⁶ On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine became so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.^(A)

² in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city.^(A)

⁹ “My lord king, these men have acted wickedly in all they did to the prophet Jeremiah by throwing him into the cistern to die there of hunger, for there is no bread left in the city.”^(A)

³ On the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine became so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.^(A)

¹⁹ “Thus says the Lord of hosts: The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall be seasons of joy and gladness and cheerful festivals for the house of Judah; therefore love truth and peace.”^(A)

²¹ Therefore thus says the Lord God: How much more when I send upon Jerusalem my four deadly acts of judgment, sword, famine, wild animals, and pestilence, to cut off humans and animals from it!^(A)

¹⁰ Surely, parents shall eat their children in your midst, and children shall eat their parents; I will execute judgments on you, and any of you who survive I will scatter to every wind.^{(A) 11} Therefore, as I live, says the Lord God, surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will withdraw; my eye will not spare, and I will have no pity.^{(B) 12} One third of you shall die of pestilence or be consumed by famine among you; one third shall fall by the sword around you; and one third I will scatter to every wind and will unsheathe the sword after them.^(C)

⁹ “And you, take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them into one vessel and make bread for yourself. During the number of days that you lie on your side, three hundred ninety days, you shall eat it. ¹⁰ The food that you eat shall be twenty shekels a day by weight; at fixed times you shall eat it. ¹¹ And you shall drink water by measure, one-sixth of a hin; at fixed times you shall drink. ¹² You shall eat it as a barley cake, baking it in their sight on human dung.”^{(A) 13} The Lord said, “Thus shall the people of Israel eat their bread, unclean, among the nations to which I will drive them.”^{(B) 14} Then I said, “Ah Lord God! I have never defiled myself; from my youth up until now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by animals, nor has carrion flesh come into my mouth.”^{(C) 15} Then he said to me, “See, I will let you have cow’s dung instead of human dung, on which you may prepare your bread.”

¹⁶ Then he said to me, “Mortal, I am going to cut off the supply of bread^[a] in Jerusalem; they shall eat bread by weight and with fearfulness, and they shall drink water by measure and in dismay.^{(D) 17} Lacking bread and water, they will look at one another in dismay and waste away under their punishment.^(E)