Ezekiel 5

5 ¹"You, son of man, take a sharp sword as a barber's razor and pass it over your head and beard. Then take scales and divide the hair. ²Burn a third in fire inside the city when the siege days end. Take a third, strike it with the sword around the city. Scatter a third to the wind, and I'll draw a sword after them. ³And take a few of them and bind them in the folds of your robe. ⁴Take some of these again, throw them into the fire, and burn them in it. From there the fire will spread to the whole house of Israel.'

⁵This is what the Sovereign Father says: This is Jerusalem. I set her at the center of the nations, with lands around her. ⁶But she rebelled against my rules more evilly than the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries around her; for they rejected my rules and did not follow my statutes.

⁷So the Sovereign Father says: "Because you were more rebellious than the nations around you, not following my statutes or keeping my rules, not even acting by the rules of the nations around you, ⁸therefore the Sovereign Father says: 'Look, I myself am against you, and will carry out judgments among you in the sight of the nations. ⁹Because of all your detestable things I will do among you what I have never done before and will never do again. ¹⁰So parents will eat their children among you, and children will eat their parents. I will carry out judgments on you and scatter all your survivors to every wind.'

¹¹"As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Father, because you made my sanctuary unclean with all your vile things and detestable practices, I myself will withdraw; I will spare no one and show no pity. ¹²'A third of you will die by plague or famine among you; a third will fall by the sword around you; a third I will scatter to every wind, pursuing them with a drawn sword.

¹³"Then my anger will end, and I will satisfy my wrath against them and be comforted. They will know that I, their Father, have spoken in my zeal, when I have spent my wrath on them.

¹⁴"I will make you a ruin and a disgrace among the nations around you, in the sight of all who pass by. ¹⁵You will be a disgrace and mockery, a warning and horror to the nations around you, when I execute judgments on you in anger, wrath, and furious corrections. I, your Father, have spoken. ¹⁶When I shoot at you the deadly arrows of famine, sent to destroy you, I will pile on more famine and cut off your food supply. ¹⁷I will send famine and wild beasts against you; they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring the sword on you. I, your Father, have spoken.'"