8 “At that time, says the Lord, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its princes, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs; ² and they shall be spread before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and served, which they have gone after, and which they have sought and worshiped; and they shall not be gathered or buried; they shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. ³ Death shall be preferred to life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family in all the places where I have driven them, says the Lord of hosts.

The Blind Perversity of the Whole Nation

The Prophet Mourns for the People

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;^[a] it was full of bones.^{[b] 2} And he led me round among them; and behold, there were very many upon the valley;^[c] 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^[d] 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^[e] 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,^[f] Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath,^[g] 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^[h] 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^[i] 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 ^[j]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^{[k] 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^[l] against Gog,^[m] 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.