The Valley of Dry Bones

37 The power of the Lord came on me. His Spirit brought me away from my home. He put me down in the middle of a valley. It was full of bones. ² He led me back and forth among them. I saw a huge number of bones in the valley. The bones were very dry. ³ The Lord asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

I said, “Lord and King, you are the only one who knows.”

⁴ Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones. Tell them, ‘Dry bones, listen to the Lord’s message. ⁵ The Lord and King speaks to you. He says, “I will put breath in you. Then you will come to life again. ⁶ I will attach tendons to you. I will put flesh on you. I will cover you with skin. So I will put breath in you. And you will come to life again. Then you will know that I am the Lord.” ’ ”

⁷ So I prophesied just as the Lord commanded me to. As I was prophesying, I heard a noise. It was a rattling sound. The bones came together. One bone connected itself to another. ⁸ I saw tendons and flesh appear on them. Skin covered them. But there was no breath in them.

⁹ Then the Lord said to me, “Prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, son of man. Tell it, ‘The Lord and King says, “Breath, come from all four directions. Go into these people who have been killed. Then they can live.” ’ ” ¹⁰ So I prophesied just as he commanded me to. And breath entered them. Then they came to life again. They stood up on their feet. They were like a huge army.

¹¹ Then the Lord said to me, “Son of man, these bones stand for all the people of Israel. The people say, ‘Our bones are dried up. We’ve lost all hope. We are destroyed.’ ¹² So prophesy. Tell them, ‘The Lord and King says, “My people, I am going to open up your graves. I am going to bring you out of them. I will take you back to the land of Israel. ¹³ So I will open up your graves and bring you out of them. Then you will know that I am the Lord. You are my people. ¹⁴ I will put my Spirit in you. And you will live again. I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I have spoken. I have done it,” announces the Lord.’ ”

Israel Will Be One Nation Under One King

¹⁵ A message from the Lord came to me. The Lord said, ¹⁶ “Son of man, get a stick of wood. Write on it, ‘Belonging to the tribe of Judah and the Israelites who are connected with it.’ Then get another stick. Write on it, ‘Ephraim’s stick. Belonging to the tribes of Joseph and all the Israelites connected with them.’ ¹⁷ Join them together into one stick in your hand.

¹⁸ “Your people will ask you, ‘What do you mean by this?’ ¹⁹ Tell them, ‘The Lord and King says, “I am going to get the stick of Joseph and the Israelites connected with it. That stick is in Ephraim’s hand. I am going to join it to Judah’s stick. I will make them a single stick of wood in my hand.” ’ ²⁰ Show them the sticks you wrote on. ²¹ Tell them, ‘The Lord and King says, “I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them together from all around. I will bring them back to their own land. ²² There I will make them one nation. They will live on the mountains of Israel. All of them will have one king. They will never be two nations again. They will never again be separated into two kingdoms. ²³ They will no longer make themselves ‘unclean’ by worshiping any of their evil gods. They will not do wrong things anymore. They always turn away from me. But I will save them from that sin. I will make them pure and ‘clean.’ They will be my people. And I will be their God.

²⁴ “ ‘ “A man who belongs to the family line of my servant David will be their king. All of them will have one shepherd. They will obey my laws. And they will be careful to keep my rules. ²⁵ They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob. That is where your people of long ago lived. They, their children, their children’s children, and their children after them will live there forever. And my servant from David’s family line will be their prince forever. ²⁶ I will make a covenant with them. It promises to give them peace. The covenant will last forever. I will make them my people. And I will cause there to be many of them. I will put my temple among them forever. ²⁷ I will live with them. I will be their God. And they will be my people. ²⁸ My temple will be among them forever. Then the nations will know that I make Israel holy. I am the Lord.” ’ ”

The Lord Will Have Great Victory Over the Nations

38 A message from the Lord came to me. The Lord said, ² “Son of man, turn your attention to Gog. He is from the land of Magog. He is the chief prince of Meshek and Tubal. Prophesy against him. ³ Tell him, ‘The Lord and King says, “Gog, I am against you. You are the chief prince of Meshek and Tubal. ⁴ But I will turn you around. I will put hooks in your jaws. I will bring you out of your land along with your whole army. Your horses will come with you. Your horsemen will be completely armed. Your huge army will carry large and small shields. All of them will be ready to use their swords. ⁵ The men of Persia, Cush and Put will march out with them. All of them will have shields and helmets. ⁶ Gomer and all its troops will be there too. Beth Togarmah from the far north will also come with all its troops. Many nations will help you.

⁷ “ ‘ “Get ready. Be prepared. Take command of the huge armies gathered around you. ⁸ After many years you will be called together to fight. Later, you will march into a land that has not had war for a while. Its people were gathered together from many nations. They came to the mountains of Israel. No one had lived in those mountains for a long time. So the people had been brought back from other nations. Now all the people live in safety. ⁹ You, all your troops and the many nations with you will march up to attack them. All of you will advance like a storm. You will be like a cloud covering their land.”

¹⁰ “ ‘The Lord and King says, “At that time some ideas will come to you. You will make evil plans. ¹¹ You will say, ‘I will march out against a land whose villages don’t have walls around them. I’ll attack those peaceful people. I’ll do this when they aren’t expecting it. None of their villages has walls or gates with metal bars on them. ¹² I will rob those people. I’ll steal everything they have. Then I’ll turn my attention to the destroyed houses where people are living again. They have returned there from other nations. Now they are rich. They have plenty of livestock and all kinds of goods. They are living in Israel. It is the center of the earth.’ ¹³ The people of Sheba and Dedan will speak to you. So will the traders of Tarshish and all its villages. They will say, ‘Have you come to rob us? Have you gathered your huge army together to steal our silver and gold? Are you going to take away from us our livestock and goods? Do you plan to carry off everything we have?’ ” ’

¹⁴ “Son of man, prophesy. Tell Gog, ‘The Lord and King says, “A time is coming when my people Israel will be living in safety. You will see that it is a good time to attack them. ¹⁵ So you will come from your place in the far north. Many nations will join you. All their men will be riding on horses. You will have a huge and mighty army. ¹⁶ They will advance against my people Israel. They will be like a cloud covering their land. Gog, in days to come I will bring you against my land. Then the nations will know me. I will use you to prove to them how holy I am.”

¹⁷ “ ‘Here is what the Lord and King says to Gog. “In the past I spoke about you through my servants, the prophets of Israel. At that time they prophesied for years that I would bring you against them. ¹⁸ Here is what will happen in days to come. You will attack the land of Israel. That will stir up my burning anger,” announces the Lord and King. ¹⁹ “At that time my burning anger will blaze out at you. There will be a great earthquake in the land of Israel. ²⁰ The fish in the sea, the birds in the sky and the wild animals will tremble with fear. They will tremble with fear because of what I will do. So will every creature that moves along the ground. And so will all the people on earth. The mountains will come crashing down. The cliffs will break into pieces. Every wall will fall to the ground. ²¹ I will punish you on all my mountains,” announces the Lord and King. “Your men will use their swords against one another. ²² I will judge you. I will send a plague against you. A lot of blood will be spilled. I will send heavy rain, hailstones and burning sulfur down to the earth. They will fall on you and your troops. They will also come down on the many nations that are helping you. ²³ That will show how great and holy I am. I will make myself known to many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord.” ’

39 “Son of man, prophesy against Gog. Tell him, ‘The Lord and King says, “Gog, I am against you. You are the chief prince of Meshek and Tubal. ² But I will turn you around. I will drag you along. I will bring you from the far north. I will send you against the mountains of Israel. ³ Then I will knock your bow out of your left hand. I will make your arrows drop from your right hand. ⁴ You will fall dead on the mountains of Israel. You and all your troops will die there. So will the nations that join you. I will feed you to all kinds of birds that eat dead bodies. So they and the wild animals will eat you up. ⁵ You will fall dead in the open fields. I have spoken,” announces the Lord and King. ⁶ “I will send fire on the land of Magog. It will burn up the people who live in safety on the coast. So they will know that I am the Lord.

⁷ “ ‘ “I will make my holy name known among my people Israel. I will no longer let them treat my name as if it were not holy. Then the nations will know that I am the Holy One in Israel. I am the Lord. ⁸ The day I will judge you is coming. You can be sure of it,” announces the Lord and King. “It is the day I have spoken about.

⁹ “ ‘ “At that time those who live in the towns of Israel will go out and light a fire. They will use it to burn up the weapons. That includes small and large shields. It also includes bows and arrows, war clubs and spears. It will take seven years to burn all of them up. ¹⁰ People will not gather wood from the fields. They will not cut down the forests. Instead, they will burn the weapons. And they will rob those who robbed them. They will steal from those who stole from them,” announces the Lord and King.

¹¹ “ ‘ “Gog, at that time I will bury you in a grave in Israel. It will be in the valley where people travel east of the Dead Sea. It will block the path of travelers. That’s because you and your huge armies will be buried there. So it will be called the Valley of Gog’s Armies.

¹² “ ‘ “It will take seven months for the Israelites to bury the bodies. They will do this to make the land ‘clean’ again. ¹³ All the people in the land will bury them. The day that I show how glorious I am will be a time to remember.” This is what the Lord and King announces. ¹⁴ “People will keep being hired to make the land ‘clean’ again. They will go all through it. They and others will bury any bodies lying on the ground.

“ ‘ “After the seven months they will search even more carefully. ¹⁵ As they go through the land here is what they’ll do. When anyone sees a bone, they will put a marker beside it. Then those who dig the graves will take the bone to the Valley of Gog’s Armies. There they will bury it. ¹⁶ That is how they will make the land ‘clean’ again.” ’ ” Also a town called Gog’s Armies is near there.

¹⁷ The Lord and King said to me, “Son of man, speak to every kind of bird. Call out to all the wild animals. Tell them, ‘Gather together. Come from everywhere. Gather around the sacrifice I am preparing for you. It is the great sacrifice on the mountains of Israel. There you will eat human bodies and drink human blood. ¹⁸ You will eat the bodies of mighty men. You will drink the blood of the princes of the earth. You will eat their bodies and drink their blood. You will do this as if they were rams and lambs, goats and bulls. You will enjoy it as if you were eating the fattest animals from Bashan. ¹⁹ So I am preparing a sacrifice for you. You will eat fat until you are completely full. You will drink blood until you are drunk. ²⁰ At my table you will eat horses, riders, mighty men and soldiers until you are full,’ announces the Lord and King.

²¹ “ ‘I will show all the nations my glory. They will see how I punish them when I use my power against them. ²² From that time on, the people of Israel will know that I am the Lord their God. ²³ The nations will know that the people of Israel were taken away as prisoners because they sinned against me. They were not faithful to me. So I turned my face away from them. I handed them over to their enemies. All of them were killed by swords. ²⁴ I punished them because they were “unclean.” They did many things that were wrong. So I turned my face away from them.’ ”

²⁵ The Lord and King says, “I will now cause the people of Jacob to recover from my judgment. I will show my tender love for all the people of Israel. I will make sure that my name is kept holy. ²⁶ My people will forget the shameful things they have done. They will not remember all the ways they were unfaithful to me. They used to live in safety in their land. At that time no one made them afraid. ²⁷ So I will bring them back from the nations. I will gather them from the countries of their enemies. And I will use them to prove to many nations how holy I am. ²⁸ Then they will know that I am the Lord their God. I let the nations take my people away as prisoners. But now I will bring them back to their own land. I will not leave anyone behind. ²⁹ I will no longer turn my face away from the people of Israel. I will pour out my Spirit on them,” announces the Lord and King.