Discovery BoxEzekiel 20:31 
Context20:31 When you present your sacrifices 1 – when you make your sons pass through the fire – you defile yourselves with all your idols to this very day. Will I allow you to seek me, 2 O house of Israel? As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, I will not allow you to seek me! 3
Ezekiel 24:21
Context24:21 Say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Realize I am about to desecrate my sanctuary – the source of your confident pride, 4 the object in which your eyes delight, 5 and your life’s passion. 6 Your very own sons and daughters whom you have left behind will die 7 by the sword.
Ezekiel 40:1
Context40:1 In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city 8 was struck down, on this very day, 9 the hand 10 of the Lord was on me, and he brought me there. 11
1 tn Or “gifts.”
2 tn Or “Will I reveal myself to you?”
3 tn Or “I will not reveal myself to you.”
4 tn Heb “the pride of your strength” means “your strong pride.”
5 sn Heb “the delight of your eyes.” Just as Ezekiel was deprived of his beloved wife (v. 16, the “desire” of his “eyes”) so the Lord would be forced to remove the object of his devotion, the temple, which symbolized his close relationship to his covenant people.
6 tn Heb “the object of compassion of your soul.” The accentuation in the traditional Hebrew text indicates that the descriptive phrases (“the source of your confident pride, the object in which your eyes delight, and your life’s passion”) modify the preceding “my sanctuary.”
7 tn Heb “fall.”
8 sn That is, Jerusalem.
9 tn April 19, 573
10 tn Or “power.”
sn Hand in the OT can refer metaphorically to power, authority, or influence. In Ezekiel God’s hand being on the prophet is regularly associated with communication or a vision from God (3:14, 22; 8:1; 37:1; 40:1).
