Fugitive

The Fugitive

There is a fugitive at the door!

At our door?

someone asks on behalf of the whole company

No one but the heavens know how to find our door!

Is he a fugitive from the stars?

Ask the little ones from behind their mother's knees.

From beyond the stars?

Asks the teenage warrior son.

A fugitive from the Temple ruins,

answers the elder who has opened the door.

And the prophet Ezekiel is with him.

The prophet Ezekiel is much too lofty,

says someone in the company.

We are not worthy or prepared to receive him!

Is he really standing at the door with the fugitive?

This is embarrassing.

We are making plans

We plan to reuse the Temple architecture from Herod's day.

What will Ezekiel say?

I doubt he will speak at all,

the elder who opened the door replied.

He is standing behind the fugitive.

It looks as if he wants the fugitive to be his spokesman.

Who is the fugitive,

the little children ask again,

and from whom is he a fugitive?

I am a fugitive from the angel of death,

the fugitive, having stepped in through the door, answered.

I was in the second Temple when it was consumed.

But I escaped through the dragon's teeth.

I wandered alone for countless years,

until the prophet Ezekiel appeared to me and said,

I have prophesied of you.

Go now to the place of the Jewish soul

and weep there with her

until she hears her weeping as your weeping

and hears your weeping as a song,

the song of the rejoicing of the highest heaven!

A long silence filled the air.

Then the fugitive spoke again,

Allow me therefore to stay and reside here with you,

and the prophet Ezekiel with me.

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