nsb - Ezekiel:4:1-5:17

nsb@Ezekiel:4:1 @ »Son of man, take a clay tablet and put it in front of you. Draw the city of Jerusalem on it.

nsb@Ezekiel:4:2 @ »Then lay siege to it. Erect siege works against it. Build a ramp up to it. Set up camps against it and put battering rams around it.

nsb@Ezekiel:4:3 @ »Take an iron pan and place it as an iron wall between you and the city. Then turn your face toward it. It will be under siege, and you shall besiege it. This will be a sign to the house of Israel.

nsb@Ezekiel:4:4 @ »Then lie on your left side and put the sin of the house of Israel upon yourself. You are to bear their sin for the number of days you lie on your side.

nsb@Ezekiel:4:5 @ »I have assigned you the same number of days as the years of their sin. So for three hundred and ninety days you will bear the sin of the house of Israel.

nsb@Ezekiel:4:6 @ »After you have finished this lie down again. This time lie on your right side, and bear the sin of the house of Judah. I have assigned you forty days, a day for each year.

nsb@Ezekiel:4:7 @ »Turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem and with bared arm prophesy against her.

nsb@Ezekiel:4:8 @ »I will tie you up with ropes so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have finished the days of your siege.

nsb@Ezekiel:4:9 @ »Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself. You are to eat it during the three hundred and ninety days you lie on your side.

nsb@Ezekiel:4:10 @ »Weigh out eight ounces of food for each day and eat it at set times.

nsb@Ezekiel:4:11 @ »You will also have a limited amount of water to drink, two cups a day.

nsb@Ezekiel:4:12 @ »You are to build a fire out of dried human excrement, bake bread on the fire, and eat it where everyone can see you.«

nsb@Ezekiel:4:13 @ Jehovah said: »This represents the way the Israelites will have to eat food which the Law forbids when I scatter them to foreign countries.«

nsb@Ezekiel:4:14 @ But I replied: »No, O Lord Jehovah! 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.«

nsb@Ezekiel:4:15 @ So God said: »Very well. I will let you use cow dung instead. You can bake your bread on that.«

nsb@Ezekiel:4:16 @ 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.

nsb@Ezekiel:4:17 @ »They will run out of bread and water. They will be in despair. They will waste away because of their sins.

nsb@Ezekiel:5:1 @ »As for you, son of man, take a sharp sword. Take and use it as a barber's razor to shave your head and beard. Then take scales for weighing and divide the hair.

nsb@Ezekiel:5:2 @ »You should burn one-third of the hair in the fire at the center of the city when the siege is over. Take one third and strike it with the sword all around the city. The remaining one third you shall scatter to the wind. I will unsheathe a sword behind them.

nsb@Ezekiel:5:3 @ »Take also a few strands of hair from them and bind them in the edges of your robes.

nsb@Ezekiel:5:4 @ »Take again some of them and throw them into the fire and burn them in the fire. Fire will spread from there to all the house of Israel.

nsb@Ezekiel:5:5 @ »This is what the Lord Jehovah says: This is Jerusalem. I have set her at the center of the nations with countries all around her.

nsb@Ezekiel:5:6 @ »She has rebelled against my ordinances more wickedly than the nations and against my statutes more than the lands that surround her. My people have rejected my ordinances and have not walked in my statutes.

nsb@Ezekiel:5:7 @ »Therefore, Jehovah says: You have more turmoil than the nations that surround you. You have not walked in my statutes, nor observed my ordinances, nor observed the ordinances of the nations that surround you.

nsb@Ezekiel:5:8 @ »Therefore, the Lord Jehovah says: Behold, I, even I, am against you! I will execute judgments against you in the sight of the nations.

nsb@Ezekiel:5:9 @ »Because of all your abominations, I will do among you what I have not done before, and the like of which I will never do again.

nsb@Ezekiel:5:10 @ »Fathers will eat their sons among you and sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments against you and scatter your entire remnant to every wind.«

nsb@Ezekiel:5:11 @ »As I live, declares the Lord Jehovah, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable idols and with all your abominations I will withdraw, and my eye will have no pity and I will not spare you.

nsb@Ezekiel:5:12 @ »One third of your people will die by plague or be consumed by famine! One third will fall by the sword! One third I will scatter to every wind! I will unsheathe a sword behind them.

nsb@Ezekiel:5:13 @ »I will unleash my anger. I will use my fury against you, and I will get revenge. When my fury is unleashed against you, you will know that I, Jehovah, spoke to you with all my zeal.

nsb@Ezekiel:5:14 @ »I will turn you into a wasteland and an object of ridicule among the nations around you and in the presence of everyone who passes by you.

nsb@Ezekiel:5:15 @ »The nations that are around you will ridicule you and laugh at you. When I punish you because of my anger, fury, and fierce revenge, you will become something ridiculed and something horrible. I, Jehovah, have spoken.

nsb@Ezekiel:5:16 @ »When I shoot my destructive arrows of famine at you, I will shoot to kill you. I will bring more and more famine into your land. I will cut off your food supply.

nsb@Ezekiel:5:17 @ »I will send famine and wild animals against you. They will rob you of your children. I will send plagues, violence, and wars to kill you. I, Jehovah, have spoken!«