⁴ Take some of those hairs and throw them into the fire. This will show that a fire will start there and burn throughout the whole house of Israel.^[a]”

⁵ Then the Lord God said to me, “The brick is a picture of Jerusalem. I put Jerusalem in the middle of other nations with countries all around her. ⁶ The people rebelled against my commands. They were worse than any of the other nations! They broke more of my laws than any of the people in the countries around them. They refused to listen to my commands. They did not obey my laws.”