Defiled Bread

⁹ “But as for you, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, and put them into one vessel and make them into bread for yourself. You shall eat it according to the number of the days that you lie on your side, three hundred and ninety days. ¹⁰ The food you eat each day shall be [measured] by weight, ^[a]twenty shekels, to be eaten daily at a set time. ¹¹ You shall drink water by measure also, ^[b]the sixth part of a hin; you shall drink daily at a set time. ¹² You shall eat your food as barley cakes, having baked it in their sight over human dung.” ¹³ Then the Lord said, “Thus the children of Israel will eat their bread unclean and defiled among the nations where I will banish them.”^{(A) 14} But I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold (hear me), I have never been defiled; for from my youth until now I have never eaten what died on its own or was torn by beasts, nor has any unclean meat ever entered my mouth.”^{(B) 15} Then He said to me, “See, I will let you use cow’s dung instead of human dung over which you shall prepare your food.” ¹⁶ Moreover, He said to me, “Son of man, behold (listen carefully), I am going to break the staff of bread [that supports life] in Jerusalem; and they shall eat bread [rationed] by weight and [eat it] with anxiety and fear, and drink water by measure and [drink it] in horror [of the impending starvation],^{(C) 17} because bread and water will be scarce; and they will look at one another in dismay and waste away [in punishment] for their wickedness.