1 "Now you, Son of man, get yourself a brick and set it in front of you, and scratch on it a city, Jerusalem.
2 Lay siege to it: build siege works against it, heap up a ramp against it, set up camps against it, and position battering rams around it on every side.
3 Then get yourself an iron griddle and put it up as an iron wall between you and the city. Fix your face toward it; it will be under siege, and you will besiege it. This is to be a sign for the house of Israel.
4 "Next, lie down on your left side and put the iniquity of the house of Israel on it; for as many days as you lie on it, you will carry their iniquity.
5 I have counted out for you the years of their iniquity as a number of days, three hundred and ninety days, and you will carry the iniquity of the house of Israel.
6 When you have finished these, you are to lie down again, this time on your right side, and carry the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days; a day for a year, a day for a year I have assigned you.
7 Fix your face toward the siege of Jerusalem with your arm bare, and prophesy against it.
8 And see, I am putting ropes on you so that you cannot roll from one side to the other until you finish the days of your siege.
9 "Get yourself wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them into a single jar and make them into bread for yourself. You are to eat it for as many days as you lie on your side, three hundred and ninety days.
10 The food you eat will be weighed out, twenty shekels a day; you will eat it at set times.
11 Water too you will drink by measure, a sixth of a hin; you will drink it at set times.
12 Eat it like a barley cake, and bake it on human excrement before their eyes."
13 And the LORD said, "That is how the children of Israel will eat their bread, unclean, among the nations to which I will banish them."
14 But I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! My soul has never been made unclean. From my youth until now I have not eaten anything that died on its own or was mangled by animals, and no tainted meat has entered my mouth."
15 He answered me, "Very well, I am allowing you cow dung in place of human excrement; you may make your bread over it."
16 Then he said to me, "Son of man, I am about to break the staff of bread in Jerusalem. They will eat bread by weight and in anxiety, and drink water by measure and in horror,
17 so that they will run short of bread and water and stare aghast at one another and rot away in their iniquity.