Ezekiel 33-39

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

Ezekiel Israel’s Sentry

33 The word of the Lord came to me: ² “Son of man, speak to your people and say to them, If I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from among them, and make him their watchman; ³ and if he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people; ⁴ then if any one who hears the sound of the trumpet does not take warning, and the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. ⁵ He heard the sound of the trumpet, and did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But if he had taken warning, he would have saved his life. ⁶ But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes, and takes any one of them; that man is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.

⁷ “So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. ⁸ If I say to the wicked, O wicked man, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. ⁹ But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way; he shall die in his iniquity, but you will have saved your life.

God’s Justice and Mercy

¹⁰ “And you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, Thus have you said: ‘Our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we waste away because of them; how then can we live?’ ¹¹ Say to them, As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel? ¹² And you, son of man, say to your people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him when he transgresses; and as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall by it when he turns from his wickedness; and the righteous shall not be able to live by his righteousness^[a] when he sins. ¹³ Though I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, yet if he trusts in his righteousness and commits iniquity, none of his righteous deeds shall be remembered; but in the iniquity that he has committed he shall die. ¹⁴ Again, though I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ yet if he turns from his sin and does what is lawful and right, ¹⁵ if the wicked restores the pledge, gives back what he has taken by robbery, and walks in the statutes of life, committing no iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die. ¹⁶ None of the sins that he has committed shall be remembered against him; he has done what is lawful and right, he shall surely live.

¹⁷ “Yet your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just’; when it is their own way that is not just. ¹⁸ When the righteous turns from his righteousness, and commits iniquity, he shall die for it. ¹⁹ And when the wicked turns from his wickedness, and does what is lawful and right, he shall live by it. ²⁰ Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ O house of Israel, I will judge each of you according to his ways.”

The Fall of Jerusalem

²¹ In the twelfth year of our exile, in the tenth month, on the fifth day of the month, a man who had escaped from Jerusalem came to me and said, “The city has fallen.” ²² Now the hand of the Lord had been upon me the evening before the fugitive came; and he had opened my mouth by the time the man came to me in the morning; so my mouth was opened, and I was no longer dumb.

The Survivors in Judah

²³ The word of the Lord came to me: ²⁴ “Son of man, the inhabitants of these waste places in the land of Israel keep saying, ‘Abraham was only one man, yet he got possession of the land; but we are many; the land is surely given us to possess.’ ²⁵ Therefore say to them, Thus says the Lord God: You eat flesh with the blood, and lift up your eyes to your idols, and shed blood; shall you then possess the land? ²⁶ You resort to the sword, you commit abominations and each of you defiles his neighbor’s wife; shall you then possess the land? ²⁷ Say this to them, Thus says the Lord God: As I live, surely those who are in the waste places shall fall by the sword; and him that is in the open field I will give to the beasts to be devoured; and those who are in strongholds and in caves shall die by pestilence. ²⁸ And I will make the land a desolation and a waste; and her proud might shall come to an end; and the mountains of Israel shall be so desolate that none will pass through. ²⁹ Then they will know that I am the Lord, when I have made the land a desolation and a waste because of all their abominations which they have committed.

³⁰ “As for you, son of man, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to his brother, ‘Come, and hear what the word is that comes forth from the Lord.’ ³¹ And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say but they will not do it; for with their lips they show much love, but their heart is set on their gain. ³² And lo, you are to them like one who sings love songs^[b] with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not do it. ³³ When this comes—and come it will!—then they will know that a prophet has been among them.”

Israel’s False Shepherds

34 The word of the Lord came to me: ² “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel,^[c] prophesy, and say to them, even to the shepherds, Thus says the Lord God: Ho, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? ³ You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. ⁴ The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the crippled you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. ⁵ So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and they became food for all the wild beasts. ⁶ My sheep were scattered, they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill; my sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them.

⁷ “Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: ⁸ As I live, says the Lord God, because my sheep have become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild beasts, since there was no shepherd; and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep; ⁹ therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: ¹⁰ Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my sheep at their hand, and put a stop to their feeding the sheep; no longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them.

God, the True Shepherd

¹¹ “For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. ¹² As a shepherd seeks out his flock when some of his sheep^[d] have been scattered abroad, so will I seek out my sheep; and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. ¹³ And I will bring them out from the peoples, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the fountains, and in all the inhabited places of the country. ¹⁴ I will feed them with good pasture, and upon the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on fat pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. ¹⁵ I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. ¹⁶ I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the crippled, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will watch over;^[e] I will feed them in justice.

¹⁷ “As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord God: Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, rams and he-goats. ¹⁸ Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, that you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture; and to drink of clear water, that you must foul the rest with your feet? ¹⁹ And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have fouled with your feet?

²⁰ “Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them: Behold, I, I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. ²¹ Because you push with side and shoulder, and thrust at all the weak with your horns, till you have scattered them abroad, ²² I will save my flock, they shall no longer be a prey; and I will judge between sheep and sheep. ^23 [f]And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. ²⁴ And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them; I, the Lord, have spoken.

²⁵ “I will make with them a covenant of peace and banish wild beasts from the land, so that they may dwell securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. ²⁶ And I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will send down the showers in their season; they shall be showers of blessing. ²⁷ And the trees of the field shall yield their fruit, and the earth shall yield its increase, and they shall be secure in their land; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I break the bars of their yoke, and deliver them from the hand of those who enslaved them. ²⁸ They shall no more be a prey to the nations, nor shall the beasts of the land devour them; they shall dwell securely, and none shall make them afraid. ²⁹ And I will provide for them prosperous^[g] plantations so that they shall no more be consumed with hunger in the land, and no longer suffer the reproach of the nations. ³⁰ And they shall know that I, the Lord their God, am with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, says the Lord God. ³¹ And you are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture,^[h] and I am your God, says the Lord God.”

Judgment on Mount Seir

35 The word of the Lord came to me: ² “Son of man, set your face against Mount Se′ir, and prophesy against it, ³ and say to it, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, Mount Se′ir, and I will stretch out my hand against you, and I will make you a desolation and a waste. ⁴ I will lay your cities waste, and you shall become a desolation; and you shall know that I am the Lord. ⁵ Because you cherished perpetual enmity, and gave over the people of Israel to the power of the sword at the time of their calamity, at the time of their final punishment; ⁶ therefore, as I live, says the Lord God, I will prepare you for blood, and blood shall pursue you; because you are guilty of blood,^[i] therefore blood shall pursue you. ⁷ I will make Mount Se′ir a waste and a desolation; and I will cut off from it all who come and go. ⁸ And I will fill your mountains with the slain; on your hills and in your valleys and in all your ravines those slain with the sword shall fall. ⁹ I will make you a perpetual desolation, and your cities shall not be inhabited. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

¹⁰ “Because you said, ‘These two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will take possession of them,’—although the Lord was there— ¹¹ therefore, as I live, says the Lord God, I will deal with you according to the anger and envy which you showed because of your hatred against them; and I will make myself known among you,^[j] when I judge you. ¹² And you shall know that I, the Lord, have heard all the revilings which you uttered against the mountains of Israel, saying, ‘They are laid desolate, they are given us to devour.’ ¹³ And you magnified yourselves against me with your mouth, and multiplied your words against me; I heard it. ¹⁴ Thus says the Lord God: For the rejoicing of the whole earth I will make you desolate. ¹⁵ As you rejoiced over the inheritance of the house of Israel, because it was desolate, so I will deal with you; you shall be desolate, Mount Se′ir, and all Edom, all of it. Then they will know that I am the Lord.

Blessing on Israel

36 “And you, son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel, and say, O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord. ² Thus says the Lord God: Because the enemy said of you, ‘Aha!’ and, ‘The ancient heights have become our possession,’ ³ therefore prophesy, and say, Thus says the Lord God: Because, yea, because they made you desolate, and crushed you from all sides, so that you became the possession of the rest of the nations, and you became the talk and evil gossip of the people; ⁴ therefore, O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God: Thus says the Lord God to the mountains and the hills, the ravines and the valleys, the desolate wastes and the deserted cities, which have become a prey and derision to the rest of the nations round about; ⁵ therefore thus says the Lord God: I speak in my hot jealousy against the rest of the nations, and against all Edom, who gave my land to themselves as a possession with wholehearted joy and utter contempt, that they might possess^[k] it and plunder it. ⁶ Therefore prophesy concerning the land of Israel, and say to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I speak in my jealous wrath, because you have suffered the reproach of the nations; ⁷ therefore thus says the Lord God: I swear that the nations that are round about you shall themselves suffer reproach.

⁸ “But you, O mountains of Israel, shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit to my people Israel; for they will soon come home. ⁹ For behold, I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you shall be tilled and sown; ¹⁰ and I will multiply men upon you, the whole house of Israel, all of it; the cities shall be inhabited and the waste places rebuilt; ¹¹ and I will multiply upon you man and beast; and they shall increase and be fruitful; and I will cause you to be inhabited as in your former times, and will do more good to you than ever before. Then you will know that I am the Lord. ¹² Yea, I will let men walk upon you, even my people Israel; and they shall possess you, and you shall be their inheritance, and you shall no longer bereave them of children. ¹³ Thus says the Lord God: Because men say to you, ‘You devour men, and you bereave your nation of children,’ ¹⁴ therefore you shall no longer devour men and no longer bereave your nation of children, says the Lord God; ¹⁵ and I will not let you hear any more the reproach of the nations, and you shall no longer bear the disgrace of the peoples and no longer cause your nation to stumble, says the Lord God.”

The Renewal of Israel

¹⁶ The word of the Lord came to me: ¹⁷ “Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their ways and their doings; their conduct before me was like the uncleanness of a woman in her impurity. ¹⁸ So I poured out my wrath upon them for the blood which they had shed in the land, for the idols with which they had defiled it. ¹⁹ I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries; in accordance with their conduct and their deeds I judged them. ²⁰ But when they came to the nations, wherever they came, they profaned my holy name, in that men said of them, ‘These are the people of the Lord, and yet they had to go out of his land.’ ²¹ But I had concern for my holy name, which the house of Israel caused to be profaned among the nations to which they came.

²² “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. ²³ And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them; and the nations will know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. ²⁴ For I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. ²⁵ I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. ²⁶ A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. ²⁸ You shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. ²⁹ And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses; and I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. ³⁰ I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant, that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations. ³¹ Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good; and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominable deeds. ³² It is not for your sake that I will act, says the Lord God; let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel.

³³ “Thus says the Lord God: On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places shall be rebuilt. ³⁴ And the land that was desolate shall be tilled, instead of being the desolation that it was in the sight of all who passed by. ³⁵ And they will say, ‘This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are now inhabited and fortified.’ ³⁶ Then the nations that are left round about you shall know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruined places, and replanted that which was desolate; I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will do it.

³⁷ “Thus says the Lord God: This also I will let the house of Israel ask me to do for them: to increase their men like a flock. ³⁸ Like the flock for sacrifices,^[l] like the flock at Jerusalem during her appointed feasts, so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

The Valley of Dry Bones

37 The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley;^[m] it was full of bones.^{[n] 2} And he led me round among them; and behold, there were very many upon the valley;^[o] and lo, they were very dry. ³ And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, thou knowest.” 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: Behold, I will cause breath^[p] to enter you, and you shall live. ⁶ And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath^[q] in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

⁷ So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to its bone. ⁸ And as I looked, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered 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,^[r] Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath,^[s] and breathe upon 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 upon their feet, an exceedingly great host.

¹¹ Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off.’ ¹² Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you home into the land of Israel. ¹³ And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. ¹⁴ And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken, and I have done it, says the Lord.”

The Two Sticks

¹⁵ The word of the Lord came to me: ¹⁶ “Son of man, take a stick and write on it, ‘For Judah, and the children of Israel associated with him’; then take another stick and write upon it, ‘For Joseph (the stick of E′phraim) and all the house of Israel associated with him’; ¹⁷ and join them together into one stick, that they may become one in your hand. ¹⁸ And when your people say to you, ‘Will you not show us what you mean by these?’ ¹⁹ say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am about to take the stick of Joseph (which is in the hand of E′phraim) and the tribes of Israel associated with him; and I will join^[t] with it the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, that they may be one in my hand. ²⁰ When the sticks on which you write are in your hand before their eyes, ²¹ then say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all sides, and bring them to their own land; ²² and I will make them one nation in the land, upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all; and they shall be no longer two nations, and no longer divided into two kingdoms. ²³ They shall not defile themselves any more with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions; but I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

²⁴ “My servant David shall be king over them; and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall follow my ordinances and be careful to observe my statutes. ²⁵ They shall dwell in the land where your fathers dwelt that I gave to my servant Jacob; they and their children and their children’s children shall dwell there for ever; and David my servant shall be their prince for ever. ²⁶ I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will bless^[u] them and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. ²⁷ My dwelling place shall be with them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ²⁸ Then the nations will know that I the Lord sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary is in the midst of them for evermore.”

Invasion by Gog

38 ^[v]The word of the Lord came to me: ² “Son of man, set your face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him ³ and say, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal; ⁴ and I will turn you about, and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you forth, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great company, all of them with buckler and shield, wielding swords; ⁵ Persia, Cush, and Put are with them, all of them with shield and helmet; ⁶ Gomer and all his hordes; Beth-togar′mah from the uttermost parts of the north with all his hordes—many peoples are with you.

⁷ “Be ready and keep ready, you and all the hosts that are assembled about you, and be a guard for them. ⁸ After many days you will be mustered; in the latter years you will go against the land that is restored from war, the land where people were gathered from many nations upon the mountains of Israel, which had been a continual waste; its people were brought out from the nations and now dwell securely, all of them. ⁹ You will advance, coming on like a storm, you will be like a cloud covering the land, you and all your hordes, and many peoples with you.

¹⁰ “Thus says the Lord God: On that day thoughts will come into your mind, and you will devise an evil scheme ¹¹ and say, ‘I will go up against the land of unwalled villages; I will fall upon the quiet people who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having no bars or gates’; ¹² to seize spoil and carry off plunder; to assail the waste places which are now inhabited, and the people who were gathered from the nations, who have gotten cattle and goods, who dwell at the center of the earth. ¹³ Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish and all its villages will say to you, ‘Have you come to seize spoil? Have you assembled your hosts to carry off plunder, to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to seize great spoil?’

¹⁴ “Therefore, son of man, prophesy, and say to Gog, Thus says the Lord God: On that day when my people Israel are dwelling securely, you will bestir yourself^{[w] 15} and come from your place out of the uttermost parts of the north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great host, a mighty army; ¹⁶ you will come up against my people Israel, like a cloud covering the land. In the latter days I will bring you against my land, that the nations may know me, when through you, O Gog, I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.

Judgment on Gog

¹⁷ “Thus says the Lord God: Are you he of whom I spoke in former days by my servants the prophets of Israel, who in those days prophesied for years that I would bring you against them? ¹⁸ But on that day, when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, says the Lord God, my wrath will be roused. ¹⁹ For in my jealousy and in my blazing wrath I declare, On that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel; ²⁰ the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep on the ground, and all the men that are upon the face of the earth, shall quake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the cliffs shall fall, and every wall shall tumble to the ground. ²¹ I will summon every kind of terror^[x] against Gog,^[y] says the Lord God; every man’s sword will be against his brother. ²² With pestilence and bloodshed I will enter into judgment with him; and I will rain upon him and his hordes and the many peoples that are with him, torrential rains and hailstones, fire and brimstone. ²³ So I will show my greatness and my holiness and make myself known in the eyes of many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord.

Gog’s Armies Destroyed

39 “And you, son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal; ² and I will turn you about and drive you forward, and bring you up from the uttermost parts of the north, and lead you against the mountains of Israel; ³ then I will strike your bow from your left hand, and will make your arrows drop out of your right hand. ⁴ You shall fall upon the mountains of Israel, you and all your hordes and the peoples that are with you; I will give you to birds of prey of every sort and to the wild beasts to be devoured. ⁵ You shall fall in the open field; for I have spoken, says the Lord God. ⁶ I will send fire on Magog and on those who dwell securely in the coastlands; and they shall know that I am the Lord.

⁷ “And my holy name I will make known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let my holy name be profaned any more; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, the Holy One in Israel. ⁸ Behold, it is coming and it will be brought about, says the Lord God. That is the day of which I have spoken.

⁹ “Then those who dwell in the cities of Israel will go forth and make fires of the weapons and burn them, shields and bucklers, bow and arrows, handpikes and spears, and they will make fires of them for seven years; ¹⁰ so that they will not need to take wood out of the field or cut down any out of the forests, for they will make their fires of the weapons; they will despoil those who despoiled them, and plunder those who plundered them, says the Lord God.

The Burial of Gog

¹¹ “On that day I will give to Gog a place for burial in Israel, the Valley of the Travelers^[z] east of the sea; it will block the travelers, for there Gog and all his multitude will be buried; it will be called the Valley of Hamon-gog.^{[aa] 12} For seven months the house of Israel will be burying them, in order to cleanse the land. ¹³ All the people of the land will bury them; and it will redound to their honor on the day that I show my glory, says the Lord God. ¹⁴ They will set apart men to pass through the land continually and bury^[ab] those remaining upon the face of the land, so as to cleanse it; at the end of seven months they will make their search. ¹⁵ And when these pass through the land and any one sees a man’s bone, then he shall set up a sign by it, till the buriers have buried it in the Valley of Hamon-gog. ¹⁶ (A city Hamo′nah^[ac] is there also.) Thus shall they cleanse the land.

¹⁷ “As for you, son of man, thus says the Lord God: Speak to the birds of every sort and to all beasts of the field, ‘Assemble and come, gather from all sides to the sacrificial feast which I am preparing for you, a great sacrificial feast upon the mountains of Israel, and you shall eat flesh and drink blood. ¹⁸ You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth—of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bulls, all of them fatlings of Bashan. ¹⁹ And you shall eat fat till you are filled, and drink blood till you are drunk, at the sacrificial feast which I am preparing for you. ²⁰ And you shall be filled at my table with horses and riders, with mighty men and all kinds of warriors,’ says the Lord God.

Israel Restored to the Land

²¹ “And I will set my glory among the nations; and all the nations shall see my judgment which I have executed, and my hand which I have laid on them. ²² The house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God, from that day forward. ²³ And the nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, because they dealt so treacherously with me that I hid my face from them and gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and they all fell by the sword. ²⁴ I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions, and hid my face from them.

²⁵ “Therefore thus says the Lord God: Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob, and have mercy upon the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for my holy name. ²⁶ They shall forget their shame, and all the treachery they have practiced against me, when they dwell securely in their land with none to make them afraid, ²⁷ when I have brought them back from the peoples and gathered them from their enemies’ lands, and through them have vindicated my holiness in the sight of many nations. ²⁸ Then they shall know that I am the Lord their God because I sent them into exile among the nations, and then gathered them into their own land. I will leave none of them remaining among the nations any more; ²⁹ and I will not hide my face any more from them, when I pour out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, says the Lord God.”