Ezekiel 36-37

Ezekiel 36

¹And you, son of man, be a prophet about the mountains of Israel, and say, You mountains of Israel, give ear to the word of the Lord:

²This is what the Lord has said: Because your hater has said against you, Aha! and, The old waste places are our heritage, we have taken them:

³For this cause be a prophet, and say, This is what the Lord has said: Because, even because they have been glad over you and put you to shame on every side, because you have become a heritage for the rest of the nations, and you are taken up on the lips of talkers and in the evil talk of the people:

⁴For this reason, you mountains of Israel, give ear to the word of the Lord; this is what the Lord has said to the mountains and to the hills, to the streams and to the valleys, to the unpeopled wastes and to the towns where no one is living, from which the goods have been taken and which have been put to shame by the rest of the nations who are round about:

⁵For this cause the Lord has said: Truly, in the heat of my bitter feeling I have said things against the rest of the nations and against all Edom, who have taken my land as a heritage for themselves with the joy of all their heart, and with bitter envy of soul have made attacks on it:

⁶For this cause be a prophet about the land of Israel, and say to the mountains and to the hills, to the streams and to the valleys, This is what the Lord has said: Truly, in my bitter feeling and in my wrath I have said these things, because you have undergone the shame of the nations:

⁷For this cause the Lord has said, See, I have taken an oath that the nations which are round about you are themselves to undergo the shame which they have put on you.

⁸But you, O mountains of Israel, will put out your branches and give your fruit to my people Israel; for they are ready to come.

⁹For truly I am for you, and I will be turned to you, and you will be ploughed and planted:

¹⁰And I will let your numbers be increased, all the children of Israel, even all of them: and the towns will be peopled and the waste places will have buildings;

¹¹Man and beast will be increased in you, and they will have offspring and be fertile: I will make you thickly peopled as you were before, and will do more for you than at the first: and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

¹²Yes, I will have you walked on by the feet of men, even my people Israel; they will have you for a heritage and you will be theirs, and never again will you take their children from them.

¹³This is what the Lord has said: Because they say to you, You, O land, are the destruction of men, causing loss of children to your nation;

¹⁴For this reason you will no longer take the lives of men and will never again be the cause of loss of children to your nation, says the Lord.

¹⁵And I will not let the shaming of the nations come to your ears, and no longer will you be looked down on by the peoples, says the Lord.

¹⁶Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

¹⁷Son of man, when the children of Israel were living in their land, they made it unclean by their way and their acts: their way before me was as when a woman is unclean at the time when she is kept separate.

¹⁸So I let loose my wrath on them because of those whom they had violently put to death in the land, and because they had made it unclean with their images:

¹⁹And I sent them in flight among the nations and wandering through the countries: I was their judge, rewarding them for their way and their acts.

²⁰And when they came among the nations, wherever they went, they made my holy name unclean, when it was said of them, These are the people of the Lord who have gone out from his land.

²¹But I had pity for my holy name which the children of Israel had made unclean wherever they went.

²²For this cause say to the children of Israel, This is what the Lord has said: I am doing this, not because of you, O children of Israel, but because of my holy name, which you have made unclean among the nations wherever you went.

²³And I will make holy my great name which has been made unclean among the nations, which you have made unclean among them; and it will be clear to the nations that I am the Lord, says the Lord, when I make myself holy in you before their eyes.

²⁴For I will take you out from among the nations, and get you together from all the countries, and take you into your land.

²⁵And I will put clean water on you so that you may be clean: from all your unclean ways and from all your images I will make you clean.

²⁶And I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you: I will take away the heart of stone from your flesh, and give you a heart of flesh.

²⁷And I will put my spirit in you, causing you to be guided by my rules, and you will keep my orders and do them.

²⁸So that you may go on living in the land which I gave to your fathers; and you will be to me a people, and I will be to you a God.

²⁹And I will make you free from all your unclean ways: and at my voice the grain will come up and be increased, and I will not let you be short of food.

³⁰And I will make the tree give more fruit and the field fuller produce, and no longer will you be shamed among the nations for need of food.

³¹And at the memory of your evil ways and your wrongdoings, you will have bitter hate for yourselves because of your evil-doings and your disgusting ways, O children of Israel.

³²Not because of you am I doing it, says the Lord; let it be clear to you, and be shamed and made low because of your ways, O children of Israel.

³³This is what the Lord has said: In the day when I make you clean from all your evil-doings I will let the towns be peopled and there will be building on the waste places.

³⁴And the land which was waste will be farmed, in place of being a waste in the eyes of everyone who went by.

³⁵And they will say, This land which was waste has become like the garden of Eden; and the towns which were unpeopled and wasted and pulled down are walled and peopled.

³⁶Then the rest of the nations round about you will be certain that I the Lord am the builder of the places which were pulled down and the planter of that which was waste: I the Lord have said it, and I will do it.

³⁷This is what the Lord has said: The children of Israel will again make prayer to me for this, that I may do it for them; I will make them increased with men like a flock.

³⁸Like sheep for the offerings, like the sheep of Jerusalem at her fixed feasts, so the unpeopled towns will be made full of men: and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

Ezekiel 37

¹The hand of the Lord had been on me, and he took me out in the spirit of the Lord and put me down in the middle of the valley; and it was full of bones;

²And he made me go past them round about: and I saw that there was a very great number of them on the face of the wide valley, and they were very dry.

³And he said to me, Son of man, is it possible for these bones to come to life? And I made answer, and said, It is for you to say, O Lord.

⁴And again he said to me, Be a prophet to these bones, and say to them, O you dry bones, give ear to the word of the Lord.

⁵This is what the Lord has said to these bones: See, I will make breath come into you so that you may come to life;

⁶And I will put muscles on you and make flesh come on you, and put skin over you, and breath into you, so that you may have life; and you will be certain that I am the Lord.

⁷So I gave the word as I was ordered: and at my words there was a shaking of the earth, and the bones came together, bone to bone.

⁸And looking I saw that there were muscles on them and flesh came up, and they were covered with skin: but there was no breath in them.

⁹And he said to me, Be a prophet to the wind, be a prophet, son of man, and say to the wind, The Lord has said: Come from the four winds, O wind, breathing on these dead so that they may come to life.

¹⁰And I gave the word at his orders, and breath came into them, and they came to life and got up on their feet, a very great army.

¹¹Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are all the children of Israel: and see, they are saying, Our bones have become dry our hope is gone, we are cut off completely.

¹²For this cause be a prophet to them, and say, This is what the Lord has said: See, I am opening the resting-places of your dead, and I will make you come up out of your resting-places, O my people; and I will take you into the land of Israel.

¹³And you will be certain that I am the Lord by my opening the resting-places of your dead and making you come up out of your resting-places, O my people.

¹⁴And I will put my spirit in you, so that you may come to life, and I will give you a rest in your land: and you will be certain that I the Lord have said it and have done it, says the Lord.

¹⁵And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

¹⁶And you, son of man, take one stick, writing on it, For Judah and for the children of Israel who are in his company: then take another stick, writing on it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and all the children of Israel who are in his company:

¹⁷Then, joining them one to another, make them one stick, so that they may be one in your hand.

¹⁸And when the children of your people say to you, Will you not make clear to us what these things have to do with us?

¹⁹Then say to them, This is what the Lord has said: See, I am taking the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel who are in his company; and I will put it on the stick of Judah and make them one stick, and they will be one in my hand.

²⁰And the sticks with your writing on them will be in your hand before their eyes.

²¹And say to them, These are the words of the Lord: See, I am taking the children of Israel from among the nations where they have gone, and will get them together on every side, and take them into their land:

²²And I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king will be king over them all: and they will no longer be two nations, and will no longer be parted into two kingdoms:

²³And they will no longer make themselves unclean with their images or with their hated things or with any of their sins: but I will give them salvation from all their turning away in which they have done evil, and will make them clean; and they will be to me a people, and I will be to them a God.

²⁴And my servant David will be king over them; and they will all have one keeper: and they will be guided by my orders and will keep my rules and do them.

²⁵And they will be living in the land which I gave to Jacob, my servant, in which your fathers were living; and they will go on living there, they and their children and their children's children, for ever: and David, my servant, will be their ruler for ever.

²⁶And I will make an agreement of peace with them: it will be an eternal agreement with them: and I will have mercy on them and make their numbers great, and will put my holy place among them for ever.

²⁷And my House will be over them; and I will be to them a God, and they will be to me a people.

²⁸And the nations will be certain that I who make Israel holy am the Lord, when my holy place is among them for ever.