1. When I had finished speaking, the same angel that had been sent to me on the earlier nights appeared again.
2. He said, “Stand up, Ezra, and listen to what I have come to tell you.”
3. “Go ahead, sir,” I said.He continued, “Picture in your mind a broad, immense sea spreading over a vast area,
4. but with an entrance no wider than a river.
5. No one who wishes to enter that sea, whether to visit it or control it, can reach its broad expanse of water without passing through the narrow entrance.
6. Or take another example: Picture a city on a plain. The city is full of all kinds of good things,
7. but the entrance to it is narrow and steep, with fire on one side and deep water on the other.
8. The one path between the fire and the water is so narrow that only one person at a time may walk on it.