The sword is outside; pestilence and famine are inside the house. Whoever is in the open field will die by the sword, and famine and pestilence will consume everyone in the city.

The Lord said to him, “Go through the city of Jerusalem ¹  and put a mark ²  on the foreheads of the people who moan and groan over all the abominations practiced in it.”

The Lord ¹  said to the man dressed in linen, “Go between the wheelwork ²  underneath the cherubim. ³  Fill your hands with burning coals from among the cherubim and scatter them over the city.” He went as I watched.

“‘As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, surely in the city ¹  of the king who crowned him, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he broke – in the middle of Babylon he will die!

“As for you, son of man, are you willing to pronounce judgment, ¹  are you willing to pronounce judgment on the bloody city? ²  Then confront her with all her abominable deeds!

Then say, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: O city, who spills blood within herself (which brings on her doom), ¹  and who makes herself idols (which results in impurity),

“‘Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Woe to the city of bloodshed, the pot whose rot ¹  is in it, whose rot has not been removed ²  from it! Empty it piece by piece. No lot has fallen on it. ³ 

They will sing this lament over you: ¹  “‘How you have perished – you have vanished ²  from the seas, O renowned city, once mighty in the sea, she and her inhabitants, who spread their terror! ³ 

I will send a plague into the city ¹  and bloodshed into its streets; the slain will fall within it, by the sword that attacks it ²  from every side. Then they will know that I am the Lord.

In the twelfth year of our exile, in the tenth month, on the fifth of the month, ¹  a refugee came to me from Jerusalem ²  saying, “The city has been defeated!” ³ 

By means of divine visions ¹  he brought me to the land of Israel and placed me on a very high mountain, ²  and on it was a structure like a city, to the south.

“‘Alongside the portion set apart as the holy allotment, you will allot for the city an area one and two-thirds miles ¹  wide and eight and a quarter miles ²  long; it will be for the whole house of Israel.

The city will have open spaces: On the north there will be 437½ feet, ¹  on the south 437½ feet, on the east 437½ feet, and on the west 437½ feet.

The property of the Levites and of the city will be in the middle of that which belongs to the prince. The portion between the border of Judah and the border of Benjamin will be for the prince.

the gates of the city ¹  will be named for the tribes of Israel; there will be three gates to the north: one gate for Reuben, one gate for Judah, and one gate for Levi.

O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, pay attention, and act! Don’t delay, for your own sake, O my God! For your city and your people are called by your name.” ¹ 

Then the king of the north will advance and will build siege mounds and capture a well-fortified city. ¹  The forces of the south will not prevail, not even his finest contingents. ²  They will have no strength to prevail.

So I will set fire to Rabbah’s ¹  city wall; ²  fire ³  will consume her fortresses. War cries will be heard on the day of battle; ⁴  a strong gale will blow on the day of the windstorm. ⁵ 

“I withheld rain from you three months before the harvest. ¹  I gave rain to one city, but not to another. One field ²  would get rain, but the field that received no rain dried up.

The sovereign Lord says this: “The city that marches out with a thousand soldiers ¹  will have only a hundred left; the town ²  that marches out with a hundred soldiers ³  will have only ten left for the family of Israel.” ⁴