| 1 | And you, O mortal, take a brick and set it before you. On it portray a city, Jerusalem; |
| 2 | and put siegeworks against it, and build a siege wall against it, and cast up a ramp against it; set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it all around. |
| 3 | Then take an iron plate and place it as an iron wall between you and the city; 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 on your left side, and place the punishment of the house of Israel upon it; you shall bear their punishment for the number of the days that you lie there. |
| 5 | For I assign to you a number of days, three hundred ninety days, equal to the number of the years of their punishment; and so you shall bear the punishment of the house of Israel. |
| 6 | 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, one day for each year. |
| 7 | You shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and with your arm bared you shall prophesy against it. |
| 8 | See, I am putting cords on you so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have completed the days of your siege. |
| 9 | And you, take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them into one vessel, and make bread for yourself. During the number of days that you lie on your side, three hundred ninety days, you shall eat it. |
| 10 | The food that you eat shall be twenty shekels a day by weight; at fixed times you shall eat it. |
| 11 | And you shall drink water by measure, one-sixth of a hin; at fixed times you shall drink. |
| 12 | You shall eat it as a barley-cake, baking it in their sight on human dung. |
| 13 | The LORD said, “Thus shall the people of Israel eat their bread, unclean, among the nations to which I will drive them.” |
| 14 | Then I said, “Ah Lord GOD! I have never defiled myself; from my youth up until now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by animals, nor has carrion flesh come into my mouth.” |
| 15 | Then he said to me, “See, I will let you have cow’s dung instead of human dung, on which you may prepare your bread.” |
| 16 | Then he said to me, Mortal, I am going to 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. |
| 17 | Lacking bread and water, they will look at one another in dismay, and waste away under their punishment. |
