Ezekiel 4
1 “And as for you, son of man, take up for yourself a tablet, and you shall set it before you. And you shall draw upon it the city of Jerusalem.
[Yahweh also said to me, ] “You human, take a large clay tablet/brick and put it in front of you. Then on the [engrave/draw] on it lines that represent Jerusalem.
2 And you shall set up a blockade against it, and you shall build fortifications, and you shall put together a rampart, and you shall encamp opposite it, and you shall place battering rams around it.
[draw figures around it to represent enemy soldiers who will] surround the city. Make mounds around it and a dirt ramp up against the [around the city]. [figures around it that represent] (battering rams/heavy logs that will break though the walls).
3 And you shall take up for yourself an iron frying pan, and place it as an iron wall between you and the city. And harden your face against it, and it shall be under a siege, and you shall surround it. This is a sign to the house of Israel.
Then take an iron pan, and place it [to be] like an iron wall between you [the drawing of] the city. Then turn your face toward the drawing. It will symbolize [enemy troops will] surround the city to attack it. That will be a warning to the Israeli people [MTY].
4 And you shall sleep on your left side. And you shall place the iniquities of the house of Israel on it by the number of days that you will sleep on it. And you shall take upon yourself their iniquity.
Then lie on your left side, and stay like that for 390 days. That [symbolize that the Israeli people will be punished for] their sins; you must lie like that one day for each year during which they will be punished.
5 For I have given to you the years of their iniquity, by the number of the days: three hundred and ninety days. And you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.
6 And when you will have completed this, you shall sleep a second time, on your right side, and you shall assume the iniquity of the house of Judah for forty days: one day for each year; one day, I say, for each year, have I given to you.
After that, lie down again. This time, lie on your right side for 40 days. That [symbolize that the Israeli people will be punished more] for their sins, one day for each [during which they will be punished].
7 And you shall turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and your arm shall be extended. And you shall prophesy against it.
Turn your face [the drawing of] Jerusalem and bare your [like a soldier does who prepares to go into a battle] [MTY], and prophesy [what will happen to] the city.
8 Behold, I have surrounded you with chains. And you shall not turn yourself from one side to the other side, until you have completed the days of your siege.
[You will not be able to move; it will be as though] I have tied you with ropes in order that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have [symbolizing how many years the city] will be (besieged/surrounded by enemy soldiers).
9 And you shall take for yourself wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and vetch. And you shall set them in one vessel, and you shall make for yourself bread by the number of days that you will sleep upon your side: three hundred and ninety days shall you shall eat from it.
[Before you do that, ] take some wheat and barley, beans, lentils, spelt and millet, and put them in a [storage] jar, and use that to bake [for yourself]. That is what you will eat during the 390 days while you lie on your [left] side.
10 But your food, which you will eat, shall be in weight twenty staters a day. You shall eat it from time to time.
You will eat (8 ounces/a small loaf) of bread each day.
11 And you shall drink water by measure, one sixth part of a hin. You shall drink it from time to time.
[Also] measure out (1.5 pints/0.6 liter) of water to drink each day.
12 And you shall eat it like barley bread baked under ashes. And you shall cover it, in their sight, with the dung that goes out of a man.”
Eat that bread like you would eat a loaf of barley bread. But use your own dried dung for fuel to bake the bread while people are watching.
13 And the Lord said: “So shall the sons of Israel eat their bread, polluted among the Gentiles, to whom I will cast them out.”
That will symbolize that the Israeli people will be forced to eat food that is unacceptable to me when they are living in the nations to which I will force them to go.”
14 And I said: “Alas, alas, alas, O Lord God! Behold, my soul has not been polluted, and from my infancy even until now, I have not eaten anything that has died of itself, nor that which has been torn up by beasts, and no unclean flesh at all has entered into my mouth.”
Then I said, “No, Yahweh God![Do not force me to do that]! I have never caused myself to become unacceptable to you [by doing anything like that]. From the time when I was young, I have never eaten meat of any [animal] that was found dead or that had been killed by wild animals. And I have never eaten any meat that is unacceptable to you.”
15 And he said to me: “Behold, I have given to you cow manure in place of human dung, and you shall make your bread with it.”
Yahweh replied, “Okay, I will allow you to bake your bread using dried cow manure instead of human [for fuel].”
16 And he said to me: “Son of man, behold: I will crush 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 anguish.
Then he said to me, “You human, I will cause the supply of food to Jerusalem to be cut off. [Then] the people will eat the small amounts of food and drink the small amounts of [that the government permits them to have], and they will be [very] distressed and anxious as they do that,
17 So then, when bread and water fail, each one may fall against his brother. And they shall waste away in their iniquities.”
because water and food will be very scarce. They will see each other becoming extremely thin, and they will be appalled; [but this will happen] because they are being punished [for the sins that they have committed].”
