A Valley of Dry Bones

37 The Lord took hold of me, and I was carried away by the Spirit of the Lord to a valley filled with bones. ² He led me all around among the bones that covered the valley floor. They were scattered everywhere across the ground and were completely dried out. ³ Then he asked me, “Son of man, can these bones become living people again?”

“O Sovereign Lord,” I replied, “you alone know the answer to that.”

⁴ Then he said to me, “Speak a prophetic message to these bones and say, ‘Dry bones, listen to the word of the Lord! ⁵ This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look! I am going to put breath into you and make you live again! ⁶ I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

⁷ So I spoke this message, just as he told me. Suddenly as I spoke, there was a rattling noise all across the valley. The bones of each body came together and attached themselves as complete skeletons. ⁸ Then as I watched, muscles and flesh formed over the bones. Then skin formed to cover their bodies, but they still had no breath in them.

⁹ Then he said to me, “Speak a prophetic message to the winds, son of man. Speak a prophetic message and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, O breath, from the four winds! Breathe into these dead bodies so they may live again.’”

¹⁰ So I spoke the message as he commanded me, and breath came into their bodies. They all came to life and stood up on their feet—a great army.

¹¹ Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones represent the people of Israel. They are saying, ‘We have become old, dry bones—all hope is gone. Our nation is finished.’ ¹² Therefore, prophesy to them and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O my people, I will open your graves of exile and cause you to rise again. Then I will bring you back to the land of Israel. ¹³ When this happens, O my people, you will know that I am the Lord. ¹⁴ I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live again and return home to your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken, and I have done what I said. Yes, the Lord has spoken!’”

Reunion of Israel and Judah

¹⁵ Again a message came to me from the Lord: ¹⁶ “Son of man, take a piece of wood and carve on it these words: ‘This represents Judah and its allied tribes.’ Then take another piece and carve these words on it: ‘This represents Ephraim and the northern tribes of Israel.’^{[a] 17} Now hold them together in your hand as if they were one piece of wood. ¹⁸ When your people ask you what your actions mean, ¹⁹ say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will take Ephraim and the northern tribes and join them to Judah. I will make them one piece of wood in my hand.’

²⁰ “Then hold out the pieces of wood you have inscribed, so the people can see them. ²¹ And give them this message from the Sovereign Lord: I will gather the people of Israel from among the nations. I will bring them home to their own land from the places where they have been scattered. ²² I will unify them into one nation on the mountains of Israel. One king will rule them all; no longer will they be divided into two nations or into two kingdoms. ²³ They will never again pollute themselves with their idols^[b] and vile images and rebellion, for I will save them from their sinful apostasy.^[c] I will cleanse them. Then they will truly be my people, and I will be their God.

²⁴ “My servant David will be their king, and they will have only one shepherd. They will obey my regulations and be careful to keep my decrees. ²⁵ They will live in the land I gave my servant Jacob, the land where their ancestors lived. They and their children and their grandchildren after them will live there forever, generation after generation. And my servant David will be their prince forever. ²⁶ And I will make a covenant of peace with them, an everlasting covenant. I will give them their land and increase their numbers,^[d] and I will put my Temple among them forever. ²⁷ I will make my home among them. I will be their God, and they will be my people. ²⁸ And when my Temple is among them forever, the nations will know that I am the Lord, who makes Israel holy.”

A Message for Gog

38 This is another message that came to me from the Lord: ² “Son of man, turn and face Gog of the land of Magog, the prince who rules over the nations of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him. ³ Give him this message from the Sovereign Lord: Gog, I am your enemy! ⁴ I will turn you around and put hooks in your jaws to lead you out with your whole army—your horses and charioteers in full armor and a great horde armed with shields and swords. ⁵ Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya^[e] will join you, too, with all their weapons. ⁶ Gomer and all its armies will also join you, along with the armies of Beth-togarmah from the distant north, and many others.

⁷ “Get ready; be prepared! Keep all the armies around you mobilized, and take command of them. ⁸ A long time from now you will be called into action. In the distant future you will swoop down on the land of Israel, which will be enjoying peace after recovering from war and after its people have returned from many lands to the mountains of Israel. ⁹ You and all your allies—a vast and awesome army—will roll down on them like a storm and cover the land like a cloud.

¹⁰ “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: At that time evil thoughts will come to your mind, and you will devise a wicked scheme. ¹¹ You will say, ‘Israel is an unprotected land filled with unwalled villages! I will march against her and destroy these people who live in such confidence! ¹² I will go to those formerly desolate cities that are now filled with people who have returned from exile in many nations. I will capture vast amounts of plunder, for the people are rich with livestock and other possessions now. They think the whole world revolves around them!’ ¹³ But Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish will ask, ‘Do you really think the armies you have gathered can rob them of silver and gold? Do you think you can drive away their livestock and seize their goods and carry off plunder?’

¹⁴ “Therefore, son of man, prophesy against Gog. Give him this message from the Sovereign Lord: When my people are living in peace in their land, then you will rouse yourself.^{[f] 15} You will come from your homeland in the distant north with your vast cavalry and your mighty army, ¹⁶ and you will attack my people Israel, covering their land like a cloud. At that time in the distant future, I will bring you against my land as everyone watches, and my holiness will be displayed by what happens to you, Gog. Then all the nations will know that I am the Lord.

¹⁷ “This is what the Sovereign Lord asks: Are you the one I was talking about long ago, when I announced through Israel’s prophets that in the future I would bring you against my people? ¹⁸ But this is what the Sovereign Lord says: When Gog invades the land of Israel, my fury will boil over! ¹⁹ In my jealousy and blazing anger, I promise a mighty shaking in the land of Israel on that day. ²⁰ All living things—the fish in the sea, the birds of the sky, the animals of the field, the small animals that scurry along the ground, and all the people on earth—will quake in terror at my presence. Mountains will be thrown down; cliffs will crumble; walls will fall to the earth. ²¹ I will summon the sword against you on all the hills of Israel, says the Sovereign Lord. Your men will turn their swords against each other. ²² I will punish you and your armies with disease and bloodshed; I will send torrential rain, hailstones, fire, and burning sulfur! ²³ In this way, I will show my greatness and holiness, and I will make myself known to all the nations of the world. Then they will know that I am the Lord.

The Slaughter of Gog’s Hordes

39 “Son of man, prophesy against Gog. Give him this message from the Sovereign Lord: I am your enemy, O Gog, ruler of the nations of Meshech and Tubal. ² I will turn you around and drive you toward the mountains of Israel, bringing you from the distant north. ³ I will knock the bow from your left hand and the arrows from your right hand, and I will leave you helpless. ⁴ You and your army and your allies will all die on the mountains. I will feed you to the vultures and wild animals. ⁵ You will fall in the open fields, for I have spoken, says the Sovereign Lord. ⁶ And I will rain down fire on Magog and on all your allies who live safely on the coasts. Then they will know that I am the Lord.

⁷ “In this way, I will make known my holy name among my people of Israel. I will not let anyone bring shame on it. And the nations, too, will know that I am the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. ⁸ That day of judgment will come, says the Sovereign Lord. Everything will happen just as I have declared it.

⁹ “Then the people in the towns of Israel will go out and pick up your small and large shields, bows and arrows, javelins and spears, and they will use them for fuel. There will be enough to last them seven years! ¹⁰ They won’t need to cut wood from the fields or forests, for these weapons will give them all the fuel they need. They will plunder those who planned to plunder them, and they will rob those who planned to rob them, says the Sovereign Lord.

¹¹ “And I will make a vast graveyard for Gog and his hordes in the Valley of the Travelers, east of the Dead Sea.^[g] It will block the way of those who travel there, and they will change the name of the place to the Valley of Gog’s Hordes. ¹² It will take seven months for the people of Israel to bury the bodies and cleanse the land. ¹³ Everyone in Israel will help, for it will be a glorious victory for Israel when I demonstrate my glory on that day, says the Sovereign Lord.

¹⁴ “After seven months, teams of men will be appointed to search the land for skeletons to bury, so the land will be made clean again. ¹⁵ Whenever bones are found, a marker will be set up so the burial crews will take them to be buried in the Valley of Gog’s Hordes. ¹⁶ (There will be a town there named Hamonah, which means ‘horde.’) And so the land will finally be cleansed.

¹⁷ “And now, son of man, this is what the Sovereign Lord says: Call all the birds and wild animals. Say to them: Gather together for my great sacrificial feast. Come from far and near to the mountains of Israel, and there eat flesh and drink blood! ¹⁸ Eat the flesh of mighty men and drink the blood of princes as though they were rams, lambs, goats, and bulls—all fattened animals from Bashan! ¹⁹ Gorge yourselves with flesh until you are glutted; drink blood until you are drunk. This is the sacrificial feast I have prepared for you. ²⁰ Feast at my banquet table—feast on horses and charioteers, on mighty men and all kinds of valiant warriors, says the Sovereign Lord.

²¹ “In this way, I will demonstrate my glory to the nations. Everyone will see the punishment I have inflicted on them and the power of my fist when I strike. ²² And from that time on the people of Israel will know that I am the Lord their God. ²³ The nations will then know why Israel was sent away to exile—it was punishment for sin, for they were unfaithful to their God. Therefore, I turned away from them and let their enemies destroy them. ²⁴ I turned my face away and punished them because of their defilement and their sins.

Restoration for God’s People

²⁵ “So now, this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will end the captivity of my people^[h]; I will have mercy on all Israel, for I jealously guard my holy reputation! ²⁶ They will accept responsibility for^[i] their past shame and unfaithfulness after they come home to live in peace in their own land, with no one to bother them. ²⁷ When I bring them home from the lands of their enemies, I will display my holiness among them for all the nations to see. ²⁸ Then my people will know that I am the Lord their God, because I sent them away to exile and brought them home again. I will leave none of my people behind. ²⁹ And I will never again turn my face from them, for I will pour out my Spirit upon the people of Israel. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken!”

3 See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him. ² Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. ³ And all who have this eager expectation will keep themselves pure, just as he is pure.

⁴ Everyone who sins is breaking God’s law, for all sin is contrary to the law of God. ⁵ And you know that Jesus came to take away our sins, and there is no sin in him. ⁶ Anyone who continues to live in him will not sin. But anyone who keeps on sinning does not know him or understand who he is.

⁷ Dear children, don’t let anyone deceive you about this: When people do what is right, it shows that they are righteous, even as Christ is righteous. ⁸ But when people keep on sinning, it shows that they belong to the devil, who has been sinning since the beginning. But the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil. ⁹ Those who have been born into God’s family do not make a practice of sinning, because God’s life^[a] is in them. So they can’t keep on sinning, because they are children of God. ¹⁰ So now we can tell who are children of God and who are children of the devil. Anyone who does not live righteously and does not love other believers^[b] does not belong to God.

Love One Another

¹¹ This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another. ¹² We must not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and killed his brother. And why did he kill him? Because Cain had been doing what was evil, and his brother had been doing what was righteous. ¹³ So don’t be surprised, dear brothers and sisters,^[c] if the world hates you.

¹⁴ If we love our brothers and sisters who are believers,^[d] it proves that we have passed from death to life. But a person who has no love is still dead. ¹⁵ Anyone who hates another brother or sister^[e] is really a murderer at heart. And you know that murderers don’t have eternal life within them.

¹⁶ We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. ¹⁷ If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister^[f] in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person?

¹⁸ Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. ¹⁹ Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God. ²⁰ Even if we feel guilty, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything.

²¹ Dear friends, if we don’t feel guilty, we can come to God with bold confidence. ²² And we will receive from him whatever we ask because we obey him and do the things that please him.

²³ And this is his commandment: We must believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as he commanded us. ²⁴ Those who obey God’s commandments remain in fellowship with him, and he with them. And we know he lives in us because the Spirit he gave us lives in us.