Take the choicest one of the flock continues the theme of cooking only the best meat. The Hebrew word for flock refers to sheep here. Good News Translation says “Use the meat of the finest sheep,” and New Living Translation has “Use only the best sheep from the flock.”

In many languages it will be clearer to rearrange the poetic lines of verses 3b-5a in chronological order as follows:

• Put the cooking pot on the fire, put it on;
pour plenty of water in it.
Take one of the best sheep from the flock;
kill it, cut it in pieces,
and put the best pieces into the pot—
the legs, the shoulders, and the choicest joints—
put them all into the pot.

The meaning of the next three lines is disputed.

Pile the logs under it: The Hebrew text actually says “pile the bones under it” (similarly King James Version / New King James Version, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). This reading is confusing because the bones are both inside the pot and underneath it, although these “bones” may possibly refer to other bones, not the “choice bones” of the previous verse. However, Revised Standard Version and most other translations change the Hebrew text here to refer to putting wood on the fire under the pot to make it burn strongly; for example, Good News Translation says “pile the wood under the pot,” and New Living Translation has “heap fuel on the fire beneath the pot.” This reading makes very good sense and a minor change in the way the Hebrew letters are divided into words produces it. This reading also fits better with verse 10. Although Hebrew Old Testament Text Project prefers the reading with “bones,” translators may follow either reading.

Boil its pieces: In Hebrew this line is literally “boil its boiling,” which repeats the word for “boil.” This repetition intensifies the idea of boiling. In the Hebrew text there is also a play on the sounds of the Hebrew letters that sound a little like water boiling. Translations that express the Hebrew well here are “Get it boiling briskly” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh) and “make the pot boil and bubble” (Jerusalem Bible). If translators cannot maintain the sound play, they must at least use an expression to show that the pot is boiling vigorously. Revised Standard Version changes one letter in the Hebrew word for “boiling,” so that it reads pieces as in verse 4. Although some Hebrew manuscripts have this word, it is better not to follow them (so Hebrew Old Testament Text Project).

Seethe also its bones in it: Many translations take the Hebrew verb here as an imperative in line with the other verbs in the song (so Revised Standard Version/New Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation, New International Version, New International Reader’s Version, New Living Translation, Revised English Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh), but this requires a change in the text. The Hebrew verb is actually third person plural indicative, so the Hebrew of this line reads literally “[until] even its bones are cooked in it” (similarly New Century Version, Jerusalem Bible/New Jerusalem Bible). The change in the grammar indicates that this is the end of the song. Seethe is an old English word meaning boil or cook.

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 .