4:1 And you, Son of man, take a brick¹ and set it before you. Inscribe on it a city, Jerusalem. 4:2 Set a siege against it,² and build siege works against it, cast a ramp against it; set camps against it, and place battering rams against it all around. 4:3 And you, take an iron plate and set it as an iron wall between you and the city. Set your face toward it and it will be under siege and you will lay a siege against it. This is a sign for the house of Israel. 4:4 And you, lie on your left side, and place the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it. The number of days which you lie on it, you will bear their iniquity. 4:5 I have set the years of their iniquity according to the number of days,³ three hundred ninety days;⁴ thus you will bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. 4:6 When you have completed these you will lie on your right side, a second time and you will bear the iniquity of the house of Judah; forty days,⁵ one day for each year, I have assigned you. 4:7 You will set your face with arm bared⁶ toward the siege of Jerusalem, and prophecy against it. 4:8 Now I have set ropes upon you and you will not turn from one side to the other until completing the days of your siege.⁷ 4:9 And you, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet and spelt⁸ and set them in one vessel, and make them food for yourself. You will eat it⁹ the number of days that you lie on your side, three hundred ninety days. 4:10 The food that you eat will be twenty shekels¹⁰ a day by weight; at fixed times you shall eat it. 4:11 And you will drink water by measure, one-sixth of a hin;¹¹ at fixed times you will drink. 4:12 And you will eat barley cake, you will bake it before them over human dung.¹² 4:13 And the LORD said, “Thus the sons of Israel will eat their unclean food among the nations¹³ where I have driven them.” 4:14 And I said, “Alas Lord GOD, I have never been defiled, I have never eaten a carcass or a mutilated animal, from my youth up desecrated flesh¹⁴ has not entered my mouth.” 4:15 Then he said to me, “See I have set before you cow’s dung instead of human dung, and you will prepare your food over it.”¹⁵ 4:16 And he said to me, Son of man I am about to break the staff of bread¹⁶ in Jerusalem. They will eat the bread by weight and with anxiety, and water by measure and in horror they will drink, 4:17 that they will lack food and water; and each one will be appalled, and they will pine away in their iniquity.¹⁷