| New Living Translation | Berean Study Bible |
| 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. | 1“As for you, son of man, take a sharp sword, use it as a barber’s razor, and shave your head and beard. Then take a set of scales and divide the hair. |
| 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. | 2When the days of the siege have ended, you are to burn up a third of the hair inside the city; you are also to take a third and slash it with the sword all around the city; and you are to scatter a third to the wind. For I will unleash a sword behind them. |
| 3Keep just a bit of the hair and tie it up in your robe. | 3But you are to take a few strands of hair and secure them in the folds of your garment. |
| 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. | 4Again, take a few of these, throw them into the fire, and burn them. From there a fire will spread to the whole house of Israel. |
| 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, | 5This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘This is Jerusalem, which I have set in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. |
| 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. | 6But she has rebelled against My ordinances more wickedly than the nations, and against My statutes worse than the countries around her. For her people have rejected My ordinances and have not walked in My statutes.’ |
| 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. | 7Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘You have been more insubordinate than the nations around you; you have not walked in My statutes or kept My ordinances, nor have you even conformed to the ordinances of the nations around you.’ |
| 8Therefore, I myself, the Sovereign LORD, am now your enemy. I will punish you publicly while all the nations watch. | 8Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Behold, I Myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will execute judgments among you in the sight of the nations. |
| 9Because of your detestable idols, I will punish you like I have never punished anyone before or ever will again. | 9Because of all your abominations, I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again. |
| 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. | 10As a result, fathers among you will eat their sons, and sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments against you and scatter all your remnant to every wind.’ |
| 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. | 11Therefore as surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable idols and abominations, I Myself will withdraw My favor; I will not look upon you with pity, nor will I spare you. |
| 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. | 12A third of your people will die by plague or be consumed by famine within you, a third will fall by the sword outside your walls, and a third I will scatter to every wind and unleash a sword behind 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. | 13And when My anger is spent and I have vented My wrath against them, I will be appeased. And when I have spent My wrath on them, they will know that I, the LORD, in My zeal have spoken. |
| 14“So I will turn you into a ruin, a mockery in the eyes of the surrounding nations and to all who pass by. | 14I will make you a ruin and a disgrace among the nations around you, in the sight of all who pass by. |
| 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. | 15So you will be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and a horror to the nations around you, when I execute judgments against you in anger, wrath, and raging fury. I, the LORD, have spoken. |
| 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. | 16When I shower you with the deadly arrows of famine and destruction that I will send to destroy you, I will intensify the famine against you and cut off your supply of food. |
| 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!” | 17I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring a sword against you. I, the LORD, have spoken.” |
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