And thou, son of man, take thee a brick, and lay it before thee, and portray upon it a city, Jerusalem:
and lay siege against it, and build forts against it, and cast a mound against it, and set camps against it, and place battering-rams against it round about.
And take thou unto thee an iron plate, and put it for a wall of iron between thee and the city; and set thy face against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it: this shall be a sign to the house of Israel.
And thou, lie upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: the number of the days that thou liest upon it, thou shalt bear their iniquity.
And I have appointed thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days; and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.
And when thou hast accomplished them, thou shalt lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.
And thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and thine arm shall be uncovered, and thou shalt prophesy against it.
And behold, I lay bands upon thee, and thou shalt not turn thyself from one side to the other, till thou hast ended the days of thy siege.
And thou, take unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou liest upon thy side: three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.
And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it.
And thou shalt drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin: from time to time shalt thou drink.
And thou shalt eat it as barley-cake, and thou shalt bake it in their sight with dung that cometh out of man.
And Jehovah said, So shall the children of Israel eat their bread unclean among the nations whither I will drive them.
Then said I, Ah, Lord Jehovah! behold, my soul hath not been defiled, and from my youth up even until now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself, or of that which is torn; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.
And he said unto me, See, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.
And he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I break the staff of bread in Jerusalem; and they shall eat bread by weight, and with anxiety; and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment:
because bread and water shall fail them, and they shall be astonied one with another, and waste away in their iniquity.
Canonical academic citations for Ezekiel 4 (DBT) — copy in your preferred format.
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God instructs Ezekiel to enact Jerusalem's siege symbolically: Draw the city on a tile, build siege works around it, place an iron pan as a wall between him and it (representing God's separation), and lie on his left side 390 days for Israel's iniquity, then right side 40 days for Judah's, bearing their sins. For food during this period, Ezekiel is to bake barley cakes over human dung (later changed to cow dung at his protest, symbolizing defiled exile bread), with rationed water and food to represent famine scarcity in the besieged city.
Symbolic actions and visions offering judgment and future hope.
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