Discovery BoxEzekiel 4:12-15 
Context4:12 And you must eat the food like you would a barley cake. You must bake it in front of them over a fire made with dried human excrement.” 1 4:13 And the Lord said, “This is how the people of Israel will eat their unclean food among the nations 2 where I will banish them.”
4:14 And I said, “Ah, sovereign Lord, I have never been ceremonially defiled before. I have never eaten a carcass or an animal torn by wild beasts; from my youth up, unclean meat 3 has never entered my mouth.”
4:15 So he said to me, “All right then, I will substitute cow’s manure instead of human excrement. You will cook your food over it.”
1 sn Human waste was to remain outside the camp of the Israelites according to Deut 23:15.
2 sn Unclean food among the nations. Lands outside of Israel were considered unclean (Josh 22:19; Amos 7:17).
3 tn The Hebrew term refers to sacrificial meat not eaten by the appropriate time (Lev 7:18; 19:7).
