'City' in the Bible

"And you, son of man, take a brick and set it in front of you. Inscribe a city on it -- Jerusalem.

Then for your part take an iron frying pan and set it up as an iron wall between you and the city. Set your face toward it. It is to be under siege; you are to besiege it. This is a sign for the house of Israel.

Burn a third of it in the fire inside the city when the days of your siege are completed. Take a third and slash it with a sword all around the city. Scatter a third to the wind, and I will unleash a sword behind them.

The sword is outside; pestilence and famine are inside the house. Whoever is in the open field will die by the sword, and famine and pestilence will consume everyone in the city.

(Make the chain, because the land is full of murder and the city is full of violence.)

Then he shouted in my ears, "Approach, you who are to visit destruction on the city, each with his destructive weapon in his hand!"

The Lord said to him, "Go through the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of the people who moan and groan over all the abominations practiced in it."

While I listened, he said to the others, "Go through the city after him and strike people down; do no let your eye pity nor spare anyone!

He said to them, "Defile the temple and fill the courtyards with corpses. Go!" So they went out and struck people down throughout the city.

He said to me, "The sin of the house of Israel and Judah is extremely great; the land is full of murder, and the city is full of corruption, for they say, 'The Lord has abandoned the land, and the Lord does not see!'

The Lord said to the man dressed in linen, "Go between the wheelwork underneath the cherubim. Fill your hands with burning coals from among the cherubim and scatter them over the city." He went as I watched.

The Lord said to me, "Son of man, these are the men who plot evil and give wicked advice in this city.

They say, 'The time is not near to build houses; the city is a cooking pot and we are the meat in it.'

You have killed many people in this city; you have filled its streets with corpses.'

Therefore, this is what the sovereign Lord says: 'The corpses you have dumped in the midst of the city are the meat, and this city is the cooking pot, but I will take you out of it.

But I will take you out of the city. And I will hand you over to foreigners. I will execute judgments on you.

This city will not be a cooking pot for you, and you will not be meat within it; I will judge you at the border of Israel.

The glory of the Lord rose up from within the city and stopped over the mountain east of it.

He plucked off its topmost shoot; he brought it to a land of merchants and planted it in a city of traders.

"'As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, surely in the city of the king who crowned him, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he broke -- in the middle of Babylon he will die!

"You, son of man, mark out two routes for the king of Babylon's sword to take; both of them will originate in a single land. Make a signpost and put it at the beginning of the road leading to the city.

"As for you, son of man, are you willing to pronounce judgment, are you willing to pronounce judgment on the bloody city? Then confront her with all her abominable deeds!

Then say, 'This is what the sovereign Lord says: O city, who spills blood within herself (which brings on her doom), and who makes herself idols (which results in impurity),

"'Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Woe to the city of bloodshed, the pot whose rot is in it, whose rot has not been removed from it! Empty it piece by piece. No lot has fallen on it.

"'Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Woe to the city of bloodshed! I will also make the pile high.

They will sing this lament over you: "'How you have perished -- you have vanished from the seas, O renowned city, once mighty in the sea, she and her inhabitants, who spread their terror!

I will send a plague into the city and bloodshed into its streets; the slain will fall within it, by the sword that attacks it from every side. Then they will know that I am the Lord.

In the twelfth year of our exile, in the tenth month, on the fifth of the month, a refugee came to me from Jerusalem saying, "The city has been defeated!"

(A city by the name of Hamonah will also be there.) They will cleanse the land.'

In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was struck down, on this very day, the hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me there.

By means of divine visions he brought me to the land of Israel and placed me on a very high mountain, and on it was a structure like a city, to the south.

It was like the vision I saw when he came to destroy the city, and the vision I saw by the Kebar River. I threw myself face down.

"'Alongside the portion set apart as the holy allotment, you will allot for the city an area one and two-thirds miles wide and eight and a quarter miles long; it will be for the whole house of Israel.

"'For the prince there will be land on both sides of the holy allotment and the allotted city, alongside the holy allotment and the allotted city, on the west side and on the east side; it will be comparable in length to one of the portions, from the west border to the east border

"The remainder, one and two-thirds miles in width and eight and a quarter miles in length, will be for common use by the city, for houses and for open space. The city will be in the middle of it;

The city will have open spaces: On the north there will be 437? feet, on the south 437? feet, on the east 437? feet, and on the west 437? feet.

The remainder of the length alongside the holy allotment will be three and one-third miles to the east and three and one-third miles toward the west, and it will be beside the holy allotment. Its produce will be for food for the workers of the city.

The workers of the city from all the tribes of Israel will cultivate it.

The whole allotment will be eight and a quarter miles square, you must set apart the holy allotment with the possession of the city.

"The rest, on both sides of the holy allotment and the property of the city, will belong to the prince. Extending from the eight and a quarter miles of the holy allotment to the east border, and westward from the eight and a quarter miles to the west border, alongside the portions, it will belong to the prince. The holy allotment and the sanctuary of the temple will be in the middle of it.

The property of the Levites and of the city will be in the middle of that which belongs to the prince. The portion between the border of Judah and the border of Benjamin will be for the prince.

"These are the exits of the city: On the north side, one and one-half miles by measure,

the gates of the city will be named for the tribes of Israel; there will be three gates to the north: one gate for Reuben, one gate for Judah, and one gate for Levi.

The circumference of the city will be six miles. The name of the city from that day forward will be: 'The Lord Is There.'"