The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel 5

 The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel 5

1 “Son of man, take a sharp knife, like a barber’s razor, and pass it over your head and your beard; then take scales and divide the hair.

2 You shall burn a third of it in the fire in the midst of the city when the days of the siege are fulfilled; then you shall take another third and strike it with a sword all around it; and another third you shall scatter to the wind, for I will draw out a sword after them.

3 You shall also take a small number of them and bind them in the edges of your garment.

4 And you shall take some of these and throw them into the midst of the fire and burn them in the fire; and a fire shall go out from there against all the house of Israel.

5 Thus says the Lord God: This is Jerusalem; I have set it in the midst of the nations and lands that are round about it;

6 But she has turned my judgments into wickedness more than the nations, and my statutes more than the lands that are around her; for they have rejected my judgments, and have not walked in my precepts.

7 Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have multiplied your wickedness more than the nations that are around you, you have not walked in my statutes, nor have you done my judgments, nor have you acted according to the judgments of the nations that are around you;

8 Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, even I, am against you; and I will execute judgments in the midst of you in the sight of the nations.

9 And I will do in you what I have never done, and what I will never do, because of all your abominations.

10 Therefore fathers shall eat their children in the midst of you, and children shall eat their fathers; And I will execute judgments upon you, and scatter the remnant to all the winds.

11 Therefore, as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, I also will diminish you, and my eye will not spare you, nor will I have pity.

12 A third of you will die of plague and be consumed by famine in your midst; a third will fall by the sword around you; and a third I will scatter to all the winds, and I will draw out the sword after them.

13 Thus my anger will be spent, and I will satisfy my wrath on them, and I will be comforted; and they will know that I, the Lord, have spoken in my zeal, when I spend my wrath on them.

14 And I will make you a desolation, and a reproach among the nations that are round about you, in the sight of all that pass by.

15 And reproach and infamy shall be an instruction and a horror to the nations that are round about you, when I execute judgments upon you in anger, and in fury, and in furious punishments: I, the Lord, have spoken.

16 When I send the terrible arrows of famine against them, for their destruction, which I will send to destroy you, then I will increase the famine upon you, and make the provision of bread unstable.

17 And I will send upon you famine and more beasts that will bereave you of your children; and pestilence and bloodshed shall pass through you; and I will bring the sword upon you. I, the Lord, have spoken.