1. “Now you, son of man, take a sharp sword. Use it as a barber’s razor to shave your head and your beard. Then take balances to weigh and divide the hair.
2. A third you will burn in fire in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are complete. Take a third and strike it with the sword all around the city. Scatter a third to the wind, and I will draw out a sword after them.
3. Take a few from there and tie them up in your garment.
4. Again take some of them, throw them into the midst of the fire and burn them in the fire. A fire will spread from it into all the house of Israel.”
5. Thus says Adonai Elohim: “This is Jerusalem! I have set her in the midst of the nations, with countries all around her.
6. She has rebelled against My ordinances by doing wickedness worse than the nations, and against My decrees worse than the surrounding countries. For they have rejected My ordinances and as for My decrees, they have not walked in them.”
7. Therefore thus says Adonai Elohim: “Because you are more turbulent than the surrounding nations, in that you have not walked in My decrees or followed my ordinances, nor have you observed the ordinances of the surrounding nations,
8. therefore thus says Adonai Elohim: Behold, I in turn am against you. I will execute judgments among you in the sight of the nations.