Ezekiel 4

CHAPTER 4

Ezekiel Bears Israel’s Iniquity

¹“Now as for you, son of man, ^aget yourself a brick, set it before you, and inscribe a city on it, Jerusalem.

²“Then ^aset a siege against it, build a siege wall against it, ¹raise up a ramp against it, set up camps against it, and place battering rams against it all around.

³“Now as for you, get yourself an iron plate and set it up as an iron wall between you and the city, and establish your face toward it so that ^ait is under siege, and besiege it. This is a ^bsign to the house of Israel.

⁴“Now as for you, lie down on your left side and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it; you shall ^abear their iniquity for the number of days that you lie on it.

⁵“Now I have set a number of days for you corresponding to the years of their iniquity, 390 days; thus ^ayou shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

⁶“And you shall complete these, and you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah; I have set it for you for forty days, a day for ^aeach year.

⁷“Then you shall establish your face toward the siege of Jerusalem with your arm bared and ^aprophesy against it.

⁸“Now behold, I will ^aset ropes upon you so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have completed the days of your siege.

Making Unclean Bread

⁹“Now as for you, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and ^aspelt; set them in one vessel and make them into bread for yourself; you shall eat it according to the number of the days that you lie on your side, 390 days.

¹⁰“And your food which you eat shall be ^1atwenty shekels a day by weight; you shall eat it from time to time.

¹¹“The water you drink shall be the sixth part of a ¹hin by measure; you shall drink it from time to time.

¹²“You shall eat it as a barley cake, having baked it in their sight over human ^adung.”

¹³Then Yahweh said, “Thus will the sons of Israel eat their bread ^aunclean among the nations where I will banish them.”

¹⁴But I said, “^aAh, Lord Yahweh! Behold, I have ^bnever been defiled; for from my youth until now I have never eaten what ^cdied of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has any ^doffensive meat ever entered my mouth.”

¹⁵Then He said to me, “See, I will set for you cow’s dung in place of human dung over which you will prepare your bread.”

¹⁶Moreover, He said to me, “Son of man, behold, I am going to ^abreak the staff of bread in Jerusalem, and they will eat bread by ^bweight and with anxiety, and they will drink water by ^cmeasure and in desolation

¹⁷because bread and water will be lacking; and they will be in desolation with one another and ^arot away in their iniquity.