1. The voice said to me, “Son of man, eat what I am giving you—eat this scroll! Then go and give its message to the people of Israel.”
2. So I opened my mouth, and he fed me the scroll.
3. “Fill your stomach with this,” he said. And when I ate it, it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth.
4. Then he said, “Son of man, go to the people of Israel and give them my messages.
5. I am not sending you to a foreign people whose language you cannot understand.
6. No, I am not sending you to people with strange and difficult speech. If I did, they would listen!
7. But the people of Israel won’t listen to you any more than they listen to me! For the whole lot of them are hard-hearted and stubborn.
8. But look, I have made you as obstinate and hard-hearted as they are.
9. I have made your forehead as hard as the hardest rock! So don’t be afraid of them or fear their angry looks, even though they are rebels.”