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Siege of Jerusalem Predicted

¹ "Now you son of man, ^(C1)get yourself a brick, place it before you and inscribe a city on it, Jerusalem.² "Then ^(C1)lay siege against it, build a siege wall, ^(F1)raise up a ramp, pitch camps and place battering rams against it all around.³ "Then get yourself an iron plate and set it up as an iron wall between you and the city, and set 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 "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 "For I have assigned you a number of days corresponding to the years of their iniquity, three hundred and ninety days; thus ^(C1)you shall bear the iniquity 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 iniquity of the house of Judah; I have assigned it to you for forty days, a day for ^(C1)each year.⁷ "Then you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem with your arm bared and ^(C1)prophesy against it.⁸ "Now behold, I will ^(C1)put ropes on you so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have completed the days of your siege.

Defiled Bread

⁹ "But as for you, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet and ^(C1)spelt, put 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, three hundred and ninety days.¹⁰ "Your food which you eat shall be ^(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 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 the LORD 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 ^(F1)GOD! 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)unclean meat ever entered my mouth."¹⁵ Then He said to me, "See, I will give 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 drink water by ^(C3)measure and in horror,¹⁷ because bread and water will be scarce; and they will be appalled with one another and ^(C1)waste away in their iniquity.