A Valley of Dry Bones

37 The Lord took hold of me, and I was carried away by the Spirit of the Lord to a valley filled with bones.

²² Then the Lord took hold of me and said, “Get up and go out into the valley, and I will speak to you there.”

³⁹ When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away. The eunuch never saw him again but went on his way rejoicing.

²² The previous evening the Lord had taken hold of me and given me back my voice. So I was able to speak when this man arrived the next morning.

³ (The Lord gave this message to Ezekiel son of Buzi, a priest, beside the Kebar River in the land of the Babylonians,^[a] and he felt the hand of the Lord take hold of him.)

The Temptation of Jesus

4 Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan River. He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness,^[a]

³ He reached out what seemed to be a hand and took me by the hair. Then the Spirit lifted me up into the sky and transported me to Jerusalem in a vision from God. I was taken to the north gate of the inner courtyard of the Temple, where there is a large idol that has made the Lord very jealous.

³² So beware, for the time is coming,” says the Lord, “when that garbage dump will no longer be called Topheth or the valley of Ben-Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. They will bury the bodies in Topheth until there is no more room for them.

¹⁰ It was the Lord’s Day, and I was worshiping in the Spirit.^[a] Suddenly, I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet blast.

The New Temple Area

40 On April 28,^[a] during the twenty-fifth year of our captivity—fourteen years after the fall of Jerusalem—the Lord took hold of me.