What is in your mind shall never happen—the thought …: The Israelites in exile decided they no longer wanted to worship Yahweh. They wanted to be like the nations around them and worship the local gods. What is in your mind refers to this idea the people had. Shall never happen renders an emphatic Hebrew expression, one in which the verb for happen is repeated. Although it is possible for God to know the thoughts of the people, the thought is literally “that which you are saying.” It is best to assume that the people had been expressing this desire, not just thinking it.

Let us be like the nations, like the tribes of the countries, and worship wood and stone: The people wanted to be like the other nations by worshiping idols made of wood and stone. The Hebrew word for tribes refers to social, kinship and ethnic groupings. If a language has a word for this, translators can certainly use it. However, if not, they may render the tribes of the countries as “the people of other countries” or “the groups in other countries.” Worship wood and stone means “worship idols of wood and stone” (New Century Version; similarly Contemporary English Version, New Living Translation). Good News Translation says “worship trees and rocks.” It is unlikely that the people actually said that they wanted to worship wood and stone, but God puts it in this way to show how stupid they were. Some translations make this clause a relative one that describes the other nations; for example, New Living Translation renders the whole sentence as “We want to be like the nations all around us, who serve idols of wood and stone” (similarly New International Version). However, it is better to render it as an independent clause; for example, New Century Version has “We want to be like the other nations, like the people in other lands. We want to worship idols made of wood and stone.”

In many languages it will be more logical to place shall never happen at the end of this verse after expressing the desire of the people (so Good News Translation). A model that does this is:

• You are saying that you want to worship idols of wood and stone and be like the other nations, like tribes [or, groups] in other countries. That is never going to happen.

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 .