Ezekiel 4:9-17

Common English Bible

⁹ You, gather some wheat and barley, beans and lentils, and millet and spelt. Put them in a bowl and make your bread from them. Eat it during the three hundred ninety days that you lie on your side. ¹⁰ At fixed times you will eat your food by weight, fourteen ounces a day.^{[a] 11} You will also ration your water by measure, drinking a sixth of a hin^[b] at fixed times each day. ¹² Eat it like barley bread, and bake it on human excrement while they watch. ¹³ The Lord says: In this same way the Israelites will eat their unclean bread among the nations where I am scattering them.

¹⁴ And I said: “Ah, Lord God! I’ve never been unclean! From my childhood until now I’ve never eaten anything that wasn’t properly slaughtered,^[c] and no unclean meat has ever entered my mouth!”

¹⁵ He answered me: “Then I’ll let you use cow dung instead of human excrement. You can make your bread over that.”

¹⁶ Then he said to me: Human one, I’m destroying the food supply in Jerusalem. They will anxiously ration and eat their food, and in dismay they will dole out and drink their water. ¹⁷ When their food and water dwindles away, everyone will be horrified, and they will waste away because of their guilt.