Good News Translation GNT
World English Bible WEB
1 God said, "Mortal man, get a brick, put it in front of you, and scratch lines on it to represent the city of Jerusalem.
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You also, son of man, take a tile, and lay it before you, and portray on it a city, even Jerusalem:
2 Then, to represent a siege, put trenches, earthworks, camps, and battering rams all around it.
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and lay siege against it, and build forts against it, and cast up a mound against it; set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it round about.
3 Take an iron pan and set it up like a wall between you and the city. Face the city. It is under siege, and you are the one besieging it. This will be a sign to the nation of Israel.
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Take for yourself an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between you and the city: and set your face toward it, and it shall be besieged, and you shall lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.
4 "Then lie down on your left side, and I will place on you the guilt of the nation of Israel. For 390 days you will stay there and suffer because of their guilt. I have sentenced you to one day for each year their punishment will last.
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Moreover lie you on your left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it; [according to] the number of the days that you shall lie on it, you shall bear their iniquity.
6 When you finish that, turn over on your right side and suffer for the guilt of Judah for forty days - one day for each year of their punishment.
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Again, when you have accomplished these, you shall lie on your right side, and shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah: forty days, each day for a year, have I appointed it to you.
7 "Fix your eyes on the siege of Jerusalem. Shake your fist at the city and prophesy against it.
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You shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, with your arm uncovered; and you shall prophesy against it.
8 I will tie you up so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until the siege is over.
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Behold, I lay bands on you, and you shall not turn you from one side to the other, until you have accomplished the days of your siege.
9 "Now take some wheat, barley, beans, peas, millet, and spelt. Mix them all together and make bread. That is what you are to eat during the 390 days you are lying on your left side.
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Take for yourself also wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make you bread of it; [according to] the number of the days that you shall lie on your side, even three hundred ninety days, shall you eat of it.
10 You will be allowed eight ounces of bread a day, and it will have to last until the next day.
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Your food which you shall eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shall you eat it.
11 You will also have a limited amount of water to drink, two cups a day.
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You shall drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin: from time to time shall you drink.
12 You are to build a fire out of dried human excrement, bake bread on the fire, and eat it where everyone can see you."
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You shall eat it as barley cakes, and you shall bake it in their sight with dung that comes out of man.
13 The Lord said, "This represents the way the Israelites will have to eat food which the Law forbids, when I scatter them to foreign countries."
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Yahweh said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations where I will drive them.
14 But I replied, "No, Sovereign Lord! I have never defiled myself. From childhood on I have never eaten meat from any animal that died a natural death or was killed by wild animals. I have never eaten any food considered unclean."
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Then said I, Ah Lord Yahweh! behold, my soul has not been polluted; for from my youth up even until now have I not eaten of that which dies of itself, or is torn of animals; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.
15 So God said, "Very well. I will let you use cow dung instead, and you can bake your bread on that."
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Then he said to me, Behold, I have given you cow's dung for man's dung, and you shall prepare your bread thereon.
16 And he added, "Mortal man, I am going to cut off the supply of bread for Jerusalem. The people there will be distressed and anxious as they measure out the food they eat and the water they drink.
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Moreover he said to me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with fearfulness; and they shall drink water by measure, and in dismay:
17 They will run out of bread and water; they will be in despair, and they will waste away because of their sins."
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that they may want bread and water, and be dismayed one with another, and pine away in their iniquity.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.
The World English Bible is in the public domain.