¹ Thus said Jehovah unto me, `Go, and thou hast got for thee a girdle of linen, and hast placed it on thy loins, and into water thou dost not cause it to enter:'

¹¹ For, as the girdle cleaveth unto the loins of a man, So I caused to cleave unto Me The whole house of Israel, And the whole house of Judah, an affirmation of Jehovah, To be to Me for a people, and for a name, And for praise, and for beauty, And they have not hearkened.

¹ Thus said Jehovah, `Go, and thou hast got a potter's earthen vessel, and of the elders of the people, and of the elders of the priests,

² `Thus said Jehovah unto me, Make to thee bands and yokes,

¹ `And thou, son of man, take to thee a brick, and thou hast put it before thee, and hast graven on it a city -- Jerusalem,

² and hast placed against it a siege, and builded against it a fortification, and poured out against it a mount, and placed against it camps, yea, set thou against it battering-rams round about.

³ And thou, take to thee an iron pan, and thou hast made it a wall of iron between thee and the city; and thou hast prepared thy face against it, and it hath been in a siege, yea, thou hast laid siege against it. A sign it `is' to the house of Israel.

⁴ `And thou, lie on thy left side, and thou hast placed the iniquity of the house of Israel on it; the number of the days that thou liest on it, thou bearest their iniquity.

⁵ And I -- I have laid on thee the years of their iniquity, the number of days, three hundred and ninety days; and thou hast borne the iniquity of the house of Israel.

¹ In many parts, and many ways, God of old having spoken to the fathers in the prophets,