Ezekiel 4:9-Ezekiel 5:17 - Ezekiel's Strange Defiled Meal

⁹ "Furthermore, you are to take some wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, and mix them together in one container. Then you are to make bread from these grains sufficient to supply you through the time during which you'll be sleeping on your side. You are to eat it for 390 days. ¹⁰ The food that you'll be eating is to consist of portions weighing 20 shekels, to be consumed daily at regular intervals. ¹¹ You are to measure one sixth of one hin of water each time you drink it. ¹² You are to eat it as barley cakes and bake it right in front of them, using dried human dung for cooking fuel." ¹³ Then the LORD said, "This is how the Israelis will be eating unclean food among the nations, where I'll be sending them."

¹⁴ "Now, Lord GOD," I replied, "I've never been defiled, ever since I was young until now. I haven't eaten an animal that died on its own or was torn by beasts, and no unclean meat has ever entered my mouth!"

¹⁵ "Okay," he responded. "I'll allow you to substitute cow's dung for human dung. Cook your food over that." ¹⁶ He also told me, "Son of Man, look! I'm about to disrupt the source of bread in Jerusalem. As a result, they'll ration bread by weight while their terror continues to grow and they'll ration drinking water while their horror continues to mount! ¹⁷ Indeed, they'll need bread and water, but everyone will be panic-stricken as they waste away in their iniquity."

¹ "Now as for you, Son of Man, you are to go find a sharp sword and use it like a barber's razor. You are to cut your hair and beard. Then you are to take a weighing scale and divide your shaved hair into three parts. ² You are to burn a third of it in the middle of the city when you've finished your siege. Next, you are to take another third of it and beat it with your sword. Last, you are to scatter the remaining third to the wind, after which I'll unsheathe my sword and pursue them. ³ You are to preserve a few strands of hair and hide them in the folds of your garment. ⁴ Then you are to take a few strands, throw them in the fire, and incinerate them. A fire will proceed to the house of Israel from there."

⁵ "This is what the Lord GOD says, "This is Jerusalem. I placed her in the center of nations, with many nations surrounding her. ⁶ But she rebelled against my ordinances and my statutes. She practiced more evil than all the nations and territories around her. They rejected my ordinances and didn't live by my statutes.'

⁷ "Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: "Because you're more disrespectful than the nations that surround you, you didn't follow my statutes or follow my ordinances. You didn't even follow the ordinances of the surrounding nations!' ⁸ "Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: "Watch out! I that's right, even I am against you. I'll carry out my sentence among you right in front of the nations. ⁹ In fact, I'm going to do what I've never done before and what I'll never again do, because of all of your loathsome behavior: ¹⁰ Fathers will eat their children in your midst. After this, your sons will eat their fathers as I carry out my sentence against you and scatter your survivors to the winds!'

¹¹ "Therefore, as sure as I live," declares the Lord GOD, "because you've defiled my sanctuary with every loathsome thing and every abomination, I'll restrain myself, and I'll show neither pity nor compassion. ¹² A third of you will die by pestilence, starving because of the famine in your midst. Another third will die violently by the violence of war around you. The final third I'll scatter to the wind as I unsheathe my sword to pursue them. ¹³ "Only then will I stop being angry my burning in anger. Then they'll know that I've spoken out in my arduous anger. Only then will my burning anger against them be exhausted.

¹⁴ I'm also going to turn you into a waste and an object of insult among the nations that surround you and in front of every person who passes by. ¹⁵ As a result, Jerusalem will become an insult, an object of taunt, an example of chastisement, and a useless waste to all the nations that surround you when I carry out my sentence against you in my anger, my burning rage, and my burning rebukes. I, the LORD, have spoken it. ¹⁶ I'll send arrows of severe famine in their direction, meant for destruction, which I'll shoot, intending to destroy them. I'll make you have more and more famines that will attack you, and I'll disrupt your source of food. ¹⁷ "I'll send famine and wild beasts against you that will rob you of your children. Pestilence and bloodshed will devastate you when I'll declare war on you. I, the LORD, have spoken."