at a glance
author: Ezekiel.
date: Between 593 and 571 BC.
setting: Ezekiel the priest prophesied to his fellow Jews who were taken as prisoners to Babylon in 597 BC.
verse to remember:“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (36:26).
theme to consider: In part one of the book, Ezekiel warns that God will punish the people for their sins. Later in the book (after that first part came true!), Ezekiel comforts the people by assuring them that God will someday bring them back to Jerusalem and restore the temple.
unchanging truth
For girls, getting clean is more than just scrubbing with soap and water. We don’t just shower or bathe; we indulge. Indeed, we have made “getting clean” an art form.
No matter how much we scrub, however, our cleansing only goes skin deep (literally). When we need cleansing from sin, we need far more than an exfoliating facial.
The Israelites needed to get clean. They had dirtied themselves with sin and idolatry; many of them had been taken away into captivity in faraway Babylon. At the same time Jeremiah was telling the people in Jerusalem about the coming destruction of their beloved city, Ezekiel was giving the same message to those already in captivity. You see, the people were certain that because God loved Jerusalem, the city would never fall to a foreign nation. What they didn’t understand was that God was willing to let the nation fall in order to teach his people an important lesson about their sin and his holiness.
God also gave Ezekiel a message of hope. One day, God would gather his people back and cleanse them right to their hearts. He would give them a new spirit and a new heart to love and serve him.
After you shower once, are you clean forever? Nope. In the same way, although God has given you a clean heart through your belief in Christ, you still need to daily bring your sins to him in repentance.
1. Speak out for God, whether others respond or not (2:3–8).
2. God will punish sin, but his goal is always to draw us back to himself so that we’ll know that he is “the LORD” (6:7, 10, 13–14; 12:15–16, 20).
3. God promises us a future with him in a glorious kingdom beside a life-giving river (47:6–12; see also Revelation 22:1–5).