Time to get back to our storyline of Ezekiel… what an interesting life and call… this time Ezekiel is EZ-ily going to look like He is on a mission, but if it were to happen these days, we may doubt this unusual behavior actually being from God – BUT IT IS – and since it IS written as so, it IS from God… GOD SENT PROPHETS IN THE DAY. here God makes it clear of His knowledge of His unusual level of punishment… Jerusalem has behaved worse than even the nations around her (defiled my sanctuary with all your vile images and detestable practices), and it is AWFUL in God’s sight. It’s pretty unthinkable what will happen, HARSH, that even God remarks at the cruelty to be demonstrated by broken people and inflicted upon them, so much that God says this level of punishment is necessary but won’t be repeated. The Lord says: I myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will inflict punishment on you in the sight of the nations.

Ezekiel was told to shave his hair, both beard and head, with a sword edge, sharp as a razor, and physically weigh portions of his hair and do special specific signs with each portion.  One third placed here and there… signature acts to represent  how the Lord ‘myself will shave you; I will not look on you with pity or spare you. A third of your people will die of the plague or perish by famine inside you; a third will fall by the sword outside your walls; and a third I will scatter to the winds and pursue with drawn sword‘.

I really can’t conclude much more than just taking all this in, understand the moment and realize how powerful God is and that He means what He means. When we live on the razor edge, God brings out His sword. The Sword of Truth is something that we have from God Himself being the Word of God. There’s nothing more sharp or piercing than the Word of God in our lives… Let us all be faithful and listen.

Amen 

There’s a really good spoken scripture on ‘BibleGateway’. I LISTENED to this chapter,  read by David Suchet, who is a famous actor with a wonderful accent, and I can understand his inflections of voice. It’s a great way to listen to the Bible.

https://www.biblegateway.com/audio/suchet/nivuk/Ezek.5

God’s Razor of Judgment
“Now, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a barber’s razor to shave your head and your beard. Then take a set of scales and divide up the hair. When the days of your siege come to an end, burn a third of the hair inside the city. Take a third and strike it with the sword all around the city. And scatter a third to the wind. For I will pursue them with drawn sword. But take a few hairs and tuck them away in the folds of your garment. Again, take a few of these and throw them into the fire and burn them up. A fire will spread from there to all Israel.

“This is what the Sovereign Lord says: This is Jerusalem, which I have set in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. Yet in her wickedness she has rebelled against my laws and decrees more than the nations and countries around her. She has rejected my laws and has not followed my decrees.

“Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: You have been more unruly than the nations around you and have not followed my decrees or kept my laws. You have not even conformed to the standards of the nations around you.

“Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will inflict punishment on you in the sight of the nations. Because of all your detestable idols, I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again. Therefore in your midst parents will eat their children, and children will eat their parents. I will inflict punishment on you and will scatter all your survivors to the winds. Therefore as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your vile images and detestable practices, I myself will shave you; I will not look on you with pity or spare you. A third of your people will die of the plague or perish by famine inside you; a third will fall by the sword outside your walls; and a third I will scatter to the winds and pursue with drawn sword.

“Then my anger will cease and my wrath against them will subside, and I will be avenged. And when I have spent my wrath on them, they will know that I the Lord have spoken in my zeal.

“I will make you a ruin and a reproach among the nations around you, in the sight of all who pass by. You will be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and an object of horror to the nations around you when I inflict punishment on you in anger and in wrath and with stinging rebuke. I the Lord have spoken. When I shoot at you with my deadly and destructive arrows of famine, I will shoot to destroy you. I will bring more and more famine upon you and cut off your supply of food. I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I the Lord have spoken.”