Now there was a great famine in Samaria, since they were besieging it, until a donkey’s head was sold for 80 pieces of silver, and the quarter of a kav of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver.
And I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and their daughters, and everyone will eat his companion’s flesh during the siege and distress, which their enemies and those who seek their life will inflict on them.
Then Zedekiah the king gave a command, and they committed Jeremiah into the courtyard of the guard. They gave him a loaf of bread from the bakers’ street daily, until all the bread in the city was spent. So Jeremiah stayed in the guard’s courtyard.
thus says Adonai: “He that remains in this city will die by the sword, by famine, and by plague, but anyone who goes out to the Chaldeans will live—so he will keep his life like the spoils of war, and will live.”
For thus Adonai says: “How much more if I send My four dreadful judgments against Jerusalem—the sword, the famine, the evil beasts and the plague—to cut man and beast off from it.
Therefore the fathers will eat the sons in your midst, and sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments on you and I will scatter the remainder of you to all the winds.
A third of you will die with the plague and will be consumed with famine in your midst. A third will fall by the sword all around you. A third I will scatter to all the winds, and draw out a sword after them.
Outside is the sword, inside plague and famine. Whoever is in the field will die by the sword. Whoever is in the city will be devoured by famine and plague.
When I break your staff of bread, ten women will bake your bread in one oven, and they will bring back your bread by weight, so that you will eat but not be satisfied.
“Thus says Adonai-Tzva’ot, “The fast of the fourth, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth month will become joy, gladness and cheerful moadim. Therefore, love truth and shalom!’