A NEW HEART
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Opening Prayer
Thank you for your Word, Lord, that continues to show me who you are and teach me how to live for you. Give me a mind ready to receive from you today and a heart prepared to do your will.
Read EZEKIEL 11
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
God’s Sure Judgment on Jerusalem
11 Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the gate of the house of the Lord that faces east. There at the entrance of the gate were twenty-five men, and I saw among them Jaazaniah son of Azzur and Pelatiah son of Benaiah, leaders of the people. 2 The Lord said to me, “Son of man, these are the men who are plotting evil and giving wicked advice in this city. 3 They say, ‘Haven’t our houses been recently rebuilt? This city is a pot, and we are the meat in it.’ 4 Therefore prophesy against them; prophesy, son of man.”
5 Then the Spirit of the Lord came on me, and he told me to say: “This is what the Lord says: That is what you are saying, you leaders in Israel, but I know what is going through your mind. 6 You have killed many people in this city and filled its streets with the dead.
7 “Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: The bodies you have thrown there are the meat and this city is the pot, but I will drive you out of it. 8 You fear the sword, and the sword is what I will bring against you, declares the Sovereign Lord. 9 I will drive you out of the city and deliver you into the hands of foreigners and inflict punishment on you. 10 You will fall by the sword, and I will execute judgment on you at the borders of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord. 11 This city will not be a pot for you, nor will you be the meat in it; I will execute judgment on you at the borders of Israel. 12 And you will know that I am the Lord, for you have not followed my decrees or kept my laws but have conformed to the standards of the nations around you.”
13 Now as I was prophesying, Pelatiah son of Benaiah died. Then I fell facedown and cried out in a loud voice, “Alas, Sovereign Lord! Will you completely destroy the remnant of Israel?”
The Promise of Israel’s Return
14 The word of the Lord came to me: 15 “Son of man, the people of Jerusalem have said of your fellow exiles and all the other Israelites, ‘They are far away from the Lord; this land was given to us as our possession.’
16 “Therefore say: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Although I sent them far away among the nations and scattered them among the countries, yet for a little while I have been a sanctuary for them in the countries where they have gone.’
17 “Therefore say: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will gather you from the nations and bring you back from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you back the land of Israel again.’
18 “They will return to it and remove all its vile images and detestable idols. 19 I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. 20 Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God. 21 But as for those whose hearts are devoted to their vile images and detestable idols, I will bring down on their own heads what they have done, declares the Sovereign Lord.”
22 Then the cherubim, with the wheels beside them, spread their wings, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them. 23 The glory of the Lord went up from within the city and stopped above the mountain east of it. 24 The Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the exiles in Babylonia[a] in the vision given by the Spirit of God.
Then the vision I had seen went up from me, 25 and I told the exiles everything the Lord had shown me.
Footnotes
- Ezekiel 11:24 Or Chaldea
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
‘O for a heart to praise my God, / a heart from sin set free, / a heart that always feels thy blood / so freely shed for me.’1
Ezekiel is given two messages, one for the leaders in Israel and the other for the exiles. Quite what they made of Ezekiel’s visions, if he indeed shared these with them, we are not told. There is a certain irony that Ezekiel sees the 25 men (v. 1) at the gate of the city, precisely the place where God departed from the city—but they had not noticed it. Ezekiel’s message to the 25 is in the form of a strange image of meat in a pot, the meaning of which is not entirely clear. The most likely interpretation is that those who had stayed in Jerusalem saw themselves as the choice pieces of meat being cooked in a pot, protected by the pot. The bones and offal outside the pot were the unprotected riffraff, who had been taken into exile. When Pelatiah drops down dead—rather like Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5— Ezekiel is shaken and starts to pray that God would not completely destroy his people.
God’s answer is a promise of hope and restoration that would come not in Jerusalem but through the exiles, reinforcing the message we find elsewhere in the book that God can be present with his people anywhere, not just in Jerusalem and the temple. In a passage similar to Jeremiah’s prophecy,2 God promises to put a new heart and a new spirit in his people, who will be restored once again in the covenant relationship to be God’s people. The promise is, however, immediately followed by a warning of judgment on those who refuse to turn from their idols to the Lord. They will miss out on the opportunity of a heart transplant.
Apply
‘Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.’3 How do we guard our hearts?
Closing prayer
Holy Spirit, thank you for making me alive in Christ, for making it possible for me to follow God’s decrees and keep his laws. Help me to be faithful with all that I am and have as I follow him.
1 ‘O For Heart to Praise My God’, Charles Wesley 1742. 2 Jer 31:31–34 3 Prov 4:23
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