‘Wherefore thus says the Lord Yahweh, “Woe to the blood-filled city, to the cauldron whose rust is in it, and whose rust has not gone out of it. Bring it out piece by piece. No lot has fallen on it.” '
But the city was like a copper cauldron (Ezekiel 24:11) which was rusty. And its rust had not been removed from it. It was not fit for its purpose, and the rusty scum would form, the scum which represented the blood-guiltiness of Jerusalem with its violence and its child sacrifices (Ezekiel 22:1-16). Thus the rust affected pieces of flesh must be brought out piece by piece as the city was slowly taken. ‘No lot has fallen on it'. The removal is to be indiscriminate and not by selection. Fate cannot be manoeuvred, they can only helplessly submit to it.