עֶ֫צֶם

“Son of man,” He said to me, “I am sending you to the Israelites, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against Me. To this very day they and their fathers have rebelled against Me.

I will lay the corpses of the Israelites before their idols and scatter your bones around your altars.

“Son of man, write down today’s date, for on this very day the king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem.

Put in the pieces of meat, every good piece—thigh and shoulder—fill it with choice bones.

Take the choicest of the flock and pile the fuel beneath it. Bring it to a boil and cook the bones in it.’

Pile on the logs and kindle the fire; cook the meat well and mix in the spices; let the bones be burned.

They do not lie down with the fallen warriors of old, who went down to Sheol with their weapons of war, whose swords were placed under their heads, whose shields rested on their bones, although the terror of the mighty was once in the land of the living.

The hand of the LORD was upon me, and He brought me out by His Spirit and set me down in the middle of the valley, and it was full of bones.

Then He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones come to life?” “O Lord GOD,” I replied, “only You know.”

And He said to me, “Prophesy concerning these bones and tell them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!

This is what the Lord GOD says to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you will come to life.

So I prophesied as I had been commanded. And as I prophesied, there was suddenly a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to bone.

Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Look, they are saying, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope has perished; we are cut off.’

As they pass through the land, anyone who sees a human bone will set up a pillar next to it, until the gravediggers have buried it in the Valley of Hamon-gog.

In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month—in the fourteenth year after Jerusalem had been struck down—on that very day the hand of the LORD was upon me, and He took me there.

This is what the LORD says: “For three transgressions of Moab, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because he burned to lime the bones of Edom’s king.

And when the relative who is to burn the bodies picks them up to remove them from the house, he will call to one inside, “Is anyone else with you?” “None,” that person will answer. “Silence,” the relative will retort, “for the name of the LORD must not be invoked.”

You hate good and love evil. You tear the skin from my people and strip the flesh from their bones.

You eat the flesh of my people after stripping off their skin and breaking their bones. You chop them up like flesh for the cooking pot, like meat in a cauldron.”

I heard and trembled within; my lips quivered at the sound. Decay entered my bones; I trembled where I stood. Yet I must wait patiently for the day of distress to come upon the people who invade us.