5¹ And you, son of man, take a sharp sword, using it like a haircutter's blade, and making it go over your head and the hair of your chin: and take scales for separating the hair by weight. ² You are to have a third part burned with fire inside the town, when the days of the attack are ended; and a third part you are to take and give blows with the sword round about it; and give a third part for the wind to take away, and let loose a sword after them. ³ And take from them a small number of hairs, folding them in your skirts. ⁴ And again take some of these and put them in the fire, burning them up in the fire; and say to all the children of Israel,

⁵ This is what the Lord has said: This is Jerusalem: I have put her among the nations, and countries are round her on every side; ⁶ And she has gone against my orders by doing evil more than the nations, and against my rules more than the countries round her: for they have given up my orders, and as for my rules, they have not gone in the way of them. ⁷ For this cause the Lord has said: Because you have been more uncontrolled than the nations round about you, and have not been guided by my rules or kept my orders, but have kept the orders of the nations round about you; ⁸ For this cause the Lord has said: See, I, even I, am against you; and I will be judging among you before the eyes of the nations. ⁹ And I will do in you what I have not done and will not do again, because of all your disgusting ways. ¹⁰ For this cause fathers will take their sons for food among you, and sons will make a meal of their fathers; and I will be judge among you, and all the rest of you I will send away to every wind. ¹¹ For this cause, by my life, says the Lord, because you have made my holy place unclean with all your hated things and all your disgusting ways, you will become disgusting to me; my eye will have no mercy and I will have no pity. ¹² A third of you will come to death from disease, wasting away among you through need of food; a third will be put to the sword round about you; and a third I will send away to every wind, letting loose a sword after them. ¹³ So my wrath will be complete and my passion will come to rest on them; and they will be certain that I the Lord have given the word of decision, when my wrath against them is complete. ¹⁴ And I will make you a waste and a name of shame among the nations round about you, in the eyes of everyone who goes by. ¹⁵ And you will be a name of shame and a cause of bitter words, an example and a wonder to the nations round about you, when I give effect to my judging among you in wrath and in passion and in burning protests: I the Lord have said it: ¹⁶ When I send on you the evil arrows of disease, causing destruction, which I will send to put an end to you; and, further, I will take away your necessary food. ¹⁷ And I will send on you need of food and evil beasts, and they will be a cause of loss to you; and disease and violent death will go through you; and I will send the sword on you: I the Lord have said it.

The Prophecy against the Mountains of Israel

6¹ And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ² Son of man, let your face be turned to the mountains of Israel, and be a prophet to them, and say, ³ You mountains of Israel, give ear to the words of the Lord: this is what the Lord has said to the mountains and the hills, to the waterways and the valleys: See, I, even I, am sending on you a sword for the destruction of your high places. ⁴ And your altars will be made waste, and your sun-images will be broken: and I will have your dead men placed before your images. ⁵ And I will put the dead bodies of the children of Israel in front of their images, sending your bones in all directions about your altars. ⁶ In all your living-places the towns will become broken walls, and the high places made waste; so that your altars may be broken down and made waste, and your images broken and ended, and so that your sun-images may be cut down and your works rubbed out. ⁷ And the dead will be falling down among you, and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

⁸ But still, I will keep a small band safe from the sword among the nations, when you are sent wandering among the countries. ⁹ And those of you who are kept safe will have me in mind among the nations where they have been taken away as prisoners, how I sent punishment on their hearts which were untrue to me, and on their eyes which were turned to their false gods: and they will be full of hate for themselves because of the evil things which they have done in all their disgusting ways. ¹⁰ And they will be certain that I am the Lord: not for nothing did I say that I would do this evil to them.

¹¹ This is what the Lord has said: Give blows with your hand, stamping with your foot, and say, O sorrow! because of all the evil and disgusting ways of the children of Israel: for death will overtake them by the sword and through need of food and by disease. ¹² He who is far away will come to his death by disease; he who is near will be put to the sword; he who is shut up will come to his death through need of food; and I will give full effect to my passion against them. ¹³ And you will be certain that I am the Lord, when their dead men are stretched among their images round about their altars on every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, and under every branching tree, and under every thick oak-tree, the places where they made sweet smells to all their images. ¹⁴ And my hand will be stretched out against them, making the land waste and unpeopled, from the waste land to Riblah, through all their living-places: and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

The End Is Come

7¹ And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ² And you, son of man, say, This is what the Lord has said to the land of Israel: An end has come, the end has come on the four quarters of the land. ³ Now the end has come on you, and I will send my wrath on you, judging you for your ways, I will send punishment on you for all your disgusting acts. ⁴ My eye will not have mercy on you, and I will have no pity: but I will send the punishment of your ways on you, and your disgusting works will be among you: and you will be certain that I am the Lord. ⁵ This is what the Lord has said: An evil, even one evil; see, it is coming. ⁶ An end has come, the end has come; see, it is coming on you. ⁷ The crowning time has come on you, O people of the land: the time has come, the day is near; the day will not be slow in coming, it will not keep back. ⁸ Now, in a little time, I will let loose my passion on you, and give full effect to my wrath against you, judging you for your ways, and sending punishment on you for all your disgusting works. ⁹ My eye will not have mercy, and I will have no pity: I will send on you the punishment of your ways, and your disgusting works will be among you; and you will see that I am the Lord who gives punishment. ¹⁰ See, the day; see, it is coming: the crowning time has gone out; the twisted way is flowering, pride has put out buds. ¹¹ Violent behaviour has been lifted up into a rod of evil; it will not be slow in coming, it will not keep back. ¹² The time has come, the day is near: let not him who gives a price for goods be glad, or him who gets the price have sorrow: ¹³ For the trader will not go back to the things for which he had his price, even while he is still living: ¹⁴ And he who has given a price for goods will not get them, for my wrath is on all of them. ¹⁵ Outside is the sword, and inside disease and need of food: he who is in the open country will be put to the sword; he who is in the town will come to his end through need of food and disease.

¹⁶ And those of them who get away safely will go and be in the secret places like the doves of the valleys, all of them will come to death, every one in his sin. ¹⁷ All hands will be feeble and all knees without strength, like water. ¹⁸ And they will put haircloth round them, and deep fear will be covering them; and shame will be on all faces, and the hair gone from all their heads. ¹⁹ They will put out their silver into the streets, and their gold will be as an unclean thing; their silver and their gold will not be able to keep them safe in the day of the wrath of the Lord; they will not get their desire or have food for their need: because it has been the cause of their falling into sin. ²⁰ As for their beautiful ornament, they had put it on high, and had made the images of their disgusting and hated things in it: for this cause I have made it an unclean thing to them. ²¹ And I will give it into the hands of men from strange lands who will take it by force, and to the evil-doers of the earth to have for themselves; and they will make it unholy. ²² And my face will be turned away from them, and they will make my secret place unholy: violent men will go into it and make it unholy.

²³ Make the chain: for the land is full of crimes of blood, and the town is full of violent acts. ²⁴ For this reason I will send the worst of the nations and they will take their houses for themselves: I will make the pride of their strength come to an end; and their holy places will be made unclean. ²⁵ Shaking fear is coming; and they will be looking for peace, and there will be no peace. ²⁶ Destruction will come on destruction, and one story after another; and the vision of the prophet will be shamed, and knowledge of the law will come to an end among the priests, and wisdom among the old. ²⁷ The king will give himself up to sorrow, and the ruler will be clothed with wonder, and the hands of the people of the land will be troubled: I will give them punishment for their ways, judging them as it is right for them to be judged; and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

The Chastening of the Lord

12¹ For this reason, as we are circled by so great a cloud of witnesses, putting off every weight, and the sin into which we come so readily, let us keep on running in the way which is marked out for us, ² Having our eyes fixed on Jesus, the guide and end of our faith, who went through the pains of the cross, not caring for the shame, because of the joy which was before him, and who has now taken his place at the right hand of God's seat of power. ³ Give thought to him who has undergone so much of the hate of sinners against himself, so that you may not be tired and feeble of purpose.

⁴ Till now you have not given your blood in your fight against sin: ⁵ And you have not kept in mind the word which says to you as to sons, My son, do not make little of the Lord's punishment, and do not give up hope when you are judged by him; ⁶ For the Lord sends punishment on his loved ones; everyone whom he takes as his son has experience of his rod. ⁷ It is for your training that you undergo these things; God is acting to you as a father does to his sons; for what son does not have punishment from his father? ⁸ But if you have not that punishment of which we all have our part, then you are not true sons, but children of shame. ⁹ And again, if the fathers of our flesh gave us punishment and had our respect, how much more will we be under the authority of the Father of spirits, and have life? ¹⁰ For they truly gave us punishment for a short time, as it seemed good to them; but he does it for our profit, so that we may become holy as he is. ¹¹ At the time all punishment seems to be pain and not joy: but after, those who have been trained by it get from it the peace-giving fruit of righteousness.

Warning against Rejecting God's Grace

¹² For this cause let the hands which are hanging down be lifted up, and let the feeble knees be made strong, ¹³ And make straight roads for your feet, so that the feeble may not be turned out of the way, but may be made strong. ¹⁴ Let your desire be for peace with all men, and to be made holy, without which no man may see the Lord; ¹⁵ Looking with care to see that no man among you in his behaviour comes short of the grace of God; for fear that some bitter root may come up to be a trouble to you, and that some of you may be made unclean by it; ¹⁶ And that there may not be any evil liver, or any man without respect for God, like Esau, who let his birthright go for a plate of food. ¹⁷ For you have knowledge that even long after, when he was desiring the blessing for his heritage, he was turned away, though he made his request frequently and with weeping; because the past might not be changed.

¹⁸ You have not come to a mountain which may be touched, and is burning with fire, and to a black cloud, and a dark smoke, and a violent wind, ¹⁹ And to the sound of a horn, and the voice of words, the hearers of which made request that not a word more might be said to them: ²⁰ For the order which said, If the mountain is touched even by a beast, the beast is to be stoned, seemed hard to them; ²¹ And the vision was so overpowering that even Moses said, I am shaking and full of fear. ²² But you have come to the mountain of Zion, to the place of the living God, to the Jerusalem which is in heaven, and to an army of angels which may not be numbered, ²³ To the great meeting and church of the first of those who are named in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of good men made complete, ²⁴ And to Jesus by whom the new agreement has been made between God and man, and to the sign of the blood which says better things than Abel's blood. ²⁵ See that you give ear to his voice which comes to you. For if those whose ears were shut to the voice which came to them on earth did not go free from punishment, what chance have we of going free if we give no attention to him whose voice comes from heaven? ²⁶ Whose voice was the cause of the shaking of the earth; but now he has made an oath, saying, There will be still one more shaking, not only of the earth, but of heaven. ²⁷ And the words, Still one more, make it clear that there will be a taking away of those things which are shaking, as of things which are made, so that there may be only those things of which no shaking is possible. ²⁸ If then, we have a kingdom which will never be moved, let us have grace, so that we may give God such worship as is pleasing to him with fear and respect: ²⁹ For our God is an all-burning fire.