Bible Strands
Ezekiel 3:11
Go to your people, the exiles; speak to them and tell them, ‘This is what the Lord GOD says,’ whether they listen or refuse to listen.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The Lord GOD commands the prophet Ezekiel to go to the exiled people of Israel. This directive follows the immediate prior instruction for the prophet to carefully receive and internalize the divine message.
The words — The command opens with לֵ֨ךְ (Lekh), meaning "go," and concludes with וְ/דִבַּרְתָּ֤ (ve./di.bar.Ta), meaning "and you will speak." These terms establish the prophet's required movement and mandatory verbal delivery to the exiles.
The thread — The identical phrase to speak "whether they listen or refuse to listen" appears in Ezekiel 2:5, Ezekiel 2:7, and Ezekiel 3:27. These passages collectively frame the prophetic mandate as independent of audience compliance.
Why it lands — The text demands proclamation of the divine declaration without any condition of human acceptance. A reader must acknowledge that faithful delivery operates regardless of whether the audience receives the message.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And go, get thee to them of the captivity, unto the children of thy people, and speak unto them, and tell them, Thus saith the Lord God; whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear.
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 2:7 But speak My words to them, whether they listen or refuse to listen, for they are rebellious.
- Ezekiel 2:5 And whether they listen or refuse to listen—for they are a rebellious house—they will know that a prophet has been among them.
- Ezekiel 3:27 But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth, and you are to tell them, ‘This is what the Lord GOD says.’ Whoever listens, let him listen; and whoever refuses, let him refuse, for they are a rebellious house.
- Ezekiel 33:2 “Son of man, speak to your people and tell them: ‘Suppose I bring the sword against a land, and the people of that land choose a man from among them, appointing him as their watchman,
- Ezekiel 33:12 Therefore, son of man, say to your people: ‘The righteousness of the righteous man will not deliver him in the day of his transgression; neither will the wickedness of the wicked man cause him to stumble on the day he turns from his wickedness. Nor will the righteous man be able to survive by his righteousness on the day he sins.’
- Ezekiel 33:17 Yet your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But it is their way that is not just.
- Ezekiel 33:30 As for you, son of man, your people are talking about you near the city walls and in the doorways of their houses. One speaks to another, each saying to his brother, ‘Come and hear the message that has come from the LORD!’
- Exodus 32:7 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.
- Deuteronomy 9:12 And the LORD said to me, “Get up and go down from here at once, for your people, whom you brought out of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. How quickly they have turned aside from the way that I commanded them! They have made for themselves a molten image.”
- Ezekiel 3:15 I came to the exiles at Tel-abib who dwelt by the River Kebar. And for seven days I sat where they sat and remained there among them, overwhelmed.