1AND you, Son of man, take a sharp sword, like a barber's razor, and cause it to pass upon your head and upon your beard; then take scales to weigh it, and divide the hair into three parts. 2A third part you shall burn with fire in the midst of the city, when the days of your siege are fulfilled; and you shall take a third part, and cut it with the sword, going round about the city; and a third part you shall scatter to the wind; and I will draw out a sword, after Israel. 3And you shall take from thence a few of the hairs and bind them in the skirt of your cloak. 4Then take some of them again and cast them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire; for from them shall come forth a fire into all the house of Israel.

5Thus says the LORD God: This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst of the nations, with all the cities round about her. 6For she has exchanged my judgments for wickedness from the Gentiles, and my commandments for statutes from the cities that are round about her; for they have rejected my statutes and they have not walked in my commandments. 7Therefore thus says the LORD God: Because you have regarded the statutes which you took from nations round about you, and have not walked in my statutes, neither have kept my judgments, but you have done according to the judgments of the nations that are round about you; 8Therefore thus says the LORD God: Behold I, even I, am against you, and will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations. 9And I will do in you that which I have never done before, and the like of which I will never do again, because of all your abominations. 10Therefore the parents shall eat their children in the midst of you, and the children shall eat their parents; and I will execute judgments in you, and the whole remnant of you I will scatter to all the winds. 11Therefore, as I live, says the LORD God, Because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will scatter you; neither shall my eye spare, neither will I have any pity.

12A third part of you shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of you; and a third part shall fall by the sword round about you; and a third part I will scatter to all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them.

13Thus shall my anger be poured out, and I will cause my fury to rest upon them, and I will be comforted; and they shall know that I the LORD have spoken it in my zeal, when I have poured out my anger upon them. 14Moreover I will make you waste, and a reproach among the nations that are round about you, in the sight of all that pass by. 15So you shall be a reproach and a taunt, an example of punishment and a horror to the nations that are round about you, when I have executed judgments in you in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes. I the LORD have spoken it. 16When I shall send upon you my grievous arrows of famine, which shall be for your destruction and which I will send to destroy you: I will increase the famine upon you, and will break the staff of your grain. 17And I will send upon you famine and fierce beasts, and they shall devour you; and pestilence and blood shall pass through you; and I will bring the sword upon you. I the LORD have spoken it.