Edom Will Be a Wasteland

35 ^(A) The Lord said:

² Ezekiel, son of man, condemn the people of Edom^{[a] 3} and say to them:

⁵ People of Edom, not only have you been Israel's longtime enemy, you simply watched when disaster wiped out its people as punishment for their sins. ⁶ And so, as surely as I am the living Lord God, you are guilty of murder and must be put to death. ⁷ I will destroy your nation and kill anyone who travels through it. ⁸ Dead bodies will cover your mountains and fill up your valleys, ⁹ and your land will lie in ruins forever. No one will live in your towns ever again. You will know that I am the Lord.

¹⁰ You thought the nations of Judah and Israel belonged to you, and that you could take over their territory. But I am their God, ¹¹ and as surely as I live, I will punish you for treating my people with anger and hatred. Then they will know that I, the Lord, am punishing you! ¹² And you will finally realize that I heard you laugh at their destruction and say their land was yours to take. ¹³ You even insulted me, but I heard it all.

¹⁴ Everyone on earth will celebrate when I destroy you, ¹⁵ just as you celebrated when Israel was destroyed. Your nation of Edom will be nothing but a wasteland. Then everyone will know that I am the Lord.

A Message for Israel's Mountains

36 The Lord said:

Ezekiel, son of man, tell the mountains of Israel ² that I, the Lord God, am saying:

Your enemies sneered and said that you mountains belonged to them. ³ They ruined and crushed you from every side, and foreign nations captured and made fun of you. ⁴ So all you mountains and hills, streams and valleys, listen to what I will do. Your towns may now lie in ruins, and nations may laugh and insult you. ⁵ But in my fierce anger, I will turn against those nations, and especially the Edomites, because they laughed at you the loudest and took over your pasturelands. ⁶ You have suffered long enough, and, I, the Lord God, am very angry! Nations have insulted you, ⁷ so I will now insult and disgrace them. That is my solemn promise.

⁸ Trees will grow on you mountains of Israel and produce fruit for my people, because they will soon come home. ⁹ I will take care of you by plowing your soil and planting crops on your fertile slopes. ¹⁰ The people of Israel will return and rebuild your ruined towns and live in them. ¹¹ Children will be born, and animals will give birth to their young. You will no longer be deserted as you are now, but you will be covered with people and treated better than ever. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

¹² I will bring my people Israel home, and they will live on you mountains, because you belong to them, and your fertile slopes will never again let them starve. ¹³ It's true that you have been accused of not producing enough food and of letting your people starve. ^14-15 But I, the Lord, promise that you won't hear other nations laugh and sneer at you ever again. From now on, you will always produce plenty of food for your people. I, the Lord God, have spoken.

The Lord Will Be Honored

¹⁶ The Lord said:

¹⁷ Ezekiel, son of man, when the people of Israel were living in their own country, they made the land unclean by the way they behaved, just as a woman's monthly period makes her unclean. ¹⁸ They committed murders and worshiped idols, which made the land even worse. So in my anger, I punished my people ¹⁹ and scattered them throughout the nations, just as they deserved. ²⁰ Wherever they went, my name was disgraced, because foreigners insulted my people by saying I had forced them out of their own land.

²¹ I care what those foreigners think of me, ²² so tell the Israelites that I am saying:

You have disgraced my holy name among the nations where you now live. So you don't deserve what I'm going to do for you. I will lead you home to bring honor to my name ²³ and to show foreign nations that I am holy. Then they will know that I am the Lord God. I have spoken.

²⁴ I will gather you from the foreign nations and bring you home. ²⁵ I will sprinkle you with clean water, and you will be clean and acceptable to me. I will wash away everything that makes you unclean, and I will remove your disgusting idols. ^26 (B) I will take away your stubborn heart and give you a new heart and a desire to be faithful. You will have only pure thoughts, ²⁷ because I will put my Spirit in you and make you eager to obey my laws and teachings. ²⁸ You will once again live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.

²⁹ I will protect you from anything that makes you unclean. Your fields will overflow with grain, and no one will starve. ³⁰ Your trees will be filled with fruit, and crops will grow in your fields, so that you will never again feel ashamed for not having enough food. ³¹ You will remember your evil ways and hate yourselves for what you've done. ³² People of Israel, I'm not doing these things for your sake. You sinned against me, and you must suffer shame and disgrace for what you have done. I, the Lord God, have spoken.

³³ After I have made you clean, I will let you rebuild your ruined towns and let you live in them. ³⁴ Your land will be plowed again, and nobody will be able to see that it was once barren. ³⁵ Instead, they will say that it looks as beautiful as the garden of Eden. They won't see towns lying in ruins, but they will see your strong cities filled with people. ³⁶ Then the nearby nations that survive will know that I am the one who rebuilt the ruined places and replanted the barren fields. I, the Lord, make this promise.

³⁷ I will once again answer your prayers, and I will let your nation grow until you are like a large flock of sheep. ³⁸ The towns that now lie in ruins will be filled with people, just as Jerusalem was once filled with sheep to be offered as sacrifices during a festival. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

1 From Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ.

To everyone who shares with us in the privilege of believing that our God and Savior Jesus Christ will do what is just and fair.^[a]

² I pray that God will be kind to you and will let you live in perfect peace! May you keep learning more and more about God and our Lord Jesus.

Living as the Lord's Followers

³ We have everything we need to live a life that pleases God. It was all given to us by God's own power, when we learned he had invited us to share in his wonderful goodness. ⁴ God made great and marvelous promises, so his nature would become part of us. Then we could escape our evil desires and the corrupt influences of this world.

⁵ Do your best to improve your faith by adding goodness, understanding, ⁶ self-control, patience, devotion to God, ⁷ concern for others, and love. ⁸ If you keep growing in this way, it will show that what you know about our Lord Jesus Christ has made your lives useful and meaningful. ⁹ But if you don't grow, you are like someone who is nearsighted or blind, and you have forgotten that your past sins are forgiven.

¹⁰ My friends, you must do all you can to show God has really chosen and selected you. If you keep on doing this, you won't stumble and fall. ¹¹ Then our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will give you a glorious welcome into his kingdom that will last forever.

¹² You are holding firmly to the truth you were given. But I am still going to remind you of these things. ¹³ In fact, I think I should keep on reminding you until I leave this body. ¹⁴ And our Lord Jesus Christ has already told me that I will soon leave it behind. ¹⁵ This is why I am doing my best to make sure that each of you remembers all of this after I am gone.

The Message about the Glory of Christ

¹⁶ When we told you about the power and the return of our Lord Jesus Christ, we were not telling clever stories someone had made up. But with our own eyes we saw his true greatness. ^17 (A) God, our great and wonderful Father, truly honored him by saying, “This is my own dear Son, and I am pleased with him.” ¹⁸ We were there with Jesus on the holy mountain and heard this voice speak from heaven.

¹⁹ All of this makes us even more certain that what the prophets said is true. So you should pay close attention to their message, as you would to a lamp shining in some dark place. You must keep on paying attention until daylight comes and the morning star rises in your hearts. ²⁰ But you need to realize that no one alone can understand any of the prophecies in the Scriptures. ²¹ The prophets did not think these things up on their own, but they were guided by the Spirit of God.