Historical
II. Before the Siege of Jerusalem
Chapter 4
Acts Symbolic of Siege and Exile. 1 [a]You, son of man, take a clay tablet; place it in front of you, and draw on it a city, Jerusalem. 2 Lay siege to it: build up siege works, raise a ramp against it, pitch camps and set up battering rams all around it. 3 Then take an iron pan and set it up as an iron wall between you and the city. Set your face toward it and put it under siege. So you must lay siege to it as a sign for the house of Israel.(A) 4 Then lie down on your left side, while I place the guilt of the house of Israel upon you. As many days as you lie like this, you shall bear their guilt. 5 I allot you three hundred and ninety days[b] during which you must bear the guilt of the house of Israel, the same number of years they sinned. 6 When you have completed this, you shall lie down a second time, on your right side to bear the guilt of the house of Judah forty days; I allot you one day for each year.(B) 7 Turning your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, with bared arm[c] you shall prophesy against it. 8 See, I bind you with ropes so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have completed the days of your siege.(C)
9 [d]Then take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them into a single pot and make them into bread. Eat it for as many days as you lie upon your side, three hundred and ninety days. 10 The food you eat shall be twenty shekels a day by weight; each day you shall eat it. 11 And the water you drink shall be the sixth of a hin[e] by measure; each day you shall drink it. 12 And the barley cake you eat you must bake on human excrement in the sight of all. 13 The Lord said: Thus the Israelites shall eat their food, unclean, among the nations where I drive them.(D) 14 “Oh no, Lord God,” I protested. “Never have I defiled myself nor have I eaten carrion flesh or flesh torn by wild beasts, nor from my youth till now has any unclean meat entered my mouth.”(E) 15 Very well, he replied, I will let you use cow manure in place of human dung. You can bake your bread on that. 16 Then he said to me: Son of man, I am about to break the staff of bread[f] in Jerusalem so they shall eat bread which they have weighed out anxiously and drink water which they have measured out fearfully.(F) 17 Because they lack bread and water they shall be devastated; each and every one will waste away because of their guilt.(G)
Chapter 5
1 Now you, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it like a barber’s razor, to shave your head and your beard. Then take a balance scale for weighing and divide the hair.(H) 2 Set a third on fire within the city,[g] when the days of your siege are completed; place another third around the city and strike it with the sword; the final third scatter to the wind and then unsheathe the sword after it.(I) 3 But take a few of the hairs and tie them in the hem of your garment. 4 Take some of these and throw them into the fire and burn them in the fire. Because of this, fire will flash out against the whole house of Israel.
5 Thus says the Lord God: This is Jerusalem! I placed it in the midst of the nations, surrounded by foreign lands. 6 But it rebelled against my ordinances more wickedly than the nations, and against my statutes more than the foreign lands around it; they rejected my ordinances and did not walk in my statutes.(J) 7 Therefore, thus says the Lord God: Because you have caused more uproar than the nations surrounding you, not living by my statutes nor carrying out my judgments, nor even living by the ordinances of the surrounding nations; 8 therefore, thus says the Lord God: See, I am coming against you![h] I will carry out judgments among you while the nations look on.(K) 9 Because of all your abominations I will do to you what I have never done before, the like of which I will never do again. 10 Therefore, parents will eat their children in your midst, and children will eat their parents.[i] I will inflict punishments upon you and scatter all who remain to the winds.(L)
11 Therefore, as I live, says the Lord God, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your atrocities and all your abominations, I will surely withdraw and not look upon you with pity nor spare you.(M) 12 A third of your people shall die of disease or starve to death within you; another third shall fall by the sword all around you; a third I will scatter to the winds and pursue them with the sword.(N)
13 Thus my anger will spend itself; I will vent my wrath against them until I am satisfied. Then they will know that I the Lord spoke in my passion when I spend my wrath upon them.(O) 14 I will make you a desolation and a reproach among the nations around you, in the sight of every passerby.(P) 15 And you will be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and a horror to the nations around you when I execute judgments against you in angry wrath, with furious chastisements. I, the Lord, have spoken! 16 When I loose against you the deadly arrows of starvation that I am sending to destroy you, I will increase starvation and will break your staff of bread.(Q) 17 I will send against you starvation and wild beasts who will leave you childless, while disease and bloodshed sweep through you. I will bring the sword against you. I, the Lord, have spoken.(R)
Chapter 6
Against the Mountains of Israel. 1 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them:(S) 3 You shall say: Mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God. Thus says the Lord God to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys:(T) Pay attention! I am bringing a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places.[j] 4 Your altars shall be laid waste, your incense stands smashed, and I will throw your slain down in front of your idols. 5 Yes, I will lay the corpses of the Israelites in front of their idols, and scatter your bones around your altars.[k](U) 6 Wherever you live, cities shall be ruined and high places laid waste, in order that your altars be laid waste and devastated, your idols broken and smashed, your incense altars hacked to pieces, and whatever you have made wiped out.(V) 7 The slain shall fall in your midst, and you shall know that I am the Lord.[l](W) 8 But I will spare some of you from the sword to live as refugees among the nations when you are scattered to foreign lands. 9 Then your refugees will remember me among the nations to which they have been exiled, after I have broken their lusting hearts that turned away from me and their eyes that lusted after idols. They will loathe themselves for all the evil they have done, for all their abominations.(X) 10 Then they shall know that I the Lord did not threaten in vain to inflict this evil on them.
11 Thus says the Lord God: Clap your hands, stamp your feet,[m] and cry “Alas!” for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! They shall fall by the sword, starvation, and disease.(Y) 12 Those far off shall die of disease, those nearby shall fall by the sword, and those who survive and are spared shall perish by starvation; thus will I spend my fury upon them. 13 They shall know that I am the Lord, when their slain lie among their idols, all around their altars, on every high hill and mountaintop, beneath every green tree and leafy oak[n]—any place they offer sweet-smelling oblations to all their idols.(Z) 14 I will stretch out my hand against them; I will make the land a desolate waste, from the wilderness to Riblah,[o] wherever they live. Thus they shall know that I am the Lord.(AA)
Chapter 7
The End Has Come. 1 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 Son of man, now say: Thus says the Lord God to the land of Israel: An end! The end comes upon the four corners of the land!(AB) 3 Now the end is upon you; I will unleash my anger against you, judge you according to your ways, and hold against you all your abominations. 4 My eye will not spare you, nor will I have pity; but I will hold your conduct against you, since your abominations remain within you; then shall you know that I am the Lord.(AC)
5 Thus says the Lord God: Evil upon evil! See it coming! 6 An end is coming, the end is coming; it is ripe for you! See it coming! 7 The crisis has come for you who dwell in the land! The time has come, near is the day: panic, no rejoicing on the mountains.(AD) 8 Soon now I will pour out my fury upon you and spend my anger against you; I will judge you according to your ways and hold against you all your abominations.(AE) 9 My eye will not spare, nor will I take pity; I will hold your conduct against you since your abominations remain within you, then you shall know that it is I, the Lord, who strikes.(AF)
10 The day is here! Look! it is coming! The crisis has come! Lawlessness is blooming, insolence budding; 11 the violent have risen up to wield a scepter of wickedness. But none of them shall remain; none of their crowd, none of their wealth, for none of them are innocent. 12 [p]The time has come, the day dawns. The buyer must not rejoice, nor the seller mourn, for wrath is coming upon all the throng.(AG) 13 Assuredly, the seller shall not regain what was sold, as long as they all live; for the vision is for the whole crowd: it shall not be revoked! Yes, because of their guilt, they shall not hold on to life. 14 They will sound the trumpet and get everything ready, but no one will go out to battle, for my wrath weighs upon all the crowd.
15 The sword is outside; disease and hunger are within. Whoever is in the fields will die by the sword; whoever is in the city disease and hunger will devour.(AH) 16 If their survivors flee, they will die on the mountains, moaning like doves of the valley on account of their guilt. 17 All their hands will hang limp, and all their knees[q] turn to water.(AI) 18 (AJ)They put on sackcloth, horror clothes them; shame is on all their faces, all their heads are shaved bald.[r] 19 They fling their silver into the streets, and their gold is considered unclean.(AK) Their silver and gold cannot save them on the day of the Lord’s wrath. They cannot satisfy their hunger or fill their bellies, for it has been the occasion of their sin. 20 [s]In their beautiful ornaments they took pride; out of them they made their abominable images, their detestable things. For this reason I will make them unclean.(AL) 21 I will hand them over as spoils to foreigners, as plunder to the wicked of the earth, so that they may defile them. 22 I will turn my face away from them. My treasure will be defiled; the violent will enter and defile it.(AM) 23 They will wreak slaughter, for the land is filled with bloodshed and the city with violence.(AN) 24 I will bring in the worst of the nations to take possession of their houses. I will put an end to their proud strength,[t] and their sanctuaries will be defiled.(AO) 25 When anguish comes, they will seek peace, but there is none.(AP) 26 Disaster after disaster, rumor upon rumor. They keep seeking a vision from the prophet; instruction from the priest is missing, and counsel from the elders.(AQ) 27 The king mourns, the prince is terror-stricken, the hands of the common people tremble. I will deal with them according to their ways, and according to their judgments I will judge them. They shall know that I am the Lord.
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