I Will Be Their God, They Shall Be My People
15 The word of the LORD came to me:
16
1"Son of man,
2take a stick and write on it, 'For
3Judah, and
4the people of Israel associated with him'; then take another stick and write on it, 'For
5Joseph (the stick of
6Ephraim) and all the house of Israel associated with him.'
17
And
7join them one to another into one stick, that
8they may become
9one in your hand.
18
And when
10your people say to you,
11'Will you not tell us what you mean by these?'
19
say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I am about to take
12the stick of Joseph (that is in the hand of Ephraim) and the tribes of Israel associated with him. And I will join with it the
13stick of Judah, and
14make them one stick,
15that they may be one in my hand.
20
When the sticks on which you write are in your hand
16before their eyes,
21
then say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold,
17I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all around, and
18bring them to their own land.
22
And
19I will make them one nation in the land, on
20the mountains of Israel. And
21one king shall be king over them all, and they shall be no longer
22two nations, and no longer divided into two kingdoms.
23
23They shall not
24defile themselves anymore
25with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. But
26I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and
27they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
24
"My servant
28David
29shall be king over them, and they shall all have
30one shepherd.
31They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes.
25
32They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children's children shall dwell there
33forever, and David my servant shall be their prince
34forever.
26
35I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be
36an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and
37multiply them, and will
38set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore.
27
39My dwelling place shall be with them,
40and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
28
Then
41the nations will know that
42I am the LORD who sanctifies Israel, when
43my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore."