Ezekiel 4
Living Bible
4 1-2 “And now, son of dust, take a large brick and lay it before you and draw a map of the city of Jerusalem on it. Draw a picture of siege mounds being built against the city, put enemy camps around it and battering rams surrounding the walls. 3 And put an iron plate between you and the city, like a wall of iron. Demonstrate how an enemy army will capture Jerusalem!
“There is special meaning in each detail of what I have told you to do. For it is a warning to the people of Israel.
4-5 “Now lie on your left side for 390 days,[a] to show that Israel will be punished for 390 years by captivity and doom. Each day you lie there represents a year of punishment ahead for Israel. 6 Afterwards, turn over and lie on your right side for forty days, to signify the years of Judah’s punishment. Each day will represent one year.
7 “Meanwhile continue your demonstration of the siege of Jerusalem; lie there with your arm bared to signify great strength and power in the attack against her.[b] This will prophesy her doom. 8 And I will paralyze you[c] so that you can’t turn over from one side to the other until you have completed all the days of your siege.
9 “During the first 390 days eat bread made of flour mixed from wheat, barley, beans, lentils, and spelt. Mix the various kinds of flour together in a jar. 10 You are to ration this out to yourself at the rate of eight ounces at a time, one meal a day. 11 And use one quart of water a day; don’t use more than that. 12 Each day take flour from the barrel and prepare it as you would barley cakes. While all the people are watching, bake it over a fire, using dried human dung as fuel, and eat it. 13 For the Lord declares, Israel shall eat defiled bread in the Gentile lands to which I exile them!”
14 Then I said, “O Lord God, must I be defiled by using dung? For I have never been defiled before in all my life. From the time I was a child until now I have never eaten any animal that died of sickness or that I found injured or dead; and I have never eaten any of the kinds of animals our law forbids.”[d]
15 Then the Lord said, “All right, you may use cow dung instead of human dung.”
16 Then he told me, “Son of dust, bread will be tightly rationed in Jerusalem. It will be weighed out with great care and eaten fearfully. And the water will be portioned out in driblets, and the people will drink it with dismay. 17 I will cause the people to lack both bread and water; they will look at one another in frantic terror and waste away beneath their punishment.
Footnotes
- Ezekiel 4:4 390 days. Some versions read, “190 days.”
- Ezekiel 4:7 to signify great strength and power in the attack against her, implied.
- Ezekiel 4:8 paralyze you, literally, “lay bands upon you.”
- Ezekiel 4:14 the kinds of animals our law forbids, see Leviticus 11 for the dietary laws Ezekiel refers to here.
Ezekiel 4
King James Version
4 Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and pourtray upon it the city, even Jerusalem:
2 And lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mount against it; set the camp also against it, and set battering rams against it round about.
3 Moreover take thou unto thee an iron pan, and set 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.
4 Lie thou also upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it thou shalt bear their iniquity.
5 For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.
6 And when thou hast accomplished them, 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.
7 Therefore thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and thine arm shall be uncovered, and thou shalt prophesy against it.
8 And, behold, I will lay bands upon thee, and thou shalt not turn thee from one side to another, till thou hast ended the days of thy siege.
9 Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.
10 And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it.
11 Thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth part of an hin: from time to time shalt thou drink.
12 And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.
13 And the Lord said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them.
14 Then said I, Ah Lord God! behold, my soul hath not been polluted: for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself, or is torn in pieces; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.
15 Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.
16 Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care; and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment:
17 That they may want bread and water, and be astonied one with another, and consume away for their iniquity.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.