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.
2 Place 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.
3 Keep just a bit of the hair and tie it up in your robe.
4 Then 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 an illustration of what will happen to Jerusalem. I placed her at the center of the nations,