Thus will I spend my wrath upon the wall, and upon those who have daubed it with whitewash: By destroying the city of Jerusalem and its false prophets, God’s anger will subside and come to an end. For will I spend my wrath, see 5.13. As there, many translations are more threatening than the Hebrew here; for example, Good News Translation says “The wall and those who covered it with whitewash will feel the force of my anger,” and Contemporary English Version has “The city of Jerusalem and its lying prophets will feel my fierce anger.” Both these renderings miss the sense of God’s anger coming to an end. A better model is “That is how I will satisfy [or, use up completely] my anger on the wall and on those who have covered it with whitewash” or “At last my anger against the wall and those who covered it with whitewash will be satisfied” (New Living Translation).

And I will say to you, The wall is no more, nor those who daubed it: The pronoun you probably refers to the people of Israel in general, that is, Ezekiel’s audience. Translators will do well to keep the picture of the wall of loose stones here, even though the city of Jerusalem is also clearly in view. This sentence may be rendered “Then I will say to my people, ‘The wall is gone and so are those who whitewashed it [or, and those who whitewashed it are dead].’ ”

Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .