Ezekiel 11:3

3. It is not near; let us build houses Rather, the time to build houses is not near. The meaning is obscure, but seems to be this: It is no time now for peaceful occupations (Ezekiel 28:26; Isaiah 65:21; Jeremiah 29:5; Jeremiah 29:28). Jeremiah had called Jerusalem a seething “pot” the same word as caldron in Hebrew (Jeremiah 1:13) and so it might become if they did not arouse from their lethargy. But even the walls of an iron pot protect the flesh within it, and it was the part of patriots to strengthen their defenses rather than to give up to despair or leap into the Babylonian fires; therefore they will stay behind the walls, and, if they must die, they will die there. This was the answer of the war party to the prophets who counseled submission to Babylon, and it struck a popular chord.