< Ezekiel 4 >
1 “And you, son of man, take a brick for yourself, and you have put it before you, and have carved a city on it—Jerusalem,
2 and have placed a siege against it, and built a fortification against it, and poured out a mound against it, and placed camps against it, indeed, set battering-rams against it all around.
3 And you, take an iron pan for yourself, and you have made it a wall of iron between you and the city; and you have prepared your face against it, and it has been in a siege, indeed, you have laid siege against it. It [is] a sign to the house of Israel.
4 And you, lie on your left side, and you have placed the iniquity of the house of Israel on it; the number of the days that you lie on it, you bear their iniquity.
5 And I have laid the years of their iniquity on you, the number of days, three hundred and ninety days; and you have borne the iniquity of the house of Israel.
6 And you have completed these, and have lain on your right side, a second time, and have borne the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days—a day for a year—a day for a year I have appointed to you.
7 And to the siege of Jerusalem you prepare your face, and your arm [is] uncovered, and you have prophesied concerning it.
8 And behold, I have put thick bands on you, and you do not turn from side to side until your completing the days of your siege.
9 And you, take for yourself wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and spelt, and you have put them in one vessel, and made them for bread for yourself; the number of the days that you are lying on your side—three hundred and ninety days—you eat it.
10 And your food that you eat [is] by weight, twenty shekels daily; from time to time you eat it.
11 And you drink water by measure, a sixth part of the hin; from time to time you drink [it].
12 And you eat it [as] barley-cake, and it with dung—the filth of man—you bake before their eyes.”
13 And YHWH says, “Thus the sons of Israel eat their defiled bread among the nations to where I drive them.”
14 And I say, “Aah! Lord YHWH, behold, my soul is not defiled, and carcass, and torn thing, I have not eaten from my youth, even until now; nor has abominable flesh come into my mouth.”
15 And He says to me, “See, I have given to you bullock’s dung instead of man’s dung, and you have made your bread by it.”
16 And He says to me, “Son of man, behold, I am breaking the staff of bread in Jerusalem, and they have eaten bread by weight and with fear; and water by measure and with astonishment, they drink;
17 so that they lack bread and water, and have been astonished with one another, and been consumed in their iniquity.”