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Ezekiel Bears Israel's Iniquity

¹ "Now as for you, son of man, ^(C1)get yourself a brick, set it before you, and inscribe a city on it, Jerusalem.² "Then ^(C1)set a siege against it, build a siege wall against it, ^(F1)raise up a ramp against it, set up camps against it, and place battering rams against it all around.³ "Now as for you, get yourself an iron plate and set it up as an iron wall between you and the city, and establish your face toward it so that ^(C1)it is under siege, and besiege it. This is a ^(C2)sign to the house of Israel.

⁴ "Now as for you, lie down on your left side and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it; you shall ^(C1)bear their iniquity for the number of days that you lie on it.⁵ "Now I have set a number of days for you corresponding to the years of their iniquity, 390 days; thus ^(C1)you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.⁶ "And you shall complete these, and you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah; I have set it for you for forty days, a day for ^(C1)each year.⁷ "Then you shall establish your face toward the siege of Jerusalem with your arm bared and ^(C1)prophesy against it.⁸ "Now behold, I will ^(C1)set ropes upon you so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have completed the days of your siege.

Making Unclean Bread

⁹ "Now as for you, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and ^(C1)spelt; set them in one vessel and make them into bread for yourself; you shall eat it according to the number of the days that you lie on your side, 390 days.¹⁰ "And your food which you eat shall be ^(F1)(C1)twenty shekels a day by weight; you shall eat it from time to time.¹¹ "The water you drink shall be the sixth part of a ^(F1)hin by measure; you shall drink it from time to time.¹² "You shall eat it as a barley cake, having baked it in their sight over human ^(C1)dung."¹³ Then Yahweh said, "Thus will the sons of Israel eat their bread ^(C1)unclean among the nations where I will banish them."¹⁴ But I said, "^(C1)Ah, Lord Yahweh! Behold, I have ^(C2)never been defiled; for from my youth until now I have never eaten what ^(C3)died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has any ^(C4)offensive meat ever entered my mouth."¹⁵ Then He said to me, "See, I will set for you cow's dung in place of human dung over which you will prepare your bread."¹⁶ Moreover, He said to me, "Son of man, behold, I am going to ^(C1)break the staff of bread in Jerusalem, and they will eat bread by ^(C2)weight and with anxiety, and they will drink water by ^(C3)measure and in desolation¹⁷ because bread and water will be lacking; and they will be in desolation with one another and ^(C1)rot away in their iniquity.