Ezekiel 4:1-17

YAHWEH said, “Son of man, take a clay tile and lay it in front of you. Sketch the city of Jerusalem on the tile. Build a wall around it and, to represent a siege, pile up a dirt ramp against the wall. Then prepare to attack it as if it were a real city. Surround it with armed soldiers and station battering rams on all sides. Then take an iron frying pan and place it on edge as though it were an iron wall between you and the city. Then direct your gaze toward the city, for it is under siege and you are besieging it. This is to be a sign, an object lesson for the people of Israel. “Then lie down on your left side and stay like that for 390 days. The people of Israel sinned for 390 years, and you will lie one day for each year they sinned. You will symbolically bear their guilt for as many days as you lie on that side and bear their punishment. After that, lie down a second time but turn over on your right side and stay like that for forty days, one day for each year of the guilt of the people of Judah. Then direct your gaze on the model of the siege of Jerusalem, shake your fist at the city and prophesy against her. Behold, I am going to tie you up, and you will not be able to turn from one side to the other until the period of your seclusion is over. “Now take some wheat, barley, beans, lentils, and other grains; store them all together and make bread for yourself. This will be your food for the 390 days you are lying on your side. Of these grains, make a small loaf of bread at a set time each day. And you are to ration the water you drink to two cups at a set time each day. Eat the food as you would a barley cake. While everyone can see you, build a fire with dried human excrement, then bake the bread on the coals.” And YAHWEH said, “In this same way the Israelites will have to eat defiled food among the nations where I will disperse them.” Then I replied, “Oh no! Lord YAHWEH, I have never defiled myself, from childhood until now. I have never eaten meat from any animal that died a natural death or was killed by wild animals. Nothing unclean has ever entered my mouth.” “Very well,” he said, “I will let you use dried cow manure instead of human excrement as fuel to bake your bread.” Then he added, “Son of man, I am going to cut off Jerusalem’s food supply. In their horrible distress, the food they eat and the water they drink will be rationed. They will watch as it all runs out and look at each other in total despair. And they will slowly die of starvation because of their guilt.”