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Ezekiel 5

5 “As for you, mortal human, you must acquire a sharp sword and use it like a barber’s razor to shave your head and your beard. Then, you must acquire a scale and weigh the hair that you removed. 2 After your siege of the drawing of the city of Jerusalem is completed, you must take a third of the hair that you have weighed and burn it in a fire in the middle of your drawing of the city of Jerusalem that you have besieged. Then, you must take another third of the hair and slash at it with your sword so that it falls all around the city. Then throw the final third of the hair so that it disperses in the wind. I myself will cut up the hair that flies away in the wind, as if I unleashed a sword against it. 3 But you must first reserve a few of the hairs from the final third and tie them to your sleeves. 4 Then, you must take a few of those hairs that you have tied to your sleeves and throw them into the fire, so that they burn up. After all, a fire in Jerusalem will soon spread and extend to the entirety of the Israelite people.

5 This is what I, the Sovereign Yahweh, say: This drawing on the clay brick represents the city of Jerusalem. I have positioned this city in the middle of all the nations, surrounded by other empires. 6 However, by doing wicked acts, the citizens of Jerusalem have rejected the norms by which I have commanded and decreed that they should live. They have done this to a greater degree than any of the people who live in nations and empires outside of Israel! After all, in their lifestyles, they have refused the norms by which I have commanded and decreed that they should live.

7 For this reason, here is what I, the Sovereign Yahweh, have to say: You citizens of Jerusalem have been more conceited and disobedient than any of the people of the nations around you. Because of this, you have not lived by the norms that I have commanded and decreed for you. You have not even lived by the norms of the other nations around you!

8 For this reason, here is what I, the Sovereign Yahweh, have to say! Pay attention! Even I, your own God, have become an enemy to you, citizens of Jerusalem. So, I will carry out my norms among you by punishing you in the full view of the nations and empires around you. 9 Yes, I am about to do something to you that is unlike anything I have ever done before or ever will do again. It will all happen because of your detestable and disgusting actions. 10 As a result, parents among you will resort to consuming their own children, and children will resort to consuming their own parents. So I will execute the verdict of my just judgments against you. I will forcibly remove anyone who survives from the city and disperse them in every direction.

11 Therefore, I, the Sovereign Yahweh, make this declaration! This I swear by myself: You have defiled the holy place in which I live among you with all your disgusting idols and with the other abominable practices that you do. Because of this, I will withdraw my presence from you. I will neither regard you with pity nor will I save you from my imminent judgments against you. 12 The actions you took with the hair that you weighed out symbolize what will happen to the people of Jerusalem. Like the third of the hair that you burned, one-third of the citizens of Jerusalem will die inside the city because of the fatal infectious diseases they will experience or because of a lack of food. Like the third that you slashed with your sword, one-third of the people will die outside the city because of the fatal wounds inflicted on them by their enemies’ swords. Finally, like the third that you threw into the wind, I will forcibly disperse the remaining third of the people of Jerusalem in every direction, but I will cause your enemies to pursue them so that they kill them with their swords.

13 Then I will have fully expressed my anger. I will calm myself from my rage against them, and, since I exacted my just judgments against them, I will console myself. When my wrath against them has subsided, the people who live in Jerusalem will recognize that I, Yahweh, have said everything that I have declared to them because I will never stop loving them as my own people. 14 So, I will destroy Jerusalem until it is nothing but a ruin. I will turn it into such a place that the people of other nations that are around you will mock it as they walk past. 15 Yes, my destruction of the city of Jerusalem will make it known as something people mock and tease. But when I execute the verdict of my just judgments against the citizens of Jerusalem, my furious discipline of my people will also serve as a terrifying warning to the other nations that surround you. This will assuredly happen because I, Yahweh, have said it! 16 Yes, the citizens of Jerusalem will suffer fatal infectious diseases, as if I were shooting deadly arrows against them like a besieging army. I intend these diseases to utterly annihilate the people. When this happens, I will also intensify the severity of the conditions that have resulted in a lethal lack of food. In so doing, I will entirely remove Jerusalem’s supply of bread on which they rely like a walking stick. 17 Yes, I will cause the citizens of Jerusalem to suffer a lack of food. But I will also release wild and deadly animals against them. They will attack them and murder all of their children. I will make these people suffer fatal infectious diseases and the bloodshed of war, and I will enable their enemies to kill them with their swords. This will all assuredly happen because I, Yahweh, have spoken!”

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