'Yagnavalkya,' he said, 'everything here (connected with the sacrifice) is reached by death, everything is overcome by death. By what means then is the sacrificer freed beyond the reach of death?' Yagnavalkya said: 'By the Hotri priest, who is Agni (fire), who is speech. For speech is the Hotri of the sacrifice (or the sacrificer), and speech is Agni, and he is the Hotri. This constitutes freedom, and perfect freedom (from death).'

In plain words: Asvala asks how a person doing a sacrifice can get free from death, since death reaches everything. Yajnavalkya answers that freedom comes through the Hotri priest, the one who recites, understood as speech and as Agni, the fire god. Seeing speech as the divine fire is what sets one free.