16After those seven days, the word of the LORD came to me: 17“O mortal, I appoint you watchman for the House of Israel; and when you hear a word from My mouth, you must warn them for Me. 18If I say to a wicked man, ‘You shall die,’ and you do not warn him—you do not speak to warn the wicked man of his wicked course in order to save his life—he, the wicked man, shall die for his iniquity, but I will require a reckoning for his blood from you. 19But if you do warn the wicked man, and he does not turn back from his wickedness and his wicked course, he shall die for his iniquity, but you will have saved your own life. 20Again, if a righteous man abandons his righteousness and does wrong, when I put a stumbling block before him, he shall die. He shall die for his sins; the righteous deeds that he did shall not be remembered; but because you did not warn him, I will require a reckoning for his blood from you. 21If, however, you warn the righteous man not to sin, and he, the righteous, does not sin, he shall live because he took warning, and you will have saved your own life.”
22Then the hand of the LORD came upon me there, and He said to me, “Arise, go out to the valley, and there I will speak with you.” 23I arose and went out to the valley, and there stood the Presence of the LORD, like the Presence that I had seen at the Chebar Canal; and I flung myself down on my face. 24And a spirit entered into me and set me upon my feet. And He spoke to me, and said to me: “Go, shut yourself up in your house. 25As for you, O mortal, cords have been placed upon you, and you have been bound with them, and you shall not go out among them.b 26And I will make your tongue cleave to your palate, and you shall be dumb; you shall not be a reprover to them, for they are a rebellious breed. 27But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD!’ He who listens will listen, and he who does not will not—for they are a rebellious breed.”
4 “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.b 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 barleyc 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.”
16dAnd 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, 5they shall stare at each other, heartsick over their iniquity. 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.a 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 b-the city,-b and scatter a third to the wind and unsheathec 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; shed 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] awaye 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, youf 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.
6 The word of the LORD came to me: 2O mortal, turn your face toward the mountains of Israel and prophesy to them 3and say: O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD. Thus said the Lord GOD to the mountains and the hills, to the streams and the valleys: See, I will bring a sword against you and destroy your shrines. 4Your altars shall be wrecked and your incense stands smashed, and I will hurl down your slain in front of your fetishes. 5I will cast the corpses of the people of Israel in front of their fetishes, and scatter your bones around your altars 6in all your settlements. The towns shall be laid waste and the shrines shall be devastated. Thus your altars shall be laid waste and a-bear their punishment;-a your fetishes shall be smashed and annihilated, your incense stands cut down, and your handiwork wiped out; 7and the slain shall fall in your midst. Then you shall know that I am the LORD. 8Yet I will leave a remnant, in that some
