Yechezkel - Chapter 5

1. "Now you, son of man, take yourself a sharp sword, a cobbler's razor you shall take to yourself, and you shall pass it over your head and over your beard, and you shall take yourself a scale and divide them.

2. A third with fire shall you burn it in the midst of the city as the completion of the days of the siege; and you shall take a third and strike [it] with a sword all around it, and a third you shall scatter to the wind, and I shall unsheathe a sword after them.

3. And you shall take from there a few by number, and you shall bind them in your skirts.

4. And you shall take more of them, and you shall cast them into the midst of the fire and burn them with fire; therefrom a fire will emerge to all the house of Israel."

5. So said the Lord God: This is Jerusalem; in the midst of the nations I have placed it, and around it are lands.

6. But she exchanged My judgments for wickedness more than the nations, and My statutes, more than the lands that are around her, for they rejected My judgments, and as for My statutes, more than the lands that are around her, for they loathed My judgments, and as for My statutes-they did not follow them.

7. Therefore, so said the Lord God: Because you have prepared yourselves [to go astray] more than the nations that are around you; you did not follow My statutes and you did not perform My judgments; and like the customs of the nations that were around you, you did not do.

8. Therefore, so said the Lord God: Behold, I too am upon you, and I shall execute judgments in your midst before the eyes of the nations.

9. And I shall do in you what I have not done and what I shall never do again, because of your abominations.

10. Thus fathers will eat children in your midst, and children will eat their fathers, and I shall execute judgments upon you, and I shall scatter your remnant to every direction.

11. Therefore, as I live, says the Lord God, I swear! because you have contaminated My sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations; I, too, shall diminish you and My eye will not spare you, and I, too, shall have no pity.

12. A third of you will die through pestilence, and through hunger they will perish in your midst, and a third will fall around you by the sword, and a third I shall scatter to every direction, and I shall unsheathe a sword [in pursuit] after them.

13. And My wrath will be spent and I shall cause My fury against them to subside, and I shall be comforted, and they will know that I, the Lord, have spoken with My zeal, when I spend My fury upon them.

14. And I shall make you a ruin and a reproach among the nations around you; before the eyes of every passerby.

15. And she will be a reproach and a taunt, a chastisement, and an astonishment to the nations that are around you, when I execute in you judgments with wrath and with fury and with chastisements of fury-I, the Lord, have spoken.

16. When I send forth the evil arrows of the famine in them, which became a destroyer, which I shall send forth to destroy you; and I shall add a famine upon you and break your staff of bread.

17. And I shall send forth upon you famine and wild beasts, and they will bereave you; and pestilence and blood shed will pass through you, and I shall bring the sword upon you. I, the Lord, have spoken.