Part 369

3:17. Son of man, I have made thee a watchman to the house of Israel: and thou shalt hear the word out of my mouth, and shalt tell it them from me.

3:18. If, when I say to the wicked, Thou shalt surely die: thou declare it not to him, nor speak to him, that he may be converted from his wicked way, and live: the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at thy hand.

3:19. But if thou give warning to the wicked, and he be not converted from his wickedness, and from his evil way: he indeed shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul.

3:20. Moreover if the just man shall turn away from his justice, and shall commit iniquity: I will lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die, because thou hast not given him warning: he shall die in his sin, and his justices which he hath done, shall not be remembered: but I will require his blood at thy hand.

3:21. But if thou warn the just man, that the just may not sin, and he doth not sin: living he shall live, because thou hast warned him, and thou hast delivered thy soul.

3:22. And the hand of the Lord was upon me, and he said to me: Rise and go forth into the plain, and there I will speak to thee.

3:23. And I rose up, and went forth into the plain: and behold the glory of the Lord stood there, like the glory which I saw by the river Chobar: and I fell upon my face.

3:24. And the spirit entered into me, and set me upon my feet: and he spoke to me, and said to me: Go in; and shut thyself up in the midst of thy house.

3:25. And thou, O son of man, behold they shall put bands upon thee, and they shall bind thee with them: and thou shalt not go forth from the midst of them.

3:26. And I will make thy tongue stick fast to the roof of thy mouth, and thou shalt be dumb, and not as a man that reproveth: because they are a provoking house.

3:27. But when I shall speak to thee, I will open thy mouth, and thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord God: He that heareth, let him hear: and he that forbeareth, let him forbear: for they are a provoking house.

Ezechiel Chapter 4

A prophetic description of the siege of Jerusalem, and the famine that shall reign there.

4:1. And thou, O son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee: and draw upon it the plan of the city of Jerusalem.

4:2. And lay siege against it, and build forts, and cast up a mount, and set a camp against it, and place battering rams round about it.

4:3. And take unto thee an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city: and set thy face resolutely against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it: it is a sign to the house of Israel.

4:4. And thou shalt sleep upon thy left side, and shalt lay the iniquities of the house of Israel upon it, according to the number of the days that thou shalt sleep upon it, and thou shalt take upon thee their iniquity.

4:5. And I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days three hundred and ninety days: and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

4:6. And when thou hast accomplished this, thou shalt sleep again upon thy right side, and thou shalt take upon thee the iniquity of the house of Juda forty days: a day for a year, yea, a day for a year I have appointed to thee.

4:7. And thou shalt turn thy face to the siege of Jerusalem and thy arm shall be stretched out: and thou shalt prophesy against it.

4:8. Behold I have encompassed thee with bands: and thou shalt not turn thyself from one side to the other, till thou hast ended the days of thy siege.

4:9. And take to thee wheat and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side: three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.

4:10. And thy meat that thou shalt eat, shall be in weight twenty staters a day: from time to time thou shalt eat it.

4:11. And thou shalt drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin: from time to time thou shalt drink it,

Hin. . .That is, a measure of liquids containing about ten pints.

4:12. And thou shalt eat it as barley bread baked under the ashes: and thou shalt cover it, in their sight, with the dung that cometh out of a man.

4:13. And the Lord said: So shall the children of Israel eat their bread all filthy among the nations whither I will cast them out.

4:14. And I said: Ah, ah, ah, O Lord God, behold my soul hath not been defiled, and from my infancy even till now, I have not eaten any thing that died of itself, or was torn by beasts, and no unclean flesh hath entered into my mouth.