Study Desk

in the same way as shepherds take care of their sheep that were scattered and are brought together again. I will bring them back from all the places where they were scattered on that dark, disastrous day.

"I will bless them and let them live around my sacred hill. There I will bless them with showers of rain when they need it.

The trees will bear fruit, the fields will produce crops, and everyone will live in safety on his own land. When I break my people's chains and set them free from those who made them slaves, then they will know that I am the Lord .

The heathen nations will not plunder them any more, and the wild animals will not kill and eat them. They will live in safety, and no one will terrify them.

Everyone will know that I protect Israel and that they are my people. I, the Sovereign Lord , have spoken.

So then, as surely as I, the Sovereign Lord , am the living God, I will pay you back for your anger, your jealousy, and your hate toward my people. They will know that I am punishing you for what you did to them.

Then you will know that I, the Lord , heard you say with contempt that the mountains of Israel were desolate and that they were yours to devour.

"I, the Sovereign Lord , have spoken out in the heat of my anger against the surrounding nations, and especially against Edom. With glee and contempt they captured my land and took possession of its pastures.

"Mortal man," he said, "when the Israelites were living in their land, they defiled it by the way they lived and acted. I regarded their behavior as being as ritually unclean as a woman is during her monthly period.

I let them feel the force of my anger because of the murders they had committed in the land and because of the idols by which they had defiled it.

I condemned them for the way they lived and acted, and I scattered them through foreign countries.

Everyone who used to walk by your fields saw how overgrown and wild they were, but I will let you farm them again.

He led me all around the valley, and I could see that there were very many bones and that they were very dry.

So I prophesied as I had been told. Breath entered the bodies, and they came to life and stood up. There were enough of them to form an army.

God said to me, "Mortal man, the people of Israel are like these bones. They say that they are dried up, without any hope and with no future.

When I open the graves where my people are buried and bring them out, they will know that I am the Lord .

I will put my breath in them, bring them back to life, and let them live in their own land. Then they will know that I am the Lord . I have promised that I would do this—and I will. I, the Lord , have spoken."

Then tell them that I, the Sovereign Lord , am going to take all my people out of the nations where they have gone, gather them together, and bring them back to their own land.

I will unite them into one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. They will have one king to rule over them, and they will no longer be divided into two nations or split into two kingdoms.

They will not defile themselves with disgusting idols any more or corrupt themselves with sin. I will free them from all the ways in which they sin and betray me. I will purify them; they will be my people, and I will be their God.