4 ^1-2 “And now, son of dust, take a large brick and lay it before you and draw a map of the city of Jerusalem on it. Draw a picture of siege mounds being built against the city, put enemy camps around it and battering rams surrounding the walls. ³ And put an iron plate between you and the city, like a wall of iron. Demonstrate how an enemy army will capture Jerusalem!

“There is special meaning in each detail of what I have told you to do. For it is a warning to the people of Israel.

^4-5 “Now lie on your left side for 390 days,^[a] to show that Israel will be punished for 390 years by captivity and doom. Each day you lie there represents a year of punishment ahead for Israel. ⁶ Afterwards, turn over and lie on your right side for forty days, to signify the years of Judah’s punishment. Each day will represent one year.

⁷ “Meanwhile continue your demonstration of the siege of Jerusalem; lie there with your arm bared to signify great strength and power in the attack against her.^[b] This will prophesy her doom. ⁸ And I will paralyze you^[c] so that you can’t turn over from one side to the other until you have completed all the days of your siege.

⁹ “During the first 390 days eat bread made of flour mixed from wheat, barley, beans, lentils, and spelt. Mix the various kinds of flour together in a jar. ¹⁰ You are to ration this out to yourself at the rate of eight ounces at a time, one meal a day. ¹¹ And use one quart of water a day; don’t use more than that. ¹² Each day take flour from the barrel and prepare it as you would barley cakes. While all the people are watching, bake it over a fire, using dried human dung as fuel, and eat it. ¹³ For the Lord declares, Israel shall eat defiled bread in the Gentile lands to which I exile them!”

¹⁴ Then I said, “O Lord God, must I be defiled by using dung? For I have never been defiled before in all my life. From the time I was a child until now I have never eaten any animal that died of sickness or that I found injured or dead; and I have never eaten any of the kinds of animals our law forbids.”^[d]

¹⁵ Then the Lord said, “All right, you may use cow dung instead of human dung.”

¹⁶ Then he told me, “Son of dust, bread will be tightly rationed in Jerusalem. It will be weighed out with great care and eaten fearfully. And the water will be portioned out in driblets, and the people will drink it with dismay. ¹⁷ I will cause the people to lack both bread and water; they will look at one another in frantic terror and waste away beneath their punishment.