Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 36:16-38, Ezekiel 37:1-14, 2 Corinthians 3:3, Colossians 1:13-14
This Is the Old Testament is part of a twelve-week thematic overview of the entire Bible. Each day we’ll read a thematic selection from a different book or two of the Bible, along with supplemental passages that show how the theme of that day’s main reading is found throughout Scripture. We’ll also read a brief summary of each book and a reflection on how the book fits into the larger story of Scripture. This week, we’ll continue looking at the genres of Major and Minor Prophets.
The Book of Ezekiel: This book, named after the prophet, is an account of God’s message of judgment and hope to the Jewish exiles in Babylon.
How Ezekiel Fits Into the Story: The message of Ezekiel centers on the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC. Prior to the announcement of Jerusalem’s fall, Ezekiel’s message was one of judgment. After Jerusalem was destroyed and the nation was in exile, Ezekiel’s message became one of hope: God would provide a new heart and a new spirit to enable the people to be faithful and avoid future judgment. He would establish a new temple and a new way of worship for the people once they were restored. The arrangement of the book—announcing judgment in the beginning and declaring restoration at the end—demonstrates that Ezekiel’s message was ultimately one of hope in God’s sovereign mercy.
Reflection Questions:
1. How is Ezekiel 36:16–38 fulfilled in Christ?
2. How does today’s reading shape your understanding of the story of redemption?
Take time to reflect on your responses and share what you are learning with others in the community in the comments.
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63 thoughts on "Ezekiel"
Hope for every prodigal we pray for!!
Wow! Right?
Recently, the Lord has laid a heavy burden on my heart, calling me into a deeper season of prayer and mourning. It feels like a mantle of groaning intercession, a deep, spiritual aching for others by the pain God places in my heart for them. I don’t know how to explain, but this burden brings to mind something Rhonda shared a while back about her heart for jail ministry. She mentioned a certain butterfly, whom social media strongly criticized and hated after a tragedy. Rhonda said she would have hated too, but because of this ministry, she now had so much love. That really stuck with me (thank you RHONDA). You see, that burden is customized, it is niched, so she would reach whom God is pursuing, despite their sin. This same question applies for us. What is your niche? What is your burden? That is your ministry. God customizes our heartbreak so we can reach the exact people He is pursuing. Hearing what Tanya shared today truly broke my heart (Notice the pain). The pain will lead us to our assignment. Don’t run from the pain. The pain that Israel was going through from what TANYA shared, and IS still going though till this day, and I have to ask, has the world around us gone mad.. gone blind? Absolutely. We have to be careful. Are we hating those whom God loves? Are we loving what God hates? Are we becoming friends with the world (ruled by the prince satan), using the mainstream media as his megaphone? “Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? “. Yes indeed. “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers”. I pray we wake up. “I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you will not be proud about yourselves: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.” (Romans 11:25). As many of us sat here, in the comfort of our home, in the peaceful bliss of our country, while Israel is going through what they are going through, and we might think, oh they mess up again. Before we fall into the same condemnation pattern of thinking, the Word says, it is for our sake, “Many of the people of Israel are now enemies of the Good News, and this benefits you Gentiles. Yet they are still the people He loves because he chose their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” (Romans 11:28).
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We must be careful so that we are not blind like the rest of the world out there who have gone mad. Israel’s history is a long road of suffering, from slavery in Egypt, to the threat of genocide in Esther’s time, through the horrors of World War II (thank you Tanya for the references), and continuing into the threats they face today, the October 7 and so on. It makes me wonder, how can people go on hating them even in the church? Ignorance and blindness. Don’t they know the truth? By their hate, you shall know their blindness.
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Have you been called to love what the world hates? (like Rhonda and her jail ministry). Have you found your “butterflies” that brought you so much joy and purpose that you will show up?
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I will share the birth pains in intercession that I was given, the assignment to mourn and to pray. God gives me the outline of the work. Maybe the Lord has given you the same calling. “We have come in this hour, this exact moment in history to speak to those who feel hidden, overlooked, and passed by. To those who are tired of shallow altars and powerless gatherings. To those who have felt the tug of GOD to weep in secret, fast in silence, and shake the unseen realm. Revival never starts in the sanctuary. It starts in the secret place. It flows from the agony of divine burden and the joy of answered travail. And the reason we’ve seen so many shallow flames in recent years is because the furnace of intercession has gone cold. Intercessors don’t just observe, they absorb the pain right from the heart of GOD. You can’t pray for a city, a nation that you haven’t wept over. Jesus wept over Jerusalem. Jeremiah wept over Israel. Did you weep over your country? Did you mourn the over the state of hatred and division that you saw? The burden was unbearable. The heavier the burden we carry for the prodigals, a city, a community, a nation, until the Spirit strengthens us to carry that burden, we must know the heavier the burden, the greater the glory that will come. May we pray, Father, let me feel your heart and your pain for Israel, for my country, for my people. Let me carry the sorrow in intercession. Let me weep while others complain and criticize. Let me groan in prayers while others gossip. Please help us rend our heart and rend our clothes and wear sackcloth and intercede for this nation of Israel, through whom their partial hardening is for our sake. Prophesy, speak, that these dry bones will live, that none shall perish because it’s GOD’s will for them to live.
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What is your pain? Take up the pain, and get to work. We are called to intercede for a time of history like this. Show up daily in prayers. Set prayer as your lifestyle and not your emotional outlet. Speak the Word. Declare Scriptures and praise God through the silence, even when we feel nothing, push through. The Lord is near to those who weep in private, who offers Him a broken heart and a contrite spirit.
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May we be the ones who contend in the spirit realm and to speak God’s will into existence, while the world has gone mad. Like Noah, the only one who built the boat while the world laughed. Let the glory of God be poured out to His beloved. May we go from victory to victory in Jesus’ Name.
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Be blessed dear sisters.
Oh My…I am reading and speaking with you…every word and sentence and the passion building… This is so my heart too Mercy!! My heart aches for so many things…broken women in jail..chronic pain sufferers…
single mothers/ broken families..lost prodigals. BUT now…I too, know the power of the heart that bears for them and the groaning for them…and that we need to be fully on fire and be at the prayer mantle!!
You said it all so perfectly. It’s funny that I was just trying to make sense of all this that I’ve been feeling/ the burden and to explain it to some people in the last week or two…and here you said it!! I will have to paste and print this and put in my Bible!!
“To those who are tired of shallow altars and powerless gatherings. To those who have felt the tug of GOD to weep in secret, fast in silence, and shake the unseen realm” !!!! YES..AMEN!!
And Amen for Israel. And His people! Just like Nehemiah..our heart should weep for it. Especially now, Christians are splitting over this profound issue..(another sign)…thank you for repeating this again. (and Tanya)
Amen Mercy! Thank you for your words.
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THEY: “Our bones are dried up, our hope is gone.”
GOD: “I will open your graves and lead you to the land”
Heart of stone to a heart of flesh and the promised indwelling of His Spirit! Beautiful promises that are ours today!
1. Ezekiel 36:26-28 sums it up for me. We will be made brand NEW!! New heart. New spirit. The Spirit will guide us, then given a NEW life. We are HIS and HE is ours!
2. All I have to do is accept this FREE gift from God through the shedding of His own Son’s blood our JESUS. V14 “I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken and I have done it, declares the Lord.” I trust my JESUS! I am Free!
Good morning sweeties on this gorgeous “cool” morning in NorCal before the heat. BUT as you all know I love the heat! Thank you all for praying for my kiddos. Please continue. Trusting my Jesus for their lives decisions. I told them just a couple of days ago, my main prayer for them, is to “follow Jesus” no matter what life brings. We can trust HIM!
Praying over requests
Reflection Questions:
1. How is Ezekiel 36:16–38 fulfilled in Christ?
God told them that He would save them, make them clean, show them redemption from their sins. God did this in Christ our Savior. Christ has redeemed us from our sins and washed us clean. He has saved us through His sacrifice.
2. How does today’s reading shape your understanding of the story of redemption?
That God has inscribed on us a spiritual seal to redeem us from our sins.
If you have ever seen some old footage from World II when the Allied armies invaded the Nazi concentration camps; you saw thousands of corpses. The survivors were the walking dead.
If you have seen the photos from Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen, or any other concentration camps you saw all the dead bodies and skeletal figures of survivors waiting for liberation.
Redemption-out of the skeletal ruins of the Holocaust; out of the decimation of European of Jewry, God breathed life into the Jews brought them home to Eratz Israel.
This is one of the literal meanings of Ezekiel 37:14. Perhaps my favorite meaning. God resurrected the benei Israel (people of Israel)from the ruins and ashes of the concentration camps of Europe. He took them home and birthed a nation.
Am Israel Chai!
Thank you Tanya for sharing. A picture says a thousand words. May the Lord bless Israel and deliver her from all her wicked enemies, now and always.
Amen!
There will always remain a remnant of God’s people. She will be scattered, and come back and made into a nation. (1048)
All nations will come against her (notice even America might not stand with her now!) Although as Christians you better be. Not supporting everything they do, but as God’s nation/ a people and a place…praying on their behalf (as our prodigals and all the lost) When all eyes are back on Israel, as now, that means you better be awake (with oil in your lamp!–Holy Spirit! LIVING and ACTIVE…creating the fire in you!)
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All because He loves us.
Gotta love this song! “Rattle” by Elevation Worship.
Saturday was silent
Surely it was through
But since when has impossible
Ever stopped You?
Friday’s disappointment
Is Sunday’s empty tomb
Since when has impossible
Ever stopped You?
This is the sound of dry bones rattling
This is the praise, make a dead man walk again
Open the grave, I’m coming out
I’m gonna live, gonna live again
This is the sound of dry bones rattling, yeah
Pentecostal fire stirring something new
You’re not gonna run out of miracles anytime soon
Yeah, resurrection power runs in my veins too and
I believe there’s another miracle here in this room
This is the sound of dry bones rattling
My God is able to save and deliver and heal
And restore anything that He wants to
Just ask the man who was thrown
On the bones of Elisha
If there’s anything that He can’t do
Just ask the stone that was rolled
At the tomb in the garden
What happens when God says to move
yep, LOVE Rattle! I put tons of songs on my jail playlist about dead to life and tomorrow is the wrap up so I might have to play this again!!!
GM! Ya’ll have summed it up beautifully in the comments already! I couldn’t help but read more in Ezekiel! It is so good! Our God is Holy, judgement and mercy he declares and grants. We cannot take his word, his sovereignty, His Holiness…lightly. For every knee will bow. And we will have to have an account for our days. What we did with what we knew. Are we spending our days on useless stuff that doesn’t matter? Are we letting worry and anxiety overshadow the goodness of God? Are we preparing and ready for our Jesus to return in the blink of an eye? Are we praying for Israel, his land and people? They are dry bones. We are dry bones. But he will breathe life into us through the Holy Spirit, that comes only through Jesus! Restoration, yes! Transformation….should be happening as a result! Redemption. Love.
The greatest story. And you don’t get it until you get it! And his great love and mercy and grace is unfathomable! That he takes a wretch like me, forgives, redeems and restores!
Do we believe His words? They are black and white. No grey…not what we think is right or our interpretation. When we seek him with all of our hearts, he reveals more and more. We don’t believe in Jesus, and end there. His Holy Spirit leads us daily to walk and talk like him. The devil is still trying to kill, steal, and destroy- us Christ-followers, the ones on fire and making a difference! It doesn’t scare me..it makes me say bring it on, my Jesus makes you flee when applied! With my given armor he has no chance! That is the way we should see it! Hallelujah!
The dry bones come alive also tells me…those prodigals we thought are completely lost and dead…nope, God will breathe his mighty Spirit over them and they will come alive..back to Him! Hold fast to praying for them!
Amen Rhonda!
Amen and amen. ❤️
Amen Rhonda J! Amen!❤️
When I read words of the LORD statements in scripture that say “I will” they are so direct to my heart and an immediate promise in my mind. There are no “if or ands” about it – He says it, He will do it. I like verse 23 “I will show the holiness of my great name”. God’s Supremacy and Sovereignty reigns above it all and He can change the wayward, hard heart to a flesh that turns to seek Him. He is able to establish good, right, and true and bring redemption despite a broken people. What a mighty God we serve. Thank you Heavenly Father. Keep my heart soft towards you. Breath on these dry bones and help me come to life and pursue the life you have called me to. Thank you for making a way to have a hope and a future. Amen.❤️
I am scheduled for a bone marrow biopsy this morning. Please pray that it brings clarity and definitive information for the doctors as they continue to try and figure out what is causing my symptoms, for direction for a plan and treatment going forward and that I can manage the procedure. Thank you so much.
Praying God’s mercy for clarity and peace.
Wonderful clarity!
Prayed for your appointment and for results that can determine the problem and a plan.
Praying for you, Wendy, for strength for this procedure and for peace, knowing that God is with you. You’ve got this ❤️
Praying Wendy! I’m hoping tomorrow you will have a good report for us!
Praying for you, Wendy! ❤️
Praying, Wendy ❤️
Praying Wendy
Praying Wendy ❤️
We speak life and strength and health into Wendy’s bones, in the name of Jesus. We speak life and health and strength into Wendy’s body in the name of Jesus. We declare she is covered with His precious blood. The blood that bought our redemption, freedom, healing and restoration. We thank you Lord that you are looking after Wendy. Holy Spirit we ask that you would direct her steps and that you would provide wisdom and peace to her this day. In Jesus name we pray.
Dear Wendy, by the time I am reading this you may have already had your procedure. But I am praying for you for an easy procedure, from someone who has had multiple bone marrow biopsy, they are frightening to think about, but when it’s over you can breathe a sigh of relief. Praying for that sigh of relief and a good report from the doctor. Our God is so good and He has you in the palm of His hand. May this procedure answer all your questions and give you hope. ❤️
I love the verses in Ezekiel where God declares “I am the Lord. I have spoken and I will do it.” He is faithful to His promises every single time! Thank you Lord!!
Yes, Amen!! He does what is spoken! That’s why the Bible should be our everything. That is where we learn the past, present, and future. Where God speaks to everything in our life, and all of time! How crazy that it is not a thought in most people’s daily life!
lots of end time prophecies
Indeed! Always fasinates me and so many good studies on it! Especially for end times and the promises for Israel!
Amen
BG verse today ❤️
Isaiah 40:31
But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.
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Ezekiel 36:19b I judged them according to their ways and their deeds.
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Yet God. In sanctifying His name after all they had done, abundant mercy was there.
Ezekiel 36:25-27
25 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
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Sounds a lot like the work Jesus does in a willing and repentant heart. I am so thankful for what He did in my life.
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Those dry bones bring the tears every time, there is NOTHING that our God can’t do.
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This Is Our God, Phil Wickham (writers, Phil Wickham, Steven Furtick, Joseph Patrick Martin Barrett, Brandon Lake)
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DEBBY KEIRAN praying for your daughter, for reconnection, for repairs needed in the relationship, for her heart to be open and wanting to work on moving forward with her family. Joining AZ WALKER in praying for wisdom speaking with your daughter, or knowing whether listening may be more important than words.
MARI praying for guidance for your children & especially your son, that he would seek to know the Lord’s will and path for him.
CAT-TEE praying for you and your mom in the waiting, in this painful blessing of time together. ❤️
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Yes, amen to all of the above!
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Today’s reading is really making me think of our prodigals. “I will bring you into your own land. I will clease you from all of your impurities and all your idols. I will give you a clean heart and put a new spirit within you. I will save you. The ruins will be rebuilt. This land that was desolate will become like the Garden of Eden. Then they will know that I am the Lord. I will do it.” – this is the declaration of the LORD. Lord, I declare this over all of our prodigals.
Amen.
Tami I had similar thoughts as I read about the dry bones being brought back to a living body. I join you and others praying the dry bones would be redeemed.
Yes. Amen
Amen!
Same! God will chasten and chase them to remind them that He is Lord! We keep loving and praying for them and pointing them back!
Is your daughter home for summer? Crazy that she was just starting college and now she will be a junior correct?
Hi she took some summer classes but will be home next week. She is going to be a Senior! Time flies!
wow…a senior!!
Amen
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Yes!! This is what I pray over my children.
Some of Ezekiel 36:16–38 is fulfilled in Christ’s death and resurrection. Jesus made the way for anyone to turn to God in repentance and to be given a new heart and the Holy Spirit.
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Today’s reading showes more of God’s faithfulness to His promises to bring redemption to the world through flawed people, Israel.
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MARY PENN – any updates on David? Continuing to pray for his healing.
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CAT-TEE – praying that the Lord gives you peace and comfort as you minister to your mom in hospice. May you sense Jesus in the room with you.
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Praying
“In whole we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins”. Colossians 1. To me this is such a powerful verse because the forgiveness of God is so real and freeing to believers. ❤️
Amen
Goid morning my dears, some quick thoughts this beautiful day..
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When you hear or read in our case, “I the LORD have spoken..” I don’t know about you, but I sat up straight in my chair!
They are commanding words, instructive, and words one does not hear or read lightly.
There is only one GOD, and He is SOVEREIGN. Absolutely and definitely for sure and you do not, scroll past these words..
When they are preceded by “Mortal man..” you better watch out..
I recognise that I may think I’m of importance in my little world..
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BUT GOD..
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GOD, is the One to look to, the One to listen out for in our days of distress and troubles. He loves us to the point of giving us, yet one more chance each time we falter, each time we sin BIG or small, He wants to make us right for His Glory.. through the gift of CHRIST JESUS.. who came to save us once and for all, and through Him we know daily and in every moment that Father God reigns, and indeed HE IS SOVEREIGN!
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AMEN.
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Happy Tuesday peeps..
much love, as always covered in hugs, prayers and love ❤️ ❤️
Amen Tina!
And one day, the whole world will acknowledge this! Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Either in gratitude and thanksgiving or in fear and trembling….
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