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“Take for yourself also wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel. Make bread of it. According to the number of the days that you will lie on your side, even three hundred ninety days, you shall eat of it. 10 Your food which you shall eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels[a] a day. From time to time you shall eat it. 11 You shall drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin.[b] From time to time you shall drink. 12 You shall eat it as barley cakes, and you shall bake it in their sight with dung that comes out of man.” 13 Yahweh said, “Even thus will the children of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations where I will drive them.”

14 Then I said, “Ah Lord Yahweh! Behold, my soul has not been polluted; for from my youth up even until now I have not eaten of that which dies of itself, or is torn of animals. No abominable meat has come into my mouth!”

15 Then he said to me, “Behold, I have given you cow’s dung for man’s dung, and you shall prepare your bread on it.”

16 Moreover he said to me, “Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem. They will eat bread by weight, and with fearfulness. They will drink water by measure, and in dismay; 17 that they may lack bread and water, be dismayed one with another, and pine away in their iniquity.

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Footnotes

  1. 4:10 A shekel is about 10 grams or about 0.35 ounces.
  2. 4:11 A hin is about 6.5 liters or 1.7 gallons.

Defiled Bread

“But as for you, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and (A)spelt, and put them in 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, 390 days. 10 Your food which you eat shall be (B)twenty shekels a day by weight; you shall eat it from time to time. 11 The water you drink shall be a [a]sixth of a hin by measure; you shall drink it from time to time. 12 You shall eat it as a barley cake, having baked it in their sight over human (C)dung.” 13 Then the Lord said, “In this way the sons of Israel will eat their bread (D)unclean among the nations where I will scatter them.” 14 But I said, “(E)Oh, Lord [b]God! Behold, [c]I have (F)never been defiled; for from my youth until now I have never eaten what (G)died of itself or was torn by animals, nor has any (H)unclean meat ever entered my mouth!” 15 Then He said to me, “See, I will give you cow’s dung in place of human dung, so that you may prepare your bread over it.” 16 Moreover, He said to me, “Son of man, behold, I am going to (I)break the staff of bread in Jerusalem, and they will eat bread by (J)weight and with anxiety, and drink water by (K)measure and in horror, 17 because bread and water will be scarce; and they will tremble with one another and (L)waste away in their guilt.

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Footnotes

  1. Ezekiel 4:11 About 0.6 qt. or 0.6 liter
  2. Ezekiel 4:14 Heb YHWH, usually rendered Lord
  3. Ezekiel 4:14 Lit my soul has