Ezekiel 14:12

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, ). God had told Jeremiah that the guilt of Judah was too great to be pardoned even for the intercession of Moses and Samuel (; ), though their intercessions had prevailed formerly (; ; 1 Samuel 7:8); implying the extraordinary heinousness of their guilt, since in ordinary cases "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man (for others) availeth much" (). 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.