israel." 5 "This is what the sovereign LORD says: This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the middle of the nations, with countries surrounding her. 6 But she has rebelled against my regulations and statutes by becoming more wicked than the nations and the countries that are around her. For they have rejected my regulations and have not followed my statutes. 7 Therefore this is what the sovereign LORD says: Because you are more rebellious than the nations that are around you, and have not walked in my statutes or kept my regulations, you have not even lived up to the standards of the nations that are around you. 8 Therefore this is what the sovereign LORD says: Look, I, myself am against you. I will execute judgments among you while the nations look on. 9 I will do to you that which I have never done before, and will never ever do anything like it again, because of all your abominations. 10 Therefore fathers will eat their own sons in your midst, and the sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments on you; and any of your survivors I will scatter to the winds. 11 Therefore, as I live, says the sovereign LORD, surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable idols and with all your abominations. Therefore I will withdraw; my eye will not spare and I will have no pity. 12 A third of you will die of the plague and famine among you. A third will fall by the sword around you; and a third I will scatter to all the winds and will draw out a sword after them. 13 Then my anger will be finished, and my vented wrath will be appeased. Then they will know that I, the LORD, have spoken in my jealousy, when I have vented my wrath on them. 14 I will make you desolate, and an object of ridicule among surrounding nations, and in the sight of all who pass by. 15 So you will be an object of ridicule and insults, a warning and a horror to the surrounding nations, when I execute judgments on you in anger, wrath, and with furious rebukes. I, the LORD, have spoken. 16 When I will unleash against them the deadly destructive arrows of famine, I will shoot them to destroy you. I will escalate the severity of the famine on you, and will cut off your supply of bread. 17 I will send famine and wild animals against you, and they will take your children from you. The plague and bloodshed will pass through you; and I will bring the sword against you. I, the LORD, have spoken."