11 The Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the east gate of the house of the Lord, which faces east. And behold, at the entrance of the gateway there were twenty-five men. And I saw among them Jaazaniah the son of Azzur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, princes of the people. 2 And he said to me, “Son of man, these are the men who devise iniquity and who give wicked counsel in this city; 3 who say, ‘The time is not near to build houses. This city is the cauldron, and we are the meat.’ 4 Therefore prophesy against them, prophesy, O son of man.”
5 And the Spirit of the Lord fell upon me, and he said to me, “Say, Thus says the Lord: So you think, O house of Israel. For I know the things that come into your mind. 6 You have multiplied your slain in this city and have filled its streets with the slain. 7 Therefore thus says the Lord God: Your slain whom you have laid in the midst of it, they are the meat, and this city is the cauldron, but you shall be brought out of the midst of it. 8 You have feared the sword, and I will bring the sword upon you, declares the Lord God. 9 And I will bring you out of the midst of it, and give you into the hands of foreigners, and execute judgements upon you. 10 You shall fall by the sword. I will judge you at the border of Israel, and you shall know that I am the Lord.11 This city shall not be your cauldron, nor shall you be the meat in the midst of it. I will judge you at the border of Israel, 12 and you shall know that I am the Lord. For you have not walked in my statutes, nor obeyed my rules, but have acted according to the rules of the nations that are around you.”
13 And it came to pass, while I was prophesying, that Pelatiah the son of Benaiah died. Then I fell down on my face and cried out with a loud voice and said, “Ah, Lord God! Will you make a full end of the remnant of Israel?”
The people of Jerusalem, in their crass self-confidence, were claiming that they, who had remained in Jerusalem, were the worthy part of the nation ('we be the flesh', 3), as against those who had gone into exile. But the prophet disabuses them of this idea also. The real 'flesh', those of true worth in God's sight, were the many innocent who had been slain (7). As for those remaining in Jerusalem, they would be taken out of the cauldron, out of their supposed place of protection, and exposed to the fiery judgment of God. On the utterance of this prophecy by Ezekiel, spoken before the elders of the exile in Babylon, Pelatiah died in Jerusalem (a circumstance which must subsequently have been reported to the exiles in Babylon, and which must have served to confirm the authenticity of Ezekiel's vision before his fellows). The sense of this happening was so acute in Ezekiel's consciousness and spirit, however, that it moved him again to intercession for his people - a further evidence of the depths of the prophet's anguish at the fate of the city. And from this prayer, we are led into the second section of the chapter, and the vision of hope for the exiles at Chebar.