You shall burn one third with fire in the center of the city, when the days of the siege are completed. Then you shall take one third and strike it with the sword all around the city, and one third you shall scatter to the wind; and I will unsheathe a sword behind them.

One third of you will die of virulent disease or be consumed by famine among you; one third will fall by the sword around you; and one third I will scatter to all the winds, and I will unsheathe a sword behind them.

Then you will know [without any doubt] that I am the Lord, when their slain are among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, under every leafy tree and under every oak with thick branches, the places where they offered sweet incense and a soothing aroma to all their idols.

He stretched out the form of a hand and took me by a lock of hair on my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the inner courtyard, where the seat of the idol (image) of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy, was located.

Then He brought me to the entrance of the courtyard; and when I looked, behold, [there was] a hole in the wall.

He said to me, “Son of man, now dig into the wall.” And when I had dug into the wall, behold, there was an entrance.

So He brought me to the inner court of the Lord’s house. And behold, at the entrance to the temple of the Lord, between the porch (vestibule, portico) and the [bronze] altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east; and they were bowing down toward the east and worshiping the sun.

Then [in my vision] I heard Him cry out with a thunderous voice, saying, “Approach now, executioners of the city, each with his weapon of destruction in his hand.”

Moreover, the Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the gate of the Lord’s house, which faced eastward. And behold, at the entrance of the gate there were twenty-five men; and I saw among them Jaazaniah the son of Azzur and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, princes of the people.

I will scatter to every wind all who are around him, his helpers and all his troops; and I will draw out a sword after them.

so tell those who plaster it with whitewash, that it will fall! A flooding rain [of judgment] will come, and you, O [great] hailstones, will fall; and a violent wind will tear the wall apart.

Therefore, thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I am against your magic bands [and veils] by which you hunt [human] lives as birds and I will tear them from your arms; and I will let the lives you hunt go free, even those lives whom you hunt as birds.

I will also tear off your [pagan] veils and rescue My people from your hands, and they will no longer be in your grip to be hunted and trapped. Then you will know [without any doubt] that I am the Lord.

“Son of man, how is the wood of the grapevine (Israel) better than any wood of a branch which is among the trees of the forest?

saying, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “A great eagle (Nebuchadnezzar) with great wings, long pinions and a rich plumage of many colors came to Lebanon (Jerusalem) and took away the top of the cedar (Judah).

He also took some of the seed of the land (Zedekiah, of the royal family) and planted it in fertile soil and a fruitful field; he placed it beside abundant waters and set it like a willow tree.

All the trees of the field will know that I the Lord bring down the tall tree, exalt the low tree, dry up the green tree, and make the dry tree flourish. I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will fulfill it.”

if he does not charge interest or take a percentage of increase [on what he lends in compassion], if he keeps his hand from sin and executes true justice between man and man,

For when I had brought them into the land which I swore to give to them, they saw every high hill and every dark and leafy tree [as a place for idol worship], and there they offered their sacrifices and there they presented their offering that provoked My anger; there also they made their sweet-smelling aroma and there poured out their drink offerings.

and say to the forest of the Negev, ‘Hear the word of the Lord: thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I am about to kindle a fire in you, and it will devour every one of your green trees, as well as every one of your dry trees. The blazing flame will not be quenched and the whole surface from the south to the north will be burned by it.

and say to the land of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Behold, I am against you and will draw My sword out of its sheath and I will cut off from you both the righteous and the wicked.

‘It is sharpened to make a slaughter,
Polished to flash and glimmer like lightning!’

Shall we then rejoice [when such a disaster approaches]? But it rejects and views with contempt the scepter of My son [Judah].

You have become guilty by the blood which you have shed, and you are defiled by the idols which you have made. Thus you have caused your day [of judgment and punishment] to approach and have arrived at [the completion of] your years; therefore, I have made you an object of scorn to the [pagan] nations and a thing to be mocked by all countries.

‘You will drink it and drain it,
Then you will gnaw its fragments
And tear your breasts;

for I have spoken,’ says the Lord God.

“Son of man, because Tyre has said against Jerusalem, ‘Aha! The gateway of the people is broken; she is open to me. I will be filled, now that she is a desolate waste,’

therefore, thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I am against you, O Tyre, and I will cause many nations to come up against you, as the sea makes its waves crest.

They will destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers; and I will scrape her dust and debris from her and make her as bare as [the top of] a rock.

Also Tyre’s daughters (towns, villages) on the mainland will be killed by the sword, and they will know [without any doubt] that I am the Lord.’”

For thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I will bring upon Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses and chariots and with horsemen and a great army.

Because of the great number of his horses, their dust will cover you; your walls [O Tyre] will shake from the noise of the horsemen and the wagons and the chariots when he enters your gates as men enter a city that is breached.

I will make you [Tyre] a bare rock; you will be a dry place on which to spread nets. You will never be rebuilt, for I the Lord have spoken,” says the Lord God.

Thus says the Lord God to Tyre, “Shall not the coastlands shake at the sound of your fall when the wounded groan, when the slaughter occurs in your midst?

then I will bring you down with those who descend into the pit (the place of the dead), to the people of old, and I will make you [Tyre] live in the depths of the earth, like the ancient ruins, with those who go down to the pit, so that you will not be inhabited; but I will set glory and splendor in the land of the living.

“Now you, son of man, take up a dirge (funeral poem to be sung) for Tyre,

and say to Tyre, who lives at the entrance to the sea, merchant of the peoples to many coastlands, ‘Thus says the Lord God,

“O Tyre, you have said, ‘I am perfect in beauty.’

“The inhabitants of Sidon and [the island] of Arvad were your oarsmen;
Your skilled and wise men, O Tyre, were with you; they were your pilots.

The ships of Tarshish were the caravans for your merchandise,

And you [Tyre] were replenished and very glorious [heavily laden with an imposing fleet]
In the heart of the seas.

“In their wailing they will take up a dirge (funeral poem to be sung) for you
And sing a dirge for you:
‘Who is like Tyre,
Like her who is silent [destroyed] in the midst of the sea?

“Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, ‘Thus says the Lord God,

“Because your heart is lifted up
And you have said and thought, ‘I am a god,
I sit in the seat of the gods
In the heart of the seas’;
Yet you are [only] a man [weak, feeble, made of earth] and not God,
Though you [imagine yourself to be more than mortal and] think your mind is as [wise as] the mind of God—

Therefore, behold, I will bring strangers (Babylonians) upon you,
The most ruthless and violent of the nations.
And they will draw their swords
Against the beauty of your wisdom [O Tyre]
And defile your splendor.

“Son of man, take up a dirge (funeral poem to be sung) for the king of Tyre and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord God,

“You had the full measure of perfection and the finishing touch [of completeness],
Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.

“I will put hooks in your jaws
And [I will] make the fish of your rivers stick to your scales.
And I will pull you up from the midst of your rivers,
And all the fish of your rivers will stick to your scales.

“When they (Israel) grasped you (Egypt) by the hand,
You broke and tore apart their hands;
When they leaned on you,
You broke and strained their backs.”

“Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made his army work hard [at My command] against Tyre; every [soldier’s] head became bald and every shoulder was worn and peeled [from carrying loads of dirt and stones for siege works]. Yet he had no wages from Tyre [in proportion to the time and labor expended during the siege], either for himself or his army, for the work that he had done against it [for Me].”

I have given him the land of Egypt for the hard work which he did [against Tyre], because they did it for Me,” says the Lord God.

“He and his people with him,
The most violent and ruthless of the nations,
Will be brought in to destroy the land,
And they will draw their swords against Egypt
And fill the land with the slain.

‘The cedars in the garden of God could not hide or rival it;
The cypress trees did not have boughs like it,
And the plane trees did not have branches like it.
No tree in the garden of God was like it in its beauty.

They will fall among those who are slain by the sword. She (Egypt) is handed over to the sword; they have drawn her and all her hordes away [to judgment].

Also the tree of the field will yield its fruit and the earth will yield its produce; and My people will be secure on their land. Then they will know [with confidence] that I am the Lord, when I have broken the bars of their yoke and have rescued them from the hand of those who made them slaves.

I will multiply the fruit of the tree and the produce of the field, so that you will not suffer again the disgrace of famine among the nations.

He measured the gate from the roof of one guardroom to the roof of the other, a width of twenty-five cubits from one door to the opposite door.

There were shuttered windows looking toward the guardrooms, and toward their side pillars within the gate all around, and likewise for the porches. And windows were all around inside; and palm tree decorations were on each side pillar.

A chamber with its doorway was by the side pillars of the gates; there the burnt offering was to be washed.

Then he (the angel) brought me to the nave (outer sanctuary) and measured the side pillars; six cubits wide on each side was the width of the side pillar.

The width of the entrance was ten cubits and the sides of the entrance were five cubits on each side; and he measured its length, forty cubits, and its width, twenty cubits.

Then he went inside [the inner sanctuary] and measured each side pillar of the doorway, two cubits, and the doorway, six cubits [high], and the width of the doorway, seven cubits.

The doorways of the side chambers toward the free space were one doorway toward the north and another doorway toward the south; and the width of the free space was five cubits all around.

over the entrance, and to the inner room, and on the outside, and on all the wall all around inside and outside, by measurement.

It was carved with [figures of] cherubim and palm trees; so that a palm decoration was between cherub and cherub, and every cherub had two faces,

so that the face of a man was toward the palm decoration on the one side, and the face of a young lion toward the palm decoration on the other side. It was carved [this way] on the entire house (temple) all around.

The doorposts of the nave were square; as for the front of the sanctuary, the appearance of one doorpost was like that of the other.

Each of the doors had two leaves, two swinging (folding) leaves; two leaves for the one door and two leaves for the other.

Along the length, one hundred cubits, was the north door; and the width was fifty cubits.

Then he [my guide] brought me back to the door of the house [the temple of the Lord]; and behold, water was flowing from under the threshold of the house (temple) toward the east, for the front of the temple was facing east. And the water was flowing down from under, from the right side of the house, from south of the altar.

By the river on its bank, on one side and on the other, will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither and their fruit will not fail. They shall bear every month because their water flows from the sanctuary, and their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.”