Ezekiel 4:2-17 ▼

2 And you shall place against it a siege, and build against it a siege wall, and heap up against it a mound, and set against it camps, and set against it battering rams all around.

3 And you, take for yourself a plate of iron and set it up as a wall of iron between you and between the city, and set firm your face against it; and it shall come to be under siege, and you shall lay siege against it. This is a sign for the house of Israel.

4 And you, lie down upon your left side, and set the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it—for the number of the days that you lay down on it, you shall bear their iniquity.

5 For I have given to you the years of their iniquity according to the number of the days—three hundred and ninety days. And you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

6 And you shall complete these, and you shall lie down on your right side this second time, and you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days—a day for a year. A day for a year I have given for you.

7 And toward the siege of Jerusalem you shall set firm your face, and with your arm uncovered, and you shall prophesy against it.

8 And behold, I will lay upon you cords so that you cannot turn yourself over from one side to another, until your completing the days of your siege.

9 And you, take for yourself wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and spelt, and give them into a single vessel, and make from them for yourself bread. The number of the days that you are laying down on your side—three hundred and ninety days—you shall eat it.

10 And your food that you eat is by weight twenty shekels for a day; from time until time you shall eat it.

11 And you shall drink water by measure, a sixth of a hin; from time until time you shall drink it.

12 And a cake of barley you shall eat it, and with the dung of the excrement of a human you shall bake it before their eyes.”

13 And YHWH said: “So the sons of Israel shall eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, to which I will drive them there.”

14 And I said, “Ah, Lord YHWH! Behold, never has my soul been defiled. And carcass and torn thing I have not eaten from my youth until now, and unclean flesh has not come into my mouth.”

15 And He said to me: “See, I am giving to you dung of a cow instead of dung of human, and you shall make your bread over it.”

16 And He said to me: “Son of man, behold, I am going to cut off the staff of bread in Jerusalem, and they will eat bread by weight and with anxiety, and they will drink water by measure and with dread,

17 so that they lack bread and water, and they be dismayed, a man and his brother, and waste away in their iniquity!