Add parallel Print Page Options

12 Use dried human waste to start a fire, then bake the bread on the coals where everyone can watch you. 13 When I scatter the people of Israel among the nations, they will also have to eat food that is unclean, just as you must do.[a]

14 I said, “Lord God, please don't make me do that! Never in my life have I eaten food that would make me unacceptable to you. I've never eaten anything that died a natural death or was killed by a wild animal or that you said was unclean.”

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 4.13 have to eat food that is unclean, just as you must do: The Lord had forbidden the people of Israel to mix certain things (see Deuteronomy 22.9-11), and so the people would not have been allowed to eat this bread under normal conditions. It is used here to show that when a city is under attack, people eat whatever food is left, even if the Lord had said it was unclean.

12 Eat the food as you would a loaf of barley bread; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement(A) for fuel.” 13 The Lord said, “In this way the people of Israel will eat defiled food among the nations where I will drive them.”(B)

14 Then I said, “Not so, Sovereign Lord!(C) I have never defiled myself. From my youth until now I have never eaten anything found dead(D) or torn by wild animals. No impure meat has ever entered my mouth.(E)

Read full chapter