1 And thou son of man, take to thee a sharp sword, the barber's razor, thou shalt take them to thee and cause to pass over thy head and over thy beard: and take to the balances of weighing and divide them.
2 Thou shalt burn the third in fire in the midst of the city, according to the filling up of the days of the siege: and taking the third thou shalt strike it with the sword round about it; and the third thou shalt scatter to the wind; and I will draw out the sword after them.
3 And take from thence a few in number and bind them in thy wings.
4 And thou shalt yet take from them and cast them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in fire: from it shall come forth fire to all the house of Israel.
5 Thus said the Lord Jehovah: this is Jerusalem; I set her in the midst of the nations and lands round about her.
6 And she will change my judgments for injustice more than the nations, and my laws more than the lands which are round about her: for they rejected upon my judgments, and my laws they walked not in them.
7 For this, said the Lord Jehovah: Because of your tumult more than the nations which are round about you ye went not in my laws, and my judgments ye did not, and according to the judgments of the nations which are round about you ye did not
8 For this, thus said the Lord Jehovah: Behold me, me also, against thee, and I did judgments in the midst of thee before the eyes of the nations.
9 And I did in thee what I did not, and what I will no more do like, because of all thine abominations.
10 For this the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers; and I did judgments in thee, and I scattered all thy remnant to every wind.
11 For this, I live, says the Lord Jehovah, if not because thou didst defile my holy place with all thine abominable things, and with all thine abominations, and I will also diminish; and mine eye shall not spare, and also I will not pity.
12 A third of thee in death shall die, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of thee: and a third shall fall by the sword round about thee; and the third I will scatter to every wind, and I will draw out the sword after them.
13 And mine anger was completed, and I caused my wrath to rest upon them, and I was comforted: and they shall know that I Jehovah spake in my zeal in my completing my wrath upon them.
14 And I will give thee for a waste, and for a reproach among the nations which are round about thee, before the eyes of all passing by.
15 And it was a reproach and reviling, an instruction and an astonishment to the nations which are round about thee, in my doing judgments in thee in anger and in wrath, and in reproofs of wrath. I Jehovah spake.
16 In my sending the evil arrows of famine upon them which were for destruction, which I shall send to destroy you: and I will add famine upon you, and I broke to you the staff of bread.
17 And I sent upon you famine and the evil beast, and it bereaved thee; and death and blood shall pass through thee; and I will bring the sword upon thee. I Jehovah spake.