Ezekiel 36:23-28
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
23 But I will show the holiness of my great name, desecrated among the nations, in whose midst you desecrated it. Then the nations shall know that I am the Lord—oracle of the Lord God—when through you I show my holiness before their very eyes.(A) 24 I will take you away from among the nations, gather you from all the lands, and bring you back to your own soil. 25 [a](B)I will sprinkle clean water over you to make you clean; from all your impurities and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 (C)I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.(D) 27 I will put my spirit within you so that you walk in my statutes, observe my ordinances, and keep them.(E) 28 You will live in the land I gave to your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.(F)
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- 36:25–26 God’s initiative to cleanse Israel (cf. 24:13–14) is the first act in the creation of a new people, no longer disposed to repeating Israel’s wicked past (chap. 20). To make this restoration permanent, God replaces Israel’s rebellious and obdurate interiority (“heart of stone”) with an interiority (“heart of flesh”) susceptible to and animated by God’s intentions (“my spirit,” v. 27).
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