The Lantern

Ezekiel4

A Sign of Jerusalem’s Siege

You also, son of man, take you a tile, and lay it before you, and pourtray upon it the city, even Jerusalem:

And lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mount against it; set the camp also against it, and set battering rams against it round about.

Moreover take to you an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between you and the city: and set your face against it, and it shall be besieged, and you shall lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.

Lie you also upon your left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according to the number of the days that you shall lie upon it you shall bear their iniquity.

For I have laid upon you the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shall you bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

And when you have accomplished them, lie again on your right side, and you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed you each day for a year.

Therefore you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and your arm shall be uncovered, and you shall prophesy against it.

And indeed, I will lay bands upon you, and you shall not turn you from one side to another, till you have ended the days of your siege.

The Defiled Bread

Take also to you wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make you its bread, according to the number of the days that you shall lie upon your side, three hundred and ninety days shall you eat of it.

And your food which you shall eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shall you eat it.

You shall drink also water by measure, the sixth part of a hin: from time to time shall you drink.

And you shall eat it as barley cakes, and you shall bake it with dung that comes out of man, in their sight.

And the LORD said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, where I will drive them.

Then said I, Ah Lord GOD! look, my soul has not been polluted: for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dies of itself, or is torn in pieces; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.

Then he said to me, Look, I have given you cow’s dung for man’s dung, and you shall prepare your bread with it.

Moreover he said to me, Son of man, look, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care; and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment:

That they may want bread and water, and be astonished one with another, and consume away for their iniquity.