CHAPTER 5 Sep. 9 
Ezekiel Shaves His Hair
You, son of man, take a sharp sword. You shall use it like a barber’s razor on yourself, and shall cause it to pass on your head and on your beard. Then take balances to weigh, and divide the hair. 2A third part you shall burn in the fire in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled; and you shall take a third part, and strike with the sword around it; and a third part you shall scatter to the wind - and I will draw out a sword after them. 3You shall take of it a few in number, and bind them in your skirts. 4Of these again you shall take, and throw them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire; from it shall a fire come forth into all the house of Israel. 5Thus says the Lord Yahweh: This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst of the peoples and countries which are around her. 6She has rebelled against My ordinances in doing wickedness more than the nations, and against My statutes more than the countries that are around her; for they have rejected My ordinances, and as for My statutes, they have not walked in them. 7Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Because you are rebellious more than the nations that are around you and have not walked in My statutes, neither have kept My ordinances, neither have done after the ordinances of the nations that are around you; 8therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I, even I, am against you; and I will execute judgments in the midst of you in the sight of the nations. 9I will do in you that which I have not done, and whereunto I will not do any more the like, because of all your abominations. 10Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of you, and the sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments on you; and the whole remnant of you will I scatter to all the winds. 11Therefore as I live, says the Lord Yahweh, surely, because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore will I also diminish you; neither shall My eye spare, and I also will have no pity. 12A third part of you shall die with the plague and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of you; and a third part shall fall by the sword around you; and a third part I will scatter to all the winds, and will draw out a sword after them. 13Thus shall My anger be accomplished, and I will cause My wrath toward them to rest, and I shall be comforted. They shall know that I, Yahweh, have spoken in My zeal, when I have accomplished My wrath on them. 14Moreover I will make you a desolation and a reproach among the peoples that are around you, in the sight of all that pass by. 15So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment, to the peoples that are around you, when I shall execute judgments on you in anger and in wrath and in furious rebukes.  I, Yahweh, have spoken it. 16They shall see, when I shall send on them the evil arrows of famine that are for destruction, which I will send to destroy you: when I will increase the famine on you, and will break your staff of bread. 17I will send on you famine and wild animals, and they shall bereave you; and pestilence and blood shall pass through you; and I will bring the sword on you: I, Yahweh, have spoken it.

Commentary

5:11 Will I also diminish you- The implication was that they had diminished God. It may be purposefully putting it in arresting terms, but all the same it’s ultimately true that if we don’t give God the glory we are intended to, then we are diminishing Him of what is potentially and rightfully His. This is the degree to which He has come down to our level in His interaction with men.
5:13 The very existence of “the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction” is in order to “make known the riches of his glory upon the vessels of mercy” (Rom. 9:22,23 Gk.). After the experience of Divine judgment, "you shall be comforted concerning the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem" (14:22); and yet these are exactly the words used here in 5:13 to describe how God will be 'comforted' after the judgments. We will come to share God's perspective through our experience of the judgment process. It will teach us to be like Him, to see things from His viewpoint. As a result of it, the struggles we have over "why…?" so many things happened will be resolved. The purpose of the judgment is not only to convict us of our sinfulness, but also to make us appreciate our own righteousness for what it was and is. The faithful almost argue back with the Lord when He points out to them their righteous acts; they were done within a spirit of service that simply didn't see them as He does.