| NET Bible | New Living Translation |
| 1"As for you, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a barber's razor. Shave off some of the hair from your head and your beard. Then take scales and divide up the hair you cut off. | 1“Son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a razor to shave your head and beard. Use a scale to weigh the hair into three equal parts. |
| 2Burn 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. | 2Place a third of it at the center of your map of Jerusalem. After acting out the siege, burn it there. Scatter another third across your map and chop it with a sword. Scatter the last third to the wind, for I will scatter my people with the sword. |
| 3But take a few strands of hair from those and tie them in the ends of your garment. | 3Keep just a bit of the hair and tie it up in your robe. |
| 4Again, take more of them and throw them into the fire, and burn them up. From there a fire will spread to all the house of Israel. | 4Then take some of these hairs out and throw them into the fire, burning them up. A fire will then spread from this remnant and destroy all of Israel. |
| 5"This is what the sovereign LORD says: This is Jerusalem; I placed her in the center of the nations with countries all around her. | 5“This is what the Sovereign LORD says: This is an illustration of what will happen to Jerusalem. I placed her at the center of the nations, |
| 6Then she defied my regulations and my statutes, becoming more wicked than the nations and the countries around her. Indeed, they have rejected my regulations, and they do not follow my statutes. | 6but she has rebelled against my regulations and decrees and has been even more wicked than the surrounding nations. She has refused to obey the regulations and decrees I gave her to follow. |
| 7"Therefore this is what the sovereign LORD says: Because you are more arrogant than the nations around you, you have not followed my statutes and have not carried out my regulations. You have not even carried out the regulations of the nations around you! | 7“Therefore, this is what the Sovereign LORD says: You people have behaved worse than your neighbors and have refused to obey my decrees and regulations. You have not even lived up to the standards of the nations around you. |
| 8"Therefore this is what the sovereign LORD says: I--even I--am against you, and I will execute judgment among you while the nations watch. | 8Therefore, I myself, the Sovereign LORD, am now your enemy. I will punish you publicly while all the nations watch. |
| 9I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again because of all your abominable practices. | 9Because of your detestable idols, I will punish you like I have never punished anyone before or ever will again. |
| 10Therefore fathers will eat their sons within you, Jerusalem, and sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments on you, and I will scatter any survivors to the winds. | 10Parents will eat their own children, and children will eat their parents. I will punish you and scatter to the winds the few who survive. |
| 11"Therefore, as surely as I live, says the sovereign LORD, because you defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable idols and with all your abominable practices, I will withdraw; my eye will not pity you, nor will I spare you. | 11“As surely as I live, says the Sovereign LORD, I will cut you off completely. I will show you no pity at all because you have defiled my Temple with your vile images and detestable sins. |
| 12A third of your people will die of plague or be overcome by the famine within you. A third of your people will fall by the sword surrounding you, and a third I will scatter to the winds. I will unleash a sword behind them. | 12A third of your people will die in the city from disease and famine. A third of them will be slaughtered by the enemy outside the city walls. And I will scatter a third to the winds, chasing them with my sword. |
| 13Then my anger will be fully vented; I will exhaust my rage on them, and I will be appeased. Then they will know that I, the LORD, have spoken in my jealousy when I have fully vented my rage against them. | 13Then at last my anger will be spent, and I will be satisfied. And when my fury against them has subsided, all Israel will know that I, the LORD, have spoken to them in my jealous anger. |
| 14"I will make you desolate and an object of scorn among the nations around you, in the sight of everyone who passes by. | 14“So I will turn you into a ruin, a mockery in the eyes of the surrounding nations and to all who pass by. |
| 15You will be an object of scorn and taunting, a prime example of destruction among the nations around you when I execute judgments against you in anger and raging fury. I, the LORD, have spoken! | 15You will become an object of mockery and taunting and horror. You will be a warning to all the nations around you. They will see what happens when the LORD punishes a nation in anger and rebukes it, says the LORD. |
| 16I will shoot against them deadly, destructive arrows of famine, which I will shoot to destroy you. I will prolong a famine on you and will remove the bread supply. | 16“I will shower you with the deadly arrows of famine to destroy you. The famine will become more and more severe until every crumb of food is gone. |
| 17I will send famine and wild beasts against you and they will take your children from you. Plague and bloodshed will overwhelm you, and I will bring a sword against you. I, the LORD, have spoken!" | 17And along with the famine, wild animals will attack you and rob you of your children. Disease and war will stalk your land, and I will bring the sword of the enemy against you. I, the LORD, have spoken!” |
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