UST EZE Chapter 4

◄ EZE 4 ► ║ ═ ©

4 Yahweh continued to speak to me: “As for you, mortal, find yourself a large clay brick. Then, you should place it in front of you and draw a picture of the city of Jerusalem on it.” 2 Then, pretend to lay siege to your drawing of Jerusalem! Draw a wall of siegeworks around it that enables soldiers to shoot arrows above the wall! Construct a siege ramp that allows soldiers to climb over the outer walls! Post enemy soldiers outside of the city! Assemble battering rams in your drawing that surround Jerusalem to knock down its outer gates! 3 Then, find yourself an iron frying pan, and set it so that it resembles a vast iron wall. It should separate you and your drawing of Jerusalem on the clay brick. Then, firmly resolve within yourself to besiege the city until your army destroys and captures it. This symbolic action will warn the Israelite people of the coming judgment against them.

4-5 4-5Next, you should lie down on your left side and pretend to bear the entirety of the sins of the people of the northern kingdom of Israel on your right side, as if they were a heavy burden. You must continue to lie down and symbolically endure the weight of the sins of the northern kingdom of the Israelite people for a symbolic number of days. Now, I myself have determined the exact length of time during which you should do this: One day for each of the years that the northern kingdom of Israel has sinned against me. So you must perform this symbolic act for 390 days, and bear the sins of the northern kingdom of the Israelite people.

6 When you have finished lying on your left side for 390 days, you should lie down a second time. This time, lie on your right side, and symbolically bear the sins of the Israelite people—this time, the southern kingdom of Judah. I have determined that you should, once again, lie down one day for each of the years that I will punish the people of Judah for their sins against me: 40 days. 7 So, you should firmly resolve within yourself with regard to your drawing of the siege of Jerusalem, and stretch out your bare arm against it. As you do this, you must proclaim my prophetic messages against the city. 8 You will not be able to move; it will be as though I have tied you with ropes so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have finished symbolizing how many years the city will be besieged.

9 Before you do that, take some wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt; and put them in a storage jar, and use that to bake bread for yourself. That is what you will eat during the 390 days while you lie on your left side. 10 You will eat about two hundred grams of bread each day throughout the day. 11 Also measure out about one-half liter of water to drink each day throughout the day. 12 Eat that bread like you would eat a loaf of barley bread. But use your own dried dung for fuel to bake the bread while people are watching. 13 That will symbolize that the Israelite people will be forced to eat food that is unacceptable to me when they are living in the nations to which I will force them to go.”

14 Then I said, “No, Lord Yahweh! Do not force me to do that! I have never caused myself to become unacceptable to you. From the time when I was young, I have never eaten meat of any animal that was found dead or that had been killed by wild animals. And I have never eaten any meat that is unacceptable to you.”

15 Yahweh replied, “Because of that, I will allow you to bake your bread using dried cow manure instead of human dung for fuel.”

16 Then he said to me, “Son of man, I will cause the supply of food to Jerusalem to be cut off. Then the people will eat the small amounts of food and drink the small amounts of water that their leaders permit them to have, and they will be very distressed and anxious as they do that, 17 because water and food will be very scarce. They will see each other becoming extremely thin, and they will be appalled; but this will happen because they are being punished for the sins that they have committed.”

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