Modeling the Destruction of Jerusalem

Chapter 4

¹“And you, O mortal, take a brick and put it in front of you, and incise on it a city, Jerusalem. ²Set up a siege against it, and build towers against it, and cast a mound against it; pitch camps against it, and bring up battering rams roundabout it. ³Then take an iron plate and place it as an iron wall between yourself and the city, and set your face against it. ^aThus it shall be under siege, you shall besiege it. This shall be an omen for the House of Israel.

⁴“Then lie on your left side, and let it bear the punishment of the House of Israel;^b for as many days as you lie on it you shall bear their punishment. ⁵For I impose upon you three hundred and ninety days, corresponding to the number of the years of their punishment; and so you shall bear the punishment for the House of Israel. ⁶When you have completed these, you shall lie another forty days on your right side, and bear the punishment of the House of Judah. I impose on you one day for each year.

⁷“Then, with bared arm, set your face toward besieged Jerusalem and prophesy against it. ⁸Now I put cords upon you, so that you cannot turn from side to side until you complete your days of siege.

⁹“Further, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and emmer. Put them into one vessel and bake them into bread. Eat it as many days as you lie on your side: three hundred and ninety. ¹⁰The food that you eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day; this you shall eat in the space of a day. ¹¹And you shall drink water by measure; drink a sixth of a hin in the space of a day.

¹²“Eat it as a barley cake; you shall bake it on human excrement before their eyes. ¹³So,” said the Lord, “shall the people of Israel eat their bread, unclean, among the nations to which I will banish them.” ¹⁴Then I said, “Ah, Lord God, my person was never defiled; nor have I eaten anything that died of itself or was torn by beasts from my youth until now, nor has foul flesh entered my mouth.” ¹⁵He answered me, “See, I allow you cow’s dung instead of human excrement; prepare your bread on that.”

^16c And He said to me, “O mortal, I am going to break the staff of bread in Jerusalem, and they shall eat bread by weight, in anxiety, and drink water by measure, in horror, ¹⁷so that, lacking bread and water, they shall stare at each other, heartsick over their iniquity.

Chapter 5

¹“And you, O mortal, take a sharp knife; use it as a barber’s razor and pass it over your head and beard. Then take scales and divide the hair. ²When the days of siege are completed, destroy a third part in fire in the city, take a third and strike it with the sword all around the city, and scatter a third to the wind and unsheathe a sword after them.

³“Take also a few [hairs] from there and tie them up in your skirts. ⁴And take some more of them and cast them into the fire, and burn them in the fire. From this a fire shall go out upon the whole House of Israel.”

⁵Thus said the Lord God: I set this Jerusalem in the midst of nations, with countries round about her. ⁶But she rebelled against My rules and My laws, acting more wickedly than the nations and the countries round about her; she rejected My rules and disobeyed My laws. ⁷Assuredly, thus said the Lord God: Because you have outdone the nations that are round about you— you have not obeyed My laws or followed My rules, nor have you observed the rules of the nations round about you—⁸assuredly, thus said the Lord God: I, in turn, am going to deal with you, and I will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations. ⁹On account of all your abominations, I will do among you what I have never done, and the like of which I will never do again.

¹⁰Assuredly, parents shall eat their children in your midst, and children shall eat their parents. I will execute judgments against you, and I will scatter all your survivors in every direction.

¹¹Assuredly, as I live—said the Lord God—because you defiled My Sanctuary with all your detestable things and all your abominations, I in turn will shear [you] away and show no pity. I in turn will show no compassion: ¹²One-third of you shall die of pestilence or perish in your midst by famine, one-third shall fall by the sword around you, and I will scatter one-third in every direction and will unsheathe the sword after them. ¹³I will vent all My anger and satisfy My fury upon them; and when I vent all My fury upon them, they shall know that I the Lord have spoken in My passion. ¹⁴I will make you a ruin and a mockery among the nations roundabout you, in the sight of every passerby. ¹⁵And when I execute judgment upon you in anger and rage and furious chastisement, you shall be a mockery and a derision, a warning and a horror, to the nations roundabout you: I the Lord have spoken. ¹⁶When I loose the deadly arrows of famine against those doomed to destruction, when I loose them against you to destroy you, I will heap more famine upon you and break your staff of bread. ¹⁷I will let loose against you famine and wild beasts and they shall bereave you; pestilence and bloodshed shall sweep through you, and I will bring the sword upon you. I the Lord have spoken.