¹ Thus saith Jehovah unto me, Go, and buy thee a linen girdle, and put it upon thy loins, and put it not in water.

¹¹ For as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah, saith Jehovah; that they may be unto me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory: but they would not hear.

¹ Thus said Jehovah, Go, and buy a potter's earthen bottle, and `take' of the elders of the people, and of the elders of the priests;

² Thus saith Jehovah to me: Make thee bonds and bars, and put them upon thy neck;

¹ Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and portray upon it a city, even Jerusalem:

² 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 And take thou unto thee an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city: and set thy face toward it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.

⁴ Moreover lie thou upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it; `according to' the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it, thou shalt bear their iniquity.

⁵ For I have appointed the years of their iniquity to be unto thee a number of days, even three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

¹ God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners,