Tuesday, November 20, 2007

11/20/2007 Ezekiel 39:21-40:4 (NRSV)

Mercy on the house of Israel

I will display my glory among the nations; and all the nations shall see my
judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid on them. The house
of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God, from that day forward. And the
nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity,
because they dealt treacherously with me. So I hid my face from them and gave
them into the hand of their adversaries, and they all fell by the sword. I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions, and hid my face
from them.

Therefore thus says the Lord God: Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob, and
have mercy on the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for my holy name.
They shall forget their shame, and all the treachery they have practiced against
me, when they live securely in their land with no one to make them afraid, when I
have brought them back from the peoples and gathered them from their enemies'
lands, and through them have displayed my holiness in the sight of many
nations. Then they shall know that I am the Lord their God because I sent them
into exile among the nations, and then gathered them into their own land. I will
leave none of them behind; and I will never again hide my face from them, when
I pour out my spirit upon the house of Israel, says the Lord God.

In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day
of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was struck down, on that very
day, the hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me there. He brought
me, in visions of God, to the land of Israel, and set me down upon a very high
mountain, on which was a structure like a city to the south. When he brought me
there, a man was there, whose appearance shone like bronze, with a linen cord
and a measuring reed in his hand; and he was standing in the gateway. The man
said to me, "Mortal, look closely and listen attentively, and set your mind upon all
that I shall show you, for you were brought here in order that I might show it to
you; declare all that you see to the house of Israel."

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