Ezekiel 5

¹ ‘Son of man, take a sharp blade, sharp as a barbers razor; take it and use it on your head and beard. Then take scales and divide the hair you have cut off.

² You are to set fire to a third in the centre of the city, while the time of the siege is working itself out. Then take another third and toss it by swordpoint all round the city. The last third you are to scatter to the wind, while I unsheathe the sword behind them.

³ Then take a few hairs and wrap them in the folds of your cloak;

⁴ and of these again take a few, and throw them on the fire and burn them. From them will issue fire, and you are to say to the entire House of Israel,

⁵ “The Lord Yahweh says this: This is Jerusalem, which I have placed in the middle of the nations, surrounded with foreign countries.

⁶ She is so perverse that she has rebelled more against my observances than the nations, and more against my laws than the surrounding countries; for she has rejected my observances and refused to keep my laws.

⁷ Therefore, the Lord Yahweh says this: Since you are more rebellious than the nations round you, since you do not keep my laws or respect my observances, and since you do not even respect the observances of the surrounding nations,

⁸ so then, the Lord Yahweh says this: I have now set myself against you, I will inflict punishments upon you for all the nations to see.

⁹ On account of all your filthy practices I will do things to you that I have never done before and that I will never do again.

¹⁰ Fathers among you will eat their children, and children eat their fathers. I will inflict punishments on you and disperse what remains of you to the winds.

¹¹ Therefore, as I live – it is the Lord Yahweh who speaks – as sure as you have defiled my sanctuary with all your horrors and all your filthy practices, I too will reject pitilessly; I will not spare, either.

¹² A third of your inhabitants shall die of plague or starve to death inside you; a third shall fall by the sword, outside you; a third I will scatter to every wind, while I unsheathe the sword behind them.

¹³ My anger will be satisfied; I mean to satisfy my fury against them and be avenged; they will know that I, Yahweh, have spoken in my jealousy, when I have exhausted my fury against them.

¹⁴ I mean to reduce you to a ruin, an object of contempt to surrounding nations, in the eyes of all who pass by.

¹⁵ You will become an object of contempt and shame, an example and a thing of horror, to all the surrounding nations, when I execute my judgements on you in anger and fury, with bitter punishments. I, Yahweh, have spoken.

¹⁶ Against you I mean to send the deadly arrows of starvation – which will destroy you, since I shall send them to destroy you – and I will destroy your stock of bread.

¹⁷ Against you I mean to send famine and wild animals, to rob you of your children; plague and bloodshed shall visit you. I will summon the sword against you. I, Yahweh, have spoken.”‘