Ezekiel 4

4 ¹ And you, son of man, take a brick and set it before you, and engrave on it a city — Jerusalem. ² Then lay siege against it: build a siege wall against it, raise a ramp against it, set up camps against it, and place battering rams against it all around. ³ And you, take an iron griddle and set it up as an iron wall between you and the city. Turn toward it; it shall be under siege, and you shall press the siege against it. This is a sign for the house of Israel.

⁴ Then lie down on your left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it. For the number of days that you lie on it, you shall bear their iniquity. ⁵ For I have assigned to you the years of their iniquity as a number of days, three hundred and ninety days; so you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

⁶ And when you have completed these, lie down a second time, on your right side, and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days; I have assigned you a day for each year. ⁷ Turn toward the siege of Jerusalem, with your arm bared, and prophesy against it. ⁸ And look, I will bind you with cords so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have completed the days of your siege.

Bread Eaten in Exile's Shadow

⁹ And you, take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt, and put them in a single jar, and make them into bread for yourself. For the number of days that you lie on your side, three hundred and ninety days, you shall eat it. ¹⁰ The food you eat shall be rationed by weight — about eight ounces a day; you shall eat it at set times. ¹¹ And you shall drink water by measure — about a pint a day; you shall drink it at set times. ¹² You shall eat it as barley cakes, baking it in plain sight over human dung.

¹³ And our Father said, "This is how the children of Israel will eat their bread, unclean, among the nations where I will drive them."

¹⁴ Then I said, "Ah, Sovereign Father! Look, I have never defiled myself. From my youth until now I have not eaten anything that died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has tainted meat ever entered my mouth."

¹⁵ And he said to me, "See, I grant you cow's dung instead of human dung, and you may prepare your bread over it."

¹⁶ Then he said to me, "Son of man, look, I am breaking the staff of bread in Jerusalem. They will eat bread by weight and with anxiety, and drink water by measure and in dismay, ¹⁷ because bread and water will be scarce. They will look at one another in horror and waste away in their iniquity.