1. “Now you, son of man, take a sharp sword, use it as you would a barber’s razor, and shave your head and beard. Then take a set of scales and divide the hair.
2. You are to burn up a third of it in the city when the days of the siege have ended; you are 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 draw a sword to chase after them.
3. But you are to take a few strands from the hair and secure them in the folds of your robe.
4. Take some more of them, throw them into the fire, and burn them in it. A fire will spread from it to the whole house of Israel.
5. “This is what the Lord God says: I have set this Jerusalem in the center of the nations, with countries all around her.