In today’s first reading we hear from the Prophet Ezekiel. It is from the end of his prophetic writings and there is a lot of “water under bridge” that has led to this amazing vision of a new temple being the source of restorative and living water, water that is so inevitable, so powerful, that even the Dead Sea valley will be restored. The language used echoes that of the story of creation from the Book of Genesis, which portrays paradise as a garden, rendered fruitful by a river flowing out of Eden and dividing into four branches, and which Yahweh visits daily (3:8). The imagery Ezekiel provides finds later echoes in the prophets Joel and Zechariah. Ezekiel’s vision of the stream also lives on in the NT. One may recognize a veiled allusion in Jesus’ words in John 7:38: “As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water,’” presumably as a life-giving agent of divine grace and blessing. There are other NT references for which the use of specific Greek words might connect to Ezekiel 47, but without doubt the clearest reference is found in the last book of Scripture: