Old/New Testament
37 The Eternal had a hold on me, and I couldn’t escape it. The divine wind of the Eternal One picked me up and set me down in the middle of the valley, but this time it was full of bones. 2 God led me through the bones. There were piles of bones everywhere in the valley—dry bones left unburied.
This oracle may be one of the best known in Ezekiel’s prophecy. God’s promise of a new heart and a new spirit echoes Jeremiah’s new covenant prophecy (Jeremiah 31:31-34). What God’s people need more than anything is for God to do a work of grace within them. Like other prophets of his day, Ezekiel is convinced that heaven must intervene in order to fix what is wrong on earth. It is not enough for people to try harder and do better. This work of grace begins with God cleansing His people with fresh water. Idolatry and various sins have made them impure and unclean, so before they can be restored, they must be made pure by the washing of water. Then, once God gives them a new heart, His people will become willing covenant partners; they will give up on their rebellious, hurtful ways and embrace God’s designs for their lives. With a new spirit—which seems to be nothing other than God’s Spirit living in and among them—they will have the desire and ability to live out God’s reasonable demands on them.
God insists that all He intends to do to save and redeem His people is not for their good; He is working to restore His good name. God’s covenant people have given Him a bad reputation among the nations, so God must act in His own interest to make sure His name is given the honor it is due.
Eternal One (to Ezekiel): 3 Son of man, do you think these bones can live?
Ezekiel: Eternal Lord, certainly You know the answer better than I do.
Eternal One: 4-5 Actually, I do. Prophesy to these bones. Tell them to listen to what the Eternal Lord says to them: “Dry bones, I will breathe breath into you, and you will come alive. 6 I will attach muscles and tendons to you, cause flesh to grow over them, and cover you with skin. I will breathe breath into you, and you will come alive. After this happens, you will know that I am the Eternal.”
God is not only the Creator of life, but He is also the Restorer of life.
7 So I did what God told me to do: I prophesied to the bones. As I was speaking, I heard a loud noise—a rattling sound—and all the bones began to come together and form complete skeletons. 8 I watched and saw muscles and tendons attach to the bones, flesh grow over them, and skin wrap itself around the reforming bodies. But there was still no breath in them.
Eternal One: 9 Prophesy to the breath. Speak, son of man, and tell them what the Eternal Lord has to say: “O sweet breath, come from the four winds and breathe into these who have been killed. Make these corpses come alive.”
10 So I did what God told me to do: I prophesied to the breath. As I was speaking, breath invaded the lifeless. The bodies came alive and stood on their feet. I realized then I was looking at a great army.
Eternal One: 11 Son of man, these bones are the entire community of Israel. They keep saying, “Our bones are dry now, picked clean by scavengers. All hope is gone. Our nation is lost.”
12-13 He told me to prophesy and tell them what He said.
Eternal One: Pay attention, My people! I am going to open your graves and bring you back to life! I will carry you straight back to the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Eternal One. 14 I will breathe My Spirit into you, and you will be alive once again. I will place you back in your own land. After that you will know I, the Eternal, have done what I said I would do.
So said the Eternal One.
15 Again the word of the Eternal came to me.
Eternal One: 16 Son of man, find a stick and write these words on it: “For Judah and the people of Israel associated with him.” Then go find another stick, and write these words on it: “For Joseph—the stick of Ephraim—and the entire community of Israel associated with him.” 17 Now take both sticks and join them together in your hand as if they are one. 18 When your compatriots question you about what you are doing, asking, “Will you not tell us plainly what these actions mean?” 19 tell them I say, “Watch as I take Joseph’s stick (the one held by Ephraim) and the ten Israelite tribes of the North, your compatriots, and put it end to end with Judah’s stick. The two sticks will become one in My hand.” 20 Make sure the people are able to see what you have written on each stick. 21 Then tell them what I say: “Look! I’m gathering the Israelites up from the countries where they’ve been scattered and putting them back in their own land.” 22 I will form them into one nation upon Israel’s mountains, and they will live under the reign of one king. They will no longer live as two separate peoples, split into two different kingdoms. 23 From then on, they will not defile themselves with idols and abhorrent images and strange perversions. I will rescue them from all the places where they’ve lived and sinned. I will make them pure and clean again! They will be My people, and I will be their God.
24 My beloved servant, David, will be their king. They will all live peaceably under one shepherd. They will live according to My laws and obey My statutes and do them. 25 My people will dwell in the same land I gave to Jacob, My servant.
How could David be the king of Israel’s new nation? He died 500 years earlier! Certainly God does not mean that David comes back from the dead to reign; He means that David is the archetype for the eternal king. This new king will carry David’s name because He will be a descendant of David. He will rule a united kingdom just as David ruled a united Israel in his day. He, too, will be a shepherd of God’s people.
These hopes and aspirations will remain in the psyche of God’s people for hundreds of years. When Jesus begins His ministry, His followers will be certain they have found the good shepherd.
Eternal One: It will be the same land where your ancestors dwelled, but their past wickedness will be forgotten there. They, their children, and their children’s children will live there forever; and My servant David will be their prince forever. 26 I will establish a covenant of peace—an everlasting promise—with them. I will make them strong and numerous in the land I gave them. My sanctuary will be at the heart of their community forever. 27 I will make My home with them. I will be their God, and they will be My people.[a] 28 After all these things come to pass and My sanctuary is at the heart of their community forever, all the nations will know that I, the Eternal, am the One who makes Israel holy.
38 The word of the Eternal came to me.
Gog likely refers to Gyges who ruled Lydia in Asia Minor. As a contemporary, Ezekiel accords him larger-than-life, nearly cosmic significance.
Eternal One: 2 Son of man, turn your face toward Gog in the land of Magog, the highest ruler of Meshech and Tubal. Prophesy against him, 3 and tell him what the Eternal Lord has to say: “Beware, Gog, highest ruler of Meshech and Tubal. I oppose you. 4 I am going to turn you around, insert sharp hooks into your jaws, and haul you off with your entire army—horses and riders outfitted with armor, breastplates, body shields, and swords. 5 Persia, Ethiopia[b], and Libya[c] will be there, too, marching behind with shields and helmets, 6 along with Gomer’s troops and Beth-togarmah’s troops from the far north. Numerous nations will be a part of your coalition.
7 “Get prepared. You’re in command of all the armies who’ve come to help you. Now watch over them. 8 After many days, you are going to be summoned to fight. Sometime in the latter years, you are going to seize a nation that has been reconstructed after a war—a nation of people gathered from many countries and brought to Israel’s mountains—the mountains that were, for many years, nothing but rubble. They were gathered from the nations, and now they all live safely. 9 You, your troops, and all of your armies will go up and attack that nation. You’ll be like a fierce storm whose clouds cover the land.”
10 This is what the Eternal Lord continued to say:
Eternal One: On that day, you will begin pondering an evil plan. 11 You’ll think to yourself, “I will go up and invade an open country of unprotected villages and will assault the tranquil, unsuspecting people living safely there without walls, without gates, without bars. 12 I will pillage and plunder the entire place! I will tear down the rubble that’s been rebuilt and attack the people who have been gathered from the farthest nations to live at the center of the world. All their animals and goods—I will steal.” 13 Sheba, Rhodes, and the traders of Tarshish and their villages will ask you, “Did you come here simply to steal everything? Did you assemble so great an army to plunder their goods, to seize their silver and gold, to carry off their livestock and valuables?”
14 The Eternal Lord told me, the son of man, to prophesy and tell Gog:
Eternal One: When you see My people Israel living safely, will you not take note? 15 You and your vast army recruited from the many nations, all mounted on horses, will march as one force down from the far north. 16 Like a storm whose clouds cover the land, you will go up and attack My people Israel. In the last days, Gog, I will summon you to storm My land. Then, right in front of everyone’s eyes, I will exhibit My holiness through you.
17 This is what the Eternal Lord continued to say:
Eternal One: Are you not the one I was talking about all those years ago through My servants, the prophets of Israel? For years, they prophesied that I would summon you to march against them. 18 On the day the prophecy is fulfilled, when Gog comes against the land of Israel, most certainly My wrath will come like a fire. 19 My jealousy and burning anger guarantee that all of Israel will quake on that day! 20 Creatures of the sky, earth, and sea—all people and beasts—will shake with awe in My presence. The mountains will be knocked down! Great cliffs and every fortress will crumble to the ground. 21 I will summon the sword against Gog upon all of My hills and mountains. Confusion will abound; Gog’s soldiers will turn and fight each other. 22 I will come down and render My judgment in person. Disease and massacre will be their sentence. I will command heaven to throw everything it has upon Gog and all his armies, pouring down rain, hail, lightning, and burning sulfur. 23 They will see just how great and holy I really am. I will make Myself known to the nations of the world. Then they will all know that I am the Eternal One.
39 Eternal One: Son of man, prophesy against Gog, and tell him that this is what the Eternal Lord has to say: “I oppose you, Gog, highest ruler of Meshech and Tubal. 2 I will turn you around and lead you. I will bring you from the remote regions of the north and send you up against Israel’s mountains. 3 But just when you think you’ve had success, I will knock the bow out of your left hand and the arrows out of your right hand. 4 Right then and there, on the mountains of Israel, you will meet your end—you and all your troops and everyone in your coalition. I will feed your remains to the predatory birds and wild beasts and deny you an honorable burial. 5 You will fall and be defeated out in the open fields.” I, the Eternal Lord, have spoken. 6 I will pour fire on Magog and on the heads of all those who believe themselves to be living safely on the coastlands. Then they will know that I am the Eternal One.
7 Everyone in Israel will know My holy name! No longer will I allow My name to be profaned! All the nations will know that I, the Eternal, am the Holy One of Israel. 8 Pay attention! The time is coming! I promise it will happen just as I have said. This is the day I’ve been talking about for so long.
The Lord’s slaughter of Gog and his forces serves two purposes. Obviously, it reminds Israel and the other nations of God’s ultimate power, but more importantly, it solidifies His new covenant with Israel. In ancient Israel, when two people made a covenant with one another, they would slaughter an animal, cut it in half, lay the two halves parallel to each other on the ground, and walk between them. This action indicated, “If I break this covenant, then you may do this to me.” The covenant partners would then share a meal together. In this case, God makes Gog’s armies the sacrifice that establishes His covenant with Israel. He, of course, will never break the covenant, and He warns Israel that He could destroy them if they abandon Him again.
Eternal One: 9 Those dwelling in the cities of Israel will leave and make huge bonfires with all of Gog’s weapons—body and chest shields, bows, arrows, clubs, and spears. The troops will be so numerous and their weapons so many that Israel will have fuel to burn for seven years. 10 No one will have to go into the fields or woods to fetch kindling or cut down trees because they’ll use their enemies’ weapons for fuel. They will strip the ones who stripped them and rob the ones who robbed them. I, the Eternal Lord, declare it so.
11 On that day, I will set aside a burial ground for Gog in Israel in the valley of the travelers east of the Dead Sea. No one will be able to pass through there anymore once Gog and all of Gog’s armies are buried there. The place will be renamed the valley of Hamon-gog, which means, “the hordes of Gog.” 12 It will take seven months for the people of Israel to bury Gog and Gog’s armies in order to cleanse the land of death’s defilement. 13 Everyone in the nation will participate; and on the day I display My glory, their name will be famous. This I promise. 14 At the end of the seven months of burial, men will be designated to patrol the land and bury any of the bodies that remain on the ground and the bodies of any others who may die while traveling across Israel. This is how they will keep the land clean. 15 As they search through the land, anyone who happens upon even one bone will set up a marker beside it, and it will remain untouched until the buriers find it and lay it to rest in the valley of Hamon-gog. 16 (There will be a town called Hamonah there.) This is how the Israelites will purify the land from death’s defilement.
17-18 Then the Eternal Lord told me, “Son of man, I am telling you to send My message to every bird and wild beast”:
Eternal One: Come together, all you creatures of the sky and earth—birds of the air, beasts of the forests and field! From all around, gather around My sacrifice. I am preparing an enormous feast for you atop Israel’s mountains. You will eat the flesh of great men and drink the blood of princes as if they were rams and lambs, goats and bulls—all the finest, meatiest animals in all of lush Bashan! 19 I will sacrifice all these people for you, and you will eat fat until you are stuffed and drink blood until you are drunk. 20 At the table of My feast, you will devour horses and charioteers from Gog’s forces, heroes and champions of every kind!
21 I will exhibit My glory for all the nations to see, and they will all recognize the results of My judgment. They will understand that Gog was destroyed by My own powerful hand. 22 From that day on, the people of Israel will know I am the Eternal One, 23 and all the nations will know the people of Israel were exiled because they acted wickedly and willfully turned their backs on Me. This is why I turned My back on them and allowed their enemies to do with them as they pleased. As a result, all of them fell by the sword. 24 I judged them according to their impurities and crimes, and I kept My back turned on them because they violated our covenant.
25 So this is what the Eternal Lord continued to say:
Eternal One: I am going to restore the fortunes of Jacob and have compassion upon all My people Israel, for I am eager to defend My reputation and to protect My holy name. 26 Once they are living comfortably back in their ancestral lands without anyone terrorizing them, the memory of their shame and faithlessness toward Me will fade. 27 By gathering them from the enemy nations and bringing them home, I will reveal My holiness right in the sight of all the nations. 28 After all these things take place, My people will know that I, the Eternal, am their God. Even though I banished them to exile in other lands, I gathered them and put them back in their own land. No one was left behind. 29 I will not turn My back on them ever again, for I have poured out My Spirit upon the community of Israel.
So said the Eternal Lord.
2 Just as false prophets rose up in the past among God’s people, false teachers will rise up in the future among you. They will slip in with their destructive opinions, denying the very Master who bought their freedom and dooming themselves to destruction swiftly, 2 but not before they attract others by their unbridled and immoral behavior. Because of them and their ways, others will criticize and condemn the path of truth we walk as seedy and disreputable. 3 These false teachers will follow their greed and exploit you with their fabrications, but be assured that their judgment was pronounced long ago and their destruction does not sleep.
New Testament writers warn the church to watch out for false teachers. Peter faults them primarily for their immoral lifestyles rather than for doctrinal differences.
4 For God did not spare the heavenly beings who sinned, but He cast them into the dark pits[a] of hell[b] to be kept until the time of judgment; 5 and He did not spare the ancient world, but He sent a flood swirling over the ungodly (although He did save Noah, God’s herald for what is right, with seven other members of his family); 6 and God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, reducing them to ash as a lesson of what He will do with the ungodly in the days to come 7-8 (although again He did rescue Lot, a person who did what was right in God’s eyes and who was distressed by the immorality and the lawlessness of the society around him. Day after day, the sights and sounds of their lawlessness were like daggers into that good man’s soul). 9 If all this happened in the past, it shows clearly the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from their trials and how to hold the wicked in punishment until the day of judgment.
Is God different in the New Testament from what He is in the First Testament? In the First Testament, God seems prone to judgment; but some feel God is more concerned about love in the New Testament. However, the central and most repeated affirmation about God’s character in the First Testament is that He is gracious and compassionate (Exodus 34:6–7). And the New Testament clearly does not ignore the idea of God’s judgment, as this text shows. His judgment will come, but it is delayed by God’s patient mercy.
10 And above all, it shows He will punish those who let the desires of their bodies rule them and who have no respect for authority. People like this are so bold and willful that they aren’t even afraid of offending heavenly beings, 11 although the heavenly messengers—in spite of the fact that they have greater strength and power—make no such accusations against these people before the Lord. 12 These people who speak ill of what they do not understand are no different from animals—without sense, operating only on their instincts, born to be captured and killed—and they will be destroyed just like those animals, 13 receiving the penalty for their evil acts. They waste their days in parties and carousing. As they feast with you, these stains and blemishes on your community are feasting on their deceptions.[c] 14 Their eyes are always looking for their next adulterous conquests; their appetites for sin cannot be satisfied. They seduce the unwary soul, and greed is the only lesson they have learned by heart. God’s curse lies upon them. 15 They have veered off the right road and gotten lost, following in the steps of Balaam, the son of Beor, the false prophet. Balaam loved the reward he could get by doing evil, 16 but he was rebuked for crossing the line into sin; his own speechless donkey scolded him in a human voice, an amazing miracle that reined in the prophet’s insanity.[d]
17 These people I’m talking about are nothing but dried-up springs, mists driven by fierce winds; the deepest darkness has been set aside for them. 18 They speak in loud voices empty and arrogant. They exploit the desires of the flesh, take advantage of sensual natures, to entangle people who have just escaped from those who live by deception. 19 They claim to offer them freedom, but they themselves are enslaved by corruption because whatever a person gives in to soon becomes his master. 20 Those who have been pulled out of the cesspool of worldly desires through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus, the Anointed One, yet have found themselves mired in it again are worse off than they were before. 21 They would have been better off never knowing the way of righteousness than to have known it and then abandoned the sacred commandment they had previously received and dived back into the muck! 22 In their cases, the words from Proverbs hold true: “The dog goes back to his own vomit,”[e] and as the Greeks say, “The sow is washed to wallow in the mud.”
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.