Chapter 4
1 " You also , son of man , take a tile , and lay it before yourself , and portray on it a city , even Jerusalem .
2 Lay siege against it , build forts against it , and cast up a mound against it . Also set camps against it and plant battering rams against it all around .
3 Take for yourself an iron pan and set it for a wall of iron between you and the city . Then set your face toward it . It will be besieged , and you shall lay siege against it . This shall be a sign to the house of Israel .
4 "Moreover lie on your left side , and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it . According to the number of the days that you shall lie on it , you shall bear their iniquity .
5 For I have appointed the years of their iniquity to be to you a number of days , even three hundred ninety days . So you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel .
6 " Again , when you have accomplished these , you shall lie on your right side , and shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah . I have appointed forty days , each day for a year , to you .
7 You shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem , with your arm uncovered ; and you shall prophesy against it .
8 Behold , I put ropes on you , and you shall not turn yourself from one side to the other , until you have accomplished the days of your siege .
9 " Take for yourself also wheat , barley , beans , lentils , millet , and spelt , and put them in one vessel . Make bread of it . According to the number of the days that you will lie on your side , even three hundred ninety days , you shall eat of it .
10 Your food which you shall eat shall be by weight , twenty shekels a day . From time to time you shall eat it .
11 You shall drink water by measure , the sixth part of a hin . From time to time you shall drink .
12 You shall eat it as barley cakes , and you shall bake it in their sight with dung that comes out of man."
13 Yahweh said, " Even thus will the children of Israel eat their bread unclean , among the nations where I will drive them ."
14 Then I said , "Ah Lord Yahweh ! Behold , my soul has not been polluted ; for from my youth up even until now I have not eaten of that which dies of itself , or is torn of animals. No abominable meat has come into my mouth !"
15 Then he said to me , " Behold , I have given you cow’s dung for man ’s dung , and you shall prepare your bread on it ."
16 Moreover he said to me , " Son of man , behold , I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem . They will eat bread by weight , and with fearfulness. They will drink water by measure , and in dismay;
17 that they may lack bread and water , be dismayed one with another, and pine away in their iniquity .