Ezekiel 4

Chapter 4

¹“And you, O son of man, take a brick and lay it before you, and portray upon it a city, even Jerusalem; ²and put siegeworks against it, and build a siege wall against it, and cast up a mound against it; set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it round about. ³And take an iron plate, and place it as an iron wall between you and the city; and set your face toward it, and let it be in a state of siege, and press the siege against it. This is a sign for the house of Israel.

⁴“Then lie upon your left side, and I will lay the punishment of the house of Israel upon you;ⁿ for the number of the days that you lie upon it, you shall bear their punishment. ⁵For I assign to you a number of days, three hundred and ninety days, equal to the number of the years of their punishment; so long shall you bear the punishment of the house of Israel. ⁶And when you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side, and bear the punishment of the house of Judah; forty days I assign you, a day for each year. ⁷And you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, with your arm bared; and you shall prophesy against the city. ⁸And, behold, I will put cords upon you, so that you cannot turn from one side to the other, till you have completed the days of your siege.

⁹“And you, take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt, and put them into a single vessel, and make bread of them. During the number of days that you lie upon your side, three hundred and ninety days, you shall eat it. ¹⁰And the food which you eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day; once a day you shall eat it. ¹¹And water you shall drink by measure, the sixth part of a hin; once a day you shall drink. ¹²And you shall eat it as a barley cake, baking it in their sight on human dung.” ¹³And the Lord said, “Thus shall the people of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations whither I will drive them.” ¹⁴Then I said, “Ah Lord GOD! behold, I have never defiled myself; from my youth up till now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has foul flesh come into my mouth.” ¹⁵Then he said to me, “See, I will let you have cow’s dung instead of human dung, on which you may prepare your bread.” ¹⁶Moreover he said to me, “Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem; they shall eat bread by weight and with fearfulness; and they shall drink water by measure and in dismay. ¹⁷I will do this that they may lack bread and water, and look at one another in dismay, and waste away under their punishment.