4 But you, humanity’s child, get yourself a brick and place it in front of you and carve Yerushalem City on it. 2 Then lay siege against it, and build forts against it. Build an assault ramp up against it and make camps around it. Place battering rams all around it. 3 After that, get yourself an iron pan and use it as an iron wall between yourself and your representation of the city, and keep looking in that direction, because it’ll be under siege and you’re to put the siege against it. That will be a sign to the Israeli people.

4 Then lie on your left side and put the sin of the Israeli people on it. You’ll carry their sin for the number of days you lie down as a sign against them. 5 I myself am assigning to you one day to represent each year of their punishment: 390 days lying on your left side. In that way, you’ll carry the Israeli people’s sin. 6 When that period is over, then lie down a second time on your right side, because you’ll carry the sin of Yehudah’s people for forty days. I’m assigning one day to you for each year.

7 Keep looking towards Yerushalem, which is under siege, and with your arm bared like a warrior, prophesy against it. 8 Listen, I’ll have you tied with ropes so you won’t be able to turn from one side to the other until the days representing the years of your siege are over.

9 Take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt for yourself, and put them into a single container, and make bread for yourself according to the number of days you’ll lie on your side—yes, you’ll eat it for 390 days. 10 You’ll measure 250g by weight to eat each day, and you’ll eat it during the day at set times. 11 Then you’ll measure out half a litre of water to drink each day, and you’ll drink it at set times. 12 You’ll cook and eat that bread as barley cakes, but burn sun-dried human excrement to bake it over while they’re watching.

13 Yahweh says that that means that the bread that the Israeli people will eat there among the other nations that I’ll banish them to will be ceremonially unclean. 14 But I protested, “Oh no, master Yahweh. I’ve never broken our dietary laws. Ever since I was young, and right up till now, I’ve never eaten either anything that died or anything killed by animals, and foul meat has never entered my mouth.”

15 So Yahweh answered me, “Listen, I’ll give you cow manure instead of human excrement, so you can bake your bread over that.”

16 Then he told me, “Humanity’s child, listen. I’m breaking the cycle of food supply in Yerushalem, and they’ll eat bread while anxiously rationing it, and drink water while fearfully rationing it, 17 because they’ll lack both food and water, and everyone will be appalled by their neighbours’ actions, and they’ll waste away because they disobeyed God.