The word of the LORD came again to me, saying,
The word of the Lord came again to me. The second part of the chapter: the effect which the presence of a few righteous persons was to have on the purposes of God (cf. Abraham's plea with God for Sodom, if ten righteous persons could be found in it, Genesis 18:24-32). God had told Jeremiah that the guilt of Judah was too great to be pardoned even for the intercession of Moses and Samuel (Psalms 99:6; Jeremiah 15:1), though their intercessions had prevailed formerly (Exodus 32:11-14; Numbers 14:13-20; 1 Samuel 7:8-12); implying the extraordinary heinousness of their guilt, since in ordinary cases "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man (for others) availeth much" (James 5:16). Ezekiel supplements Jeremiah, by adding that not only those two once-successful intercessors, but not even the three pre-eminently righteous men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, could stay God's judgments by their righteousness.