Ezekiel 3:4

What does that show, if not that God was speaking through the prophet? Now it is we clergy who were above all terrified by the prophet's words, that is, the leaders whom God appointed to speak to his people, and so we begin by seeing our own faces in those words. For as the reader intoned them we had a kind of mirror held up to us in which we could inspect ourselves, and inspect ourselves we did. Inspect yourselves, too, then.

Here he clearly shows the distinction between apostolic and prophetic labors. Prophets have committed to them the responsibility of only one race, from which they were to have arisen and whose native language they knew. Apostles … have all the nations and peoples of the …

(Verse 5, 6.) For you are not being sent to the people of deep and difficult language, to the house of Israel, nor to many people of unknown language, whose language you cannot understand. And if I were to send you to them, they would listen to you. Because they do not want to come to you, you go to them. For they do not have a need for a healthy doctor, but for ones who are sick (Luke 5:31).

"And he said to me: Son of man, go to the house of Israel, and you shall speak my words to them." In that the Lord says to the prophet, "You shall speak my words to them," what else does He do but place a bridle of restraint upon his mouth, lest he presume to speak outwardly what he has not first heard inwardly? For false prophets spoke their own words and not God's, of whom it is written: "Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you and deceive you; they speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of the Lord." And again: "I did not speak to them, and they themselves prophesied." From this it must also be gathered that whoever as an expositor in the explanation of sacred Scripture composes something by lying, perhaps to please his hearers, speaks his own words and not the Lord's—if indeed he lies from a desire to please or to seduce. For if one seeking the power in the Lord's words should understand them differently than he through whom they were uttered understood them, even if under another interpretation he seeks the building up of charity, the words he relates are the Lord's, because God speaks to us through all of sacred Scripture for this one purpose alone: that He may draw us to love of Him and of our neighbor.

Scripture truths look best in scripture language, their native dress; and how can we better speak God's mind than with his words? (2.) He must remember that they are the house of Israel whom he is sent to speak to, God's house and his own; and therefore such as he ought to have a particular concern for and to deal faithfully and tenderly with.