The Man with a Measuring Rod

In the twenty-fifth year of exile, fourteen years after Jerusalem's fall, the hand of the LORD takes Ezekiel in visions to Israel and sets him on a very high mountain beside a city-like structure. There he sees a bronze-like man with a linen cord and measuring rod at the gateway. The man commands Ezekiel to look, hear, and pay attention to everything shown, because he must report it to the house of Israel.

I¹n 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 Jerusalem had been struck down — on that very day the hand of the LORD was upon me, and He took me there. ²In visions of God He took me to the land of Israel and set me on a very high mountain, on whose southern slope was a structure that resembled a city. ³So He took me there, and I saw a man whose appearance was like bronze. He was standing in the gateway with a linen cord and a measuring rod in his hand. ⁴“Son of man,” he said to me, “look with your eyes, hear with your ears, and pay attention to everything I am going to show you, for that is why you have been brought here. Report to the house of Israel everything you see.”