Ezekiel 37:20

Yet Yahweh testified to Israel, and to Judah, by every prophet, and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”

It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I intend to do to them; that they may each return from his evil way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.”

It may be they will listen, and every man turn from his evil way; that I may relent from the evil which I intend to do to them because of the evil of their doings.’

Then I said, “Ah Lord Yahweh! They say of me, ‘Isn’t he a speaker of parables?’ ”

in gentleness correcting those who oppose him: perhaps God may give them repentance leading to a full knowledge of the truth,

You shall consider in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so Yahweh your God disciplines you.

Therefore I said, “Look away from me. I will weep bitterly. Don’t labor to comfort me for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

It may be they will present their supplication before Yahweh, and will each return from his evil way; for Yahweh has pronounced great anger and wrath against this people.”

“The Lord Yahweh says: ‘Strike with your hand, and stamp with your foot, and say, “Alas!” Because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel; for they will fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.

“Therefore, you son of man, prepare your stuff for moving, and move by day in their sight. You shall move from your place to another place in their sight. It may be they will consider, though they are a rebellious house.

“It will happen afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will see visions.

The lord of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my beloved son. It may be that seeing him, they will respect him.’

He said, “Now hear my words. If there is a prophet among you, I, Yahweh, will make myself known to him in a vision. I will speak with him in a dream.

Oh that there were such a heart in them that they would fear me and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them and with their children forever!

Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!

The children of Israel encamped in Gilgal. They kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at evening in the plains of Jericho.

A chariot came up and went out of Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for one hundred fifty shekels; and so they exported them to all the kings of the Hittites, and to the kings of Syria.

Behold, a man of God came out of Judah by Yahweh’s word to Bethel; and Jeroboam was standing by the altar to burn incense.

Elijah the Tishbite, who was one of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As Yahweh, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.”

He said, “I have been very jealous for Yahweh, the God of Armies; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”

Yet many years you put up with them, and testified against them by your Spirit through your prophets. Yet they would not listen. Therefore you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands.

Now when Mordecai found out all that was done, Mordecai tore his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the middle of the city, and wailed loudly and bitterly.

Oh that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways!

Therefore my heart sounds like a harp for Moab, and my inward parts for Kir Heres.

Therefore my thighs are filled with anguish. Pains have seized me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am in so much pain that I can’t hear. I so am dismayed that I can’t see.

My anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart! My heart trembles within me. I can’t hold my peace, because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.

Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them.

Thus said Yahweh, “Go, and buy a potter’s earthen container, and take some of the elders of the people, and of the elders of the priests;

“Then you shall break the container in the sight of the men who go with you,

Yahweh has sent to you all his servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them (but you have not listened or inclined your ear to hear),

Yahweh says to me: “Make bonds and bars, and put them on your neck.

Ask now, and see whether a man travails with child. Why do I see every man with his hands on his waist, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned pale?

But neither he, nor his servants, nor the people of the land, listened to Yahweh’s words, which he spoke by the prophet Jeremiah.

“Take great stones in your hand, and hide them in mortar in the brick work, which is at the entry of Pharaoh’s house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah;

Now in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.

He said to me, “Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you.”

“You also, son of man, take a tile, and lay it before yourself, and portray on it a city, even Jerusalem.

You shall eat it as barley cakes, and you shall bake it in their sight with dung that comes out of man.”

Yahweh said to him, “Go through the middle of the city, through the middle of Jerusalem, and set a mark on the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry over all the abominations that are done within it.”

I did so as I was commanded. I brought out my stuff by day, as stuff for moving, and in the evening I dug through the wall with my hand. I brought it out in the dark, and bore it on my shoulder in their sight.

“Son of man, tell a riddle, and speak a parable to the house of Israel;

Because he considers, and turns away from all his transgressions that he has committed, he shall surely live. He shall not die.

“Therefore sigh, you son of man. You shall sigh before their eyes with a broken heart and with bitterness.

Cry and wail, son of man; for it is on my people. It is on all the princes of Israel. They are delivered over to the sword with my people. Therefore beat your thigh.

Tell them, ‘ “As I live,” says the Lord Yahweh, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why will you die, house of Israel?” ’

If they are ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the form of the house, and its fashion, and its exits, and its entrances, and all its forms, and all its ordinances, and all its forms, and all its laws; and write it in their sight; that they may keep the whole form of it, and all its ordinances, and do them.

Then the king’s face was changed in him, and his thoughts troubled him; and the joints of his thighs were loosened, and his knees struck one against another.

I, Daniel, fainted, and was sick for some days. Then I rose up, and did the king’s business. I wondered at the vision, but no one understood it.

Yahweh said to me, “Go again, love a woman loved by another, and an adulteress, even as Yahweh loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods, and love cakes of raisins.”

I have also spoken to the prophets, and I have multiplied visions; and by the ministry of the prophets I have used parables.

Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was a herdsman, and a farmer of sycamore figs;

She is empty, void, and waste. The heart melts, the knees knock together, their bodies and faces have grown pale.

I heard, and my body trembled. My lips quivered at the voice. Rottenness enters into my bones, and I tremble in my place, because I must wait quietly for the day of trouble, for the coming up of the people who invade us.

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, like a hen gathers her own brood under her wings, and you refused!

Jesus therefore, again groaning in himself, came to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone lay against it.

‘It will be in the last days, says God, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams.

Coming to us and taking Paul’s belt, he bound his own feet and hands, and said, “The Holy Spirit says: ‘So the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt, and will deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.’ ”

It is doubtless not profitable for me to boast. For I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.

By reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations, that I should not be exalted excessively, a thorn in the flesh was given to me: a messenger of Satan to torment me, that I should not be exalted excessively.

Therefore, holy brothers, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession: Jesus,

Don’t you know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run like that, that you may win.

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time,