Ezekiel 5
1 “And you, son of man, take a sharp sword. Use it like a barber’s razor and run it over your head and your beard. Then take a set of scales and divide the hair.
2 Burn a third of it in the fire inside the city when the days of the siege are over. Take another third and strike it with the sword all around the city. Scatter the last third to the wind, and I will draw my sword after them.
3 Then take a small handful from there and tie it in the hem of your garment.
4 Take some more of these, throw them into the middle of the fire, and burn them there. From there, fire will spread to all the house of Israel.”
5 This is what the Lord GOD says: “This is Jerusalem. I placed her among the nations, with lands all around her.
6 But she rebelled against my laws more wickedly than the nations, and against my decrees more than the lands around her. For they rejected my laws and did not follow my decrees.”
7 Therefore, this is what the Lord GOD says: “You have been more unruly than the nations around you. You have not followed my decrees or kept my laws; you have not even acted according to the laws of the nations around you.”
8 Therefore, this is what the Lord GOD says: “I am against you too, and I will carry out judgments among you in the sight of the nations.
9 I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again, because of all your abominations.
10 Therefore, parents will eat their children among you, and children will eat their parents. I will carry out judgments against you and scatter everything left of you to every wind.
11 Therefore, as surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your disgusting idols and all your abominations, I too will withdraw. My eye will show no pity, and I will spare no one.
12 A third of you will die by plague and be consumed by famine within you; a third will fall by the sword all around you; and a third I will scatter to every wind, and I will draw my sword after them.
13 Then my anger will be spent, and I will let my fury rest on them, and I will be satisfied. They will know that I, the LORD, have spoken in my zeal when I have spent my fury on them.
14 I will make you a ruin and a disgrace among the nations around you, in the sight of everyone who passes by.
15 You will be a disgrace and a taunt, a warning and a horror to the nations around you when I carry out judgments against you in anger, fury, and furious rebukes. I, the LORD, have spoken.
16 When I send against them the deadly arrows of famine, meant to destroy, which I will send to ruin you, I will increase the famine against you and break your supply of bread.
17 I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will pass through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I, the LORD, have spoken.”
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