Eze 4 | NASB2020 | STEP | “Now you, son of man , get yourself a brick , place it before you, and inscribe a city on it

Ezekiel 4

Siege of Jerusalem Predicted

1 “Now you, son of man, ^aget yourself a brick, place it before you, and inscribe a city on it --Jerusalem. 2 Then ^blay siege against it, build a siege wall, pile up an assault ramp, set up 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 yourself and the city, and direct your face toward it so that ^cit is under siege, and besiege it. This will be a ^dsign to the house of Israel.

4 “Then you are to lie down on your left side and put the wrongdoing of the house of Israel on it; you shall ^ebear their wrongdoing 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 wrongdoing, 390 days; so ^fyou shall bear the wrongdoing of the house of Israel. 6 When you have completed these days, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side, and bear the wrongdoing of the house of Judah; I have assigned it to you for forty days, a day for ^geach year. 7 Then you shall direct your face toward the siege of Jerusalem with your arm bared, and ^hprophesy against it. 8 Now behold, I will ⁱput ropes ^{▼▼Lit on}around you so that you cannot turn from your one side to your other until you have completed the days of your siege.

Defiled Bread

9 “But as for you, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and ^kspelt, and 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, 390 days. 10 Your food which you eat shall be ^ltwenty shekels a day by weight; you shall eat it from time to time. 11 The water you drink shall be a ^{▼▼About 0.6 qt. or 0.6 liter}sixth 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 ⁿdung.” 13 Then the Lord said, “In this way the sons of Israel will eat their bread ^ounclean among the nations where I will scatter them.” 14 But I said, “ ^pOh, Lord ^{▼▼Heb YHWH, usually rendered Lord}God! Behold, ^{▼▼Lit my soul has}I have ^snever been defiled; for from my youth until now I have never eaten what ^tdied of itself or was torn by animals, nor has any ^uunclean meat ever entered my mouth!” 15 Then He said to me, “See, I will give you cow’s dung in place of human dung, so that you may prepare your bread over it.” 16 Moreover, He said to me, “Son of man, behold, I am going to ^vbreak the staff of bread in Jerusalem, and they will eat bread by ^wweight and with anxiety, and drink water by ^xmeasure and in horror, 17 because bread and water will be scarce; and they will tremble with one another and ^ywaste away in their guilt.