5 “Thus says the Lord God: This is Jerusalem. I have set her in the centre of the nations, with countries all around her. 6 And she has rebelled against my rules by doing wickedness more than the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries all around her; for they have rejected my rules and have not walked in my statutes. 7 Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you are more turbulent than the nations that are all around you, and have not walked in my statutes or obeyed my rules, and have not even acted according to the rules of the nations that are all around you, 8 therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, even I, am against you. And I will execute judgements in your midst in the sight of the nations. 9 And because of all your abominations I will do with you what I have never yet done, and the like of which I will never do again. 10 Therefore fathers shall eat their sons in your midst, and sons shall eat their fathers. And I will execute judgements on you, and any of you who survive I will scatter to all the winds. 11 Therefore, as I live, declares the Lord God, surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will withdraw. My eye will not spare, and I will have no pity. 12 A third part of you shall die of pestilence and be consumed with famine in your midst; a third part shall fall by the sword all round you; and a third part I will scatter to all the winds and will unsheathe the sword after them.
13 “Thus shall my anger spend itself, and I will vent my fury upon them and satisfy myself. And they shall know that I am the Lord—that I have spoken in my jealousy—when I spend my fury upon them. 14 Moreover, I will make you a desolation and an object of reproach among the nations all around you and in the sight of all who pass by. 15 You shall be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and a horror, to the nations all around you, when I execute judgements on you in anger and fury, and with furious rebukes—I am the Lord; I have spoken— 16 when I send against you the deadly arrows of famine, arrows for destruction, which I will send to destroy you, and when I bring more and more famine upon you and break your supply of bread. 17 I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will rob you of your children. Pestilence and blood shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword upon you. I am the Lord; I have spoken.”
The remainder of the chapter serves to explain the four 'acted parables' in the previous verses and gives a justification of God's stern dealings with His people. What a shattering word this must have been to the exiles in Babylon, who were, even then, beginning to be optimistic - through the influence of the false prophets who had gone out with them - that their exile would be short-lived! Ezekiel's message must have been like a thunderbolt to them, as if he had said 'The worst is yet to be, far worse than you anticipate, because God has appointed dark judgment upon His people. Do not build up false hopes, listen to the word of the Lord'. In the last few verses (13ff) there is something very significant: the judgment upon Jerusalem was to be an instruction to the surrounding nations, that is to say, even though in their sin the people of God have refused to fulfil their calling to be a light to the Gentiles, rebelling against their true destiny, they were still to be used by Him as an instrument of His purposes through the very judgment that their rebellion had brought upon them. This is a tremendously significant thought, enshrining a perennial principle that has persisted down the centuries to the present day. We should bear in mind the extraordinary history of persecution and oppression that has been the lot of the Jewish people down the ages in their revolt and rebellion against God and their refusal of His Christ; they refused to be a light to lighten the Gentiles, but in spite of themselves and even in their judgment they have remained as a signpost in the world to the workings of God in history. The testimony of Scripture is that what happens to the Jews is always of world importance in the purposes of God.