Promise of Israel's Restoration and Spiritual Renewal
36
Chapter 36
1And you, son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel and say, “Mountains of Israel, hear the word of the LORD.”2This is what the Lord GOD says: Because the enemy has said concerning you, “Aha! The everlasting heights are an inheritance for us.”3Therefore prophesy and say, Thus says the Lord GOD: Because—because they made you a reproach and panted after you from all around to make you an inheritance for the remnant of the nations, and you came up on the lip of the tongue and the talk of the people.4Therefore, mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD. Thus says the Lord GOD to the mountains and to the hills, to the ravines and to the valleys, to the ruins of the desolations and to the abandoned cities, which were for plunder and for derision to the remnant of the nations all around.5Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Surely in the fire of my zeal I have spoken against the remnant of the nations and against Edom, all of which gave my land to themselves as an inheritance with the joy of all their heart, with contempt of soul, in order to plunder it as spoil.6Therefore prophesy over the land of Israel and say to the mountains and to the hills, to the channels and to the valleys, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, in my jealousy and in my wrath, have spoken because you have borne the reproach of nations.7Therefore, the Lord GOD says this: I have lifted my hand in oath. Surely the nations around you—they will bear your disgrace.8And you, mountains of Israel, you shall give your branches and you shall bear your fruit for my people Israel, for they are drawing near to come.9For behold, I am toward you and I have turned to you, and you will be served and you will be sown.10And I will multiply people on you, all the house of Israel—all of it. And the cities will be inhabited, and the ruins will be built.11And I will multiply humanity and beast upon you, and they will multiply and be fruitful, and I will cause you to dwell like your former estate, and I will make good your Head, and you will know that I am the LORD.12And I will make humanity go upon you, my people Israel, and they will possess you, and you will be to them for an inheritance, and you will not continue any longer to bereave them.13Thus says the Lord GOD: Because they say to you, "You have eaten humanity and you have miscarried your nation; you have been."14Therefore you will not devour people again, and you will not bereave your nations again, says the LORD.15And I will not make you hear the disgrace of the nations anymore, and you will not bear the reproach of the peoples anymore, and you will not stumble among the nations anymore, declares the Lord GOD.16And the word of the LORD came to me, saying,17Son of Adam, house of Israel, when they dwelt on their land and defiled it by their way and by their doings—like the impurity of menstruation was their way before me.18And I poured out my wrath on them for the blood that they poured out on the land, and they made it impure with their idols.19And I scattered them among the nations, and they were scattered through the lands according to their ways and according to their deeds. I judged them.20And they came to the nations where they went, and they profaned my holy name when people said of them, "These are the people of the LORD, yet they have come out of his land."21And I will have compassion on my holy name, which the house of Israel profaned among the nations to which they came.22Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am not doing it for your sake, house of Israel, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you came.23And I will sanctify my great name, the one profaned among the nations, which you profaned in their midst. And the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when I sanctify myself in you before their eyes.24And I will take you from the nations, and I will gather you from all the lands, and I will bring you to your land.25And I will sprinkle pure waters on you, and I will purify you from all your impurities and from all your idols I will purify you.26And I will give you a new heart, and I will give a new spirit in your midst. And I will remove the stone heart from your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.27And I will give my Spirit among you, and I will make you walk in my statutes, and you will keep my legal judgments, and you will do them.28And you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be to me as a people, and I will be to you as God.29And I will save you from all your impurities, and I will call to the grain and multiply it, and I will not bring famine upon you.30And I will multiply the fruit of the tree and the harvest of the field so that you will not take the reproach of famine among the nations anymore.31And you shall remember your evil ways and your deeds which were not good, and you shall loathe yourselves for your iniquities and for your abominations.32"It is not for your sake that I am doing this," says the Lord GOD. "Know this, be ashamed and be disgraced because of your ways, house of Israel."33Thus says the Lord GOD: In the day I cleanse you from all your iniquities and cause the cities to be inhabited and the ruins to be rebuilt.34And the land that was desolate will be worked, unlike when it was a desolation in the eyes of every passerby.35And they will say, “This land that was desolate has become like the Garden of Eden, and the devastated cities and the desolate places and the pulled-down ones in fortresses are dwelt in.”36And the nations will know—those who remain around you—that I, the LORD, have built the destroyed ones, have planted the desolate one. I, the LORD, have spoken, and I have done it.37This is what the Lord GOD says: I will yet allow the house of Israel to ask me for this; I will multiply you like a flock of humanity.38Like the flock of holy ones, like the flock of Jerusalem in her appointed times, so the devastated cities will be full of a flock of humanity, and they will know that I am the LORD.