1“You, son of man, take a sharp sword. Use it like a barber’s razor on yourself. Shave your head and your beard. Then take scales to weigh and divide the hair.
2You must burn a third of it in the fire in the middle of the city when the time of the siege is over. You must strike a third of it with a sword all around the city. And you must scatter a third of it to the wind, and I will chase after them with a sword.
3You must take a small amount of it and tie it up in the folds of your clothing.
4Then you must take some of these again and throw them into the middle of the fire and burn them up; from there, a fire will spread throughout all of Israel.
5“This is what the Lord Yahweh says: ‘This is Jerusalem. I placed her in the center of the nations, with countries all around her.
6But she rebelled against my laws, acting more wickedly than the nations, and against my regulations more than the countries around her. For they have rejected my laws, and they have not followed my regulations.’
7“Therefore, this is what the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Because you have been more rebellious than the nations around you, and have not followed my regulations or kept my laws, nor have you even done what the nations around you do—
8therefore, this is what the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Look, I myself am against you. I will carry out judgments among you in the sight of the nations.
9I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again, because of all your disgusting practices.
10Therefore, fathers in your city will eat their children, and children will eat their fathers. I will carry out judgments on you, and I will scatter all your remaining people to every wind.
11Therefore, as I live,’ declares the Lord Yahweh, ‘because you have defiled my holy place with all your detestable idols and all your disgusting practices, I will also cut you down. My eye will not show pity, and I will have no mercy.
12A third of your people will die by disease, and a third will be consumed by famine within you. A third will fall by the sword all around you. I will scatter a third to every wind, and I will chase after them with a sword.
13“‘In this way, my anger will be satisfied, and I will make my fury against them stop, and I will be at rest. Then they will know that I, Yahweh, have spoken in my intense anger, when I have carried out my fury on them.
14“‘Furthermore, I will make you a desolate ruin and disgraced among the nations around you, in the sight of everyone who passes by.’
15So it will be a disgrace and a mockery, a warning and a horror to the nations around you, when I carry out my judgments on you with anger, rage, and furious corrections. I, Yahweh, have spoken.
16When I send on them the terrible arrows of famine that bring destruction, which I will send to destroy you. I will increase the famine in your land and cut off your food supply.
17I will send famine and wild animals against you, and they will leave you childless. Disease and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring war against you. I, Yahweh, have spoken it.'