The Babylonian Exile

You are to fix your gaze on the siege of Yerushalayim, and, with your arm bared, prophesy against it.

I am tying you down with ropes, and you are not to turn from one side to the other until you have completed the days of your siege.

"Take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet and buckwheat; put them together in one bowl; and make bread from it. For as long as you lie on your side, 390 days, this is what you are to eat.

Each day the food you eat must weigh only three-quarters of a pound; you may eat it from time to time [during the day].

You are also to drink a limited amount of water, two-thirds of a quart; you may drink it from time to time [during the day].

[The bread] you eat is to be baked like barley cakes; you are to bake it before their eyes, using human dung as fuel."

ADONAI said, "This is how the people of Isra'el will eat their food - unclean - in the nations where I am driving them."

I objected: "No, Adonai ELOHIM! I have never defiled myself - from my youth until now I have never eaten anything that died by itself or was killed by wild animals; no such disgusting food has ever entered my mouth."

He answered, "All right, I will give you cow dung to use instead of human dung, and you can prepare your bread on it."

He then said to me, "Human being, I am going to cut off the supply of bread in Yerushalayim, so that they will anxiously weigh out bread to eat, and, horrified, ration water to drink.

Finally, due to lack of bread and water, they will stare at each other in shock, wasting away because of their guilt."

"Now you, human being, take a sharp sword; and use it like a barber's razor to shave your head and beard. Then weigh the hair on a balance-scale, and divide it up.

A third of it you are to burn in the city when the days of the siege are over. Take another third, and hit it with your sword all around the city. Scatter the last third to the wind, and I will pursue them with drawn sword.

Also take a few hairs and tie them up in the folds of your garment.

Again, of these take some; throw them in the fire, and burn them up; from there a fire will come out against the entire house of Isra'el.

"Here is what Adonai ELOHIM, says: 'This is Yerushalayim! I have placed her in the middle of the nations; countries can be found all around her.

But she has rebelled against my rulings and committed wickedness more than the nations, against my laws more than the countries around her; because they have rejected my rulings and not lived according to my laws.'

"Therefore here is what Adonai ELOHIM, says: 'Because you have outdone the nations around you by not living according to my laws or following my rulings or even following the rules of the nations around you,'

therefore here is what Adonai ELOHIM, says: 'I too am against you, yes, I; and I will execute judgments among you while all the nations look on.

Moreover, because of all your disgusting practices, I will do things to you that I have never done before; and I will never do such things again.

Parents among you will eat their children, and children will eat their parents! I will execute judgments among you and scatter to all the winds those of you who remain.

For, as I live,' says Adonai ELOHIM, 'because you defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things and disgusting practices, therefore I swear that I will cut you off - my eye will not spare, I will have no pity.

A third of you will die from plague or be consumed by famine inside [Yerushalayim]; a third will fall by the sword all around [Yerushalayim]; and a third I will scatter to all the winds and pursue with the sword.'

In this way my anger will spend itself, my fury against them will die down, and I will be satisfied. Then, when I have spent my fury on them, they will know that I, ADONAI, have spoken out of my zeal.

'I will make you a ruin and an object of reproach among the nations around you, in the sight of all passing by.