A valley of bones
37
📚✭The hand of the LORD was on me, and carried me away✭ in the Spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the middle of the valley. It was full of bones✭, 2 📚and he caused me to go all around among them, and I saw that there were very many in the open valley, and that they were very dry✭. 3 📚✭And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know”.4 📚✭Again he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. 5 📚✭Thus says the Lord God to these bones: See, I will cause breath✭ to enter into you, and you will live. 6 📚And I will put sinews on you, and will bring flesh on you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you will live; and you will know that I am the LORD”.
7 📚✭So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a noise, and then a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 And when I looked I saw the sinews and the flesh coming on them, and the skin covering them, but there was no breath in them.
9 📚✭Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live”. 10 📚So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up on their feet, an exceedingly great army✭.
Promise of a new life
11 📚Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. See, they are saying, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost. We ourselves are cut off✭.’ 12 📚Therefore prophesy and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: See, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up from your graves✭, and I bring you into the land of Israel. 13 📚And you will know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up from your graves. 14 📚✭And I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you will know that I, the LORD, have spoken it, and have done it, says the LORD”.
Unification of Judah and Israel
15 ✭The word of the LORD came again to me, saying, 16 📚“Moreover, son of man, take a stick and write on it, ‘For Judah and for his associates among the children of Israel.’ Then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all his associates among the house of Israel.’ 17 📚And join them to each other as one stick; and they will become one in your hand.
18 📚“And when the children of your people speak to you, saying, ‘Will you not tell us what you mean by these?’ 19 📚Say to them, Thus says the Lord God: See, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and his associates among the tribes of Israel, and will put them with him, with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they will become one in my hand. 20 📚And the sticks which you write on will be in your hand before their eyes. 21 📚And say to them, Thus says the Lord God: See, I will take the children of Israel from among the nations where they have gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land. 22 📚And I will make them one nation in the land on the mountains of Israel. And one king will be king for all of them, and they will no longer be two nations, nor will they ever again be divided into two kingdoms. 23 📚Nor will they any longer defile themselves with their idols, or with their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions; but I will save them from all the dwelling places where they have sinned, and will cleanse them. So they will be my people, and I will be their God.
24 📚✭“And my servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd. They will also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them. 25 📚And they will live in the land that I have given to Jacob✭ my servant, where your fathers lived; and they will live in it, they and their children, and their children’s children forever; and my servant David will be their prince forever✭. 26 📚Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them. It will be an everlasting covenant✭ with them, and I will place them, and multiply them, and will establish my sanctuary✭ in their midst forever. 27 📚And my tabernacle✭ will be with them. Yes, I will be their God, and they will be my people. 28 📚And the nations will know that I, the LORD, sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forever”.