Ezekiel 4

Modern

Literal

A Sign of Jerusalem’s Siege

¹“Now you, son of man, take a brick, place it before you, and draw on it the city of Jerusalem.

¹“ And You, son of man, take for yourself a clay tablet, and place it before your face; and engrave upon it a city, Jerusalem.

²Then lay siege against it: Construct a siege wall, build a ramp to it, set up camps against it, and place battering rams around it on all sides.

²And you shall place against it a siege, and build against it a siege wall, and heap up against it a mound, and set against it camps, and set against it battering rams all around.

³Then take an iron plate and set it up as an iron wall between yourself and the city. Turn your face toward it so that it is under siege, and besiege it. This will be a sign to the house of Israel.

³And you, take for yourself a plate of iron and set it up as a wall of iron between you and between the city, and set firm your face against it; and it shall come to be under siege, and you shall lay siege against it. This is a sign for the house of Israel.

⁴Then lie down on your left side and place the iniquity of the house of Israel upon yourself. You are to bear their iniquity for the number of days you lie on your side.

⁴And you, lie down upon your left side, and set the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it—for the number of the days that you lay down on it, you shall bear their iniquity.

⁵For I have assigned to you 390 days, according to the number of years of their iniquity. So you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

⁵For I have given to you the years of their iniquity according to the number of the days—three hundred and ninety days. And you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

⁶When you have completed these days, lie down again, but on your right side, and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah. I have assigned to you 40 days, a day for each year.

⁶And you shall complete these, and you shall lie down on your right side this second time, and you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days—a day for a year. A day for a year I have given for you.

⁷You must turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem with your arm bared, and prophesy against it.

⁷And toward the siege of Jerusalem you shall set firm your face, and with your arm uncovered, and you shall prophesy against it.

⁸Now behold, I will tie you up with ropes so you cannot turn from side to side until you have finished the days of your siege.

⁸And behold, I will lay upon you cords so that you cannot turn yourself over from one side to another, until your completing the days of your siege.

The Defiled Bread

⁹But take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt; put them in a single container and make them into bread for yourself. This is what you are to eat during the 390 days you lie on your side.

⁹And you, take for yourself wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and spelt, and give them into a single vessel, and make from them for yourself bread. The number of the days that you are laying down on your side—three hundred and ninety days—you shall eat it.

¹⁰You are to weigh out twenty shekels of food^a to eat each day, and you are to eat it at set times.

¹⁰And your food that you eat is by weight twenty shekels for a day; from time until time you shall eat it.

¹¹You are also to measure out a sixth of a hin of water^a to drink, and you are to drink it at set times.

¹¹And you shall drink water by measure, a sixth of a hin; from time until time you shall drink it.

¹²And you shall eat the food as you would a barley cake, after you bake it over dried human excrement in the sight of the people.”

¹²And a cake of barley you shall eat it, and with the dung of the excrement of a human you shall bake it before their eyes.”

¹³Then the LORD said, “This is how the Israelites will eat their defiled bread among the nations to which I will banish them.”

¹³And YHWH said: “So the sons of Israel shall eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, to which I will drive them there.”

¹⁴“Ah, Lord GOD,” I said, “I have never defiled myself.^a From my youth until now I have not eaten anything found dead or mauled by wild beasts. No unclean meat has ever entered my mouth.”

¹⁴And I said, “Ah, Lord YHWH! Behold, never has my soul been defiled. And carcass and torn thing I have not eaten from my youth until now, and unclean flesh has not come into my mouth.”

¹⁵“Look,” He replied, “I will let you use cow dung instead of human excrement, and you may bake your bread over that.”

¹⁵And He said to me: “See, I am giving to you dung of a cow instead of dung of human, and you shall make your bread over it.”

¹⁶Then He told me, “Son of man, I am going to cut off the supply^a of food in Jerusalem. They will anxiously eat bread rationed by weight, and in despair they will drink water by measure.

¹⁶And He said to me: “Son of man, behold, I am going to cut off 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 dread,

¹⁷So they will lack food and water; they will be appalled at the sight of one another wasting away in their iniquity.

¹⁷so that they lack bread and water, and they be dismayed, a man and his brother, and waste away in their iniquity!