Ezekiel 4
1 “And you, son of man, take a brick, set it in front of you, and draw a city on it—Jerusalem.
2 Lay siege to it: build a siege wall against it, raise a ramp against it, set up camps against it, and place battering rams around it.
3 And you, take an iron griddle and set it up as an iron wall between you and the city. Turn your face toward it; it will be under siege, and you will besiege it. This is a sign for the house of Israel.
4 And you, lie on your left side and place the guilt of the house of Israel on it. For the number of days you lie on it, you will bear their guilt.
5 I have assigned you the years of their guilt as a number of days: three hundred and ninety days. In this way you will bear the guilt of the house of Israel.
6 When you have finished those days, lie down a second time on your right side and bear the guilt of the house of Judah: forty days. I have assigned you one day for each year, one day for each year.
7 Turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, bare your arm, and prophesy against it.
8 Look, I am putting ropes on you, and you will not turn from one side to the other until you have completed the days of your siege.
9 And you, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt. Put them all in one container and make your bread from them. For the number of days you lie on your side—three hundred and ninety days—you will eat it.
10 The food you eat will be weighed out: twenty shekels a day. From time to time you will eat it.
11 You will drink water by measure: one-sixth of a hin. From time to time you will drink.
12 You will eat a barley cake, and bake it over human excrement, where they can see.”
13 And the LORD said, “This is how the Israelites will eat their bread, unclean, among the nations where I will drive them.”
14 Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Look, I have never defiled myself. From childhood until now I have never eaten an animal that died naturally or was torn apart, and no unclean meat has ever entered my mouth.”
15 He said to me, “Look, I am giving you cattle dung in place of human excrement, and you will prepare your bread over it.”
16 He said to me, “Son of man, look, I am about to break the food supply in Jerusalem. They will eat bread by weight and in anxiety, and drink water by measure and in dismay.
17 This will happen so that they lack bread and water, and are horrified by one another and waste away because of their guilt.”
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