⁶ By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine in the city had become so severe that there was no food for the people to eat.^(A)

⁹ “My lord the king, these men have acted wickedly in all they have done to Jeremiah the prophet. They have thrown him into a cistern,^(A) where he will starve to death when there is no longer any bread^(B) in the city.”

⁵² They will lay siege^(A) to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land the Lord your God is giving you.^(B)

⁵³ Because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you.^{(C) 54} Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, ⁵⁵ and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities.^{(D) 56} The most gentle and sensitive^(E) woman among you—so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot—will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter^{(F) 57} the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For in her dire need she intends to eat them^(G) secretly because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of your cities.

¹⁶ When I shoot at you with my deadly and destructive arrows of famine, I will shoot to destroy you. I will bring more and more famine upon you and cut off your supply of food.^{(A) 17} I will send famine and wild beasts^(B) against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed^(C) will sweep through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I the Lord have spoken.^(D)”

¹⁵ “Very well,” he said, “I will let you bake your bread over cow dung instead of human excrement.”

¹⁶ He then said to me: “Son of man, I am about to cut off^(A) the food supply in Jerusalem. The people will eat rationed food in anxiety and drink rationed water in despair,^{(B) 17} for food and water will be scarce.^(C) They will be appalled at the sight of each other and will waste away because of^[a] their sin.^(D)