A Sword Against Jerusalem

5 “And you, son of man, take a sharp sword, take it as a barber’s razor, ^(A)and pass it over your head and your beard; then take scales to weigh and divide the hair. ^2 (B)You shall burn with fire one-third in the midst of ^(C)the city, when ^(D)the days of the siege are finished; then you shall take one-third and strike around it with the sword, and one-third you shall scatter in the wind: I will draw out a sword after ^(E)them. ^3 (F)You shall also take a small number of them and bind them in the edge of your garment. ⁴ Then take some of them again and ^(G)throw them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire. From there a fire will go out into all the house of Israel.

⁵ “Thus says the Lord God: ‘This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst of the nations and the countries all around her. ⁶ She has rebelled against My judgments by doing wickedness more than the nations, and against My statutes more than the countries that are all around her; for they have refused My judgments, and they have not walked in My statutes.’ ⁷ Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Because you have ^[a]multiplied disobedience more than the nations that are all around you, have not walked in My statutes ^(H)nor kept My judgments, ^[b]nor even done according to the judgments of the nations that are all around you’— ⁸ therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Indeed I, even I, am against you and will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations. ^9 (I)And I will do among you what I have never done, and the like of which I will never do again, because of all your abominations.