I said, “Speak, my lord”: For my lord as an address to an angel, see the comments on 2 Esd 2.44.

And he said to me: Good News Bible says simply “He continued,” and Contemporary English Version has “Uriel replied.”

There is a sea set in a wide expanse so that it is broad and vast, but it has an entrance set in a narrow place, so that it is like a river: Here Uriel is not giving Ezra information about a sea that exists; he is calling on him to imagine such a sea. Good News Bible makes this clear by beginning with “Picture in your mind a broad, immense sea spreading over a vast area…,” and so does Contemporary English Version with “Suppose there is a very large and deep ocean….” The sea is a symbol of the world or age to come. As the Revised Standard Version footnote indicates, the Latin manuscripts have “deep” instead of broad, and we recommend this reading. The entrance set in a narrow place is an image for the present age (compare Matt 7.13-14; Luke 13.24). But it has an entrance set in a narrow place may be rendered “but the only way to reach it is through a narrow passage” or “but the only way into the ocean is through a narrow opening” (Contemporary English Version). So that it is like a river may be translated “no wider than a river” (Good News Bible).

Here are possible models for verses 3-4:

• 3 I said, “My lord, speak.”
He replied, “Picture in your mind [or, Imagine, if you would,] a very large and deep ocean, 4 but the only way to get to it is by a river going through a narrow passage.

• … 4 but the only way to reach it is through a narrow opening like a river.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on 1-2 Esdras. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2019. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.