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

⁹ “My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they did to Jeremiah the prophet by casting him into the cistern, and he will die there of ^(A)hunger, ^(B)for there is no bread left in the city.”

⁵² “They shall ^(A)besiege you in all your towns, until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout all your land. And they shall besiege you in all your towns throughout all your land, which the Lord your God has given you. ⁵³ And ^(B)you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you, ^(C)in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you. ⁵⁴ The man who is the most tender and refined among you will ^(D)begrudge food to his brother, to ^(E)the wife he embraces,^[a] and to the last of the children whom he has left, ⁵⁵ so that he will not give to any of them any of the flesh of his children whom he is eating, because he has nothing else left, ^(F)in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in all your towns. ^56 (G)The most tender and refined woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and tender, will begrudge to the husband she embraces,^[b] to her son and to her daughter, ⁵⁷ her afterbirth that comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears, because lacking everything she will eat them secretly, ^(H)in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in your towns.

¹⁶ when I send against you^{[a] (A)}the deadly arrows of famine, arrows for destruction, which I will send to destroy you, and when I bring more and more famine upon ^(B)you and break your supply^[b] of bread. ¹⁷ I will send famine and ^(C)wild beasts against you, ^(D)and they will rob you of your children. Pestilence and ^(E)blood shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword upon you. I am the Lord; I have spoken.”

¹⁵ Then he said to me, “See, I assign to you cow's dung instead of human dung, on which you may prepare your bread.” ¹⁶ Moreover, he said to me, ^(A)“Son of man, behold, ^(B)I will break the supply^[a] of bread in Jerusalem. They shall eat bread ^(C)by weight and with anxiety, and they shall drink water ^(D)by measure and in dismay. ¹⁷ I will do this that they may lack bread and water, and ^(E)look at one another in dismay, and ^(F)rot away because of their punishment.