Sublime

13Mortal, when a land sins against me by acting faithlessly, and I stretch out my hand against it, and break its staff of bread and send famine upon it, and cut off from it human beings and animals, 14even if Noah, Daniel,[32] and Job, these three, were in it, they would…

Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

I have put my words in your mouth, and hidden you in the shadow of my hand, stretching out[148] the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth, and saying to Zion, “You are my people.”

The need for the new heart included, in Jesus’ vision, the need to pass on to others the ‘forgiveness of sins’ which had been received.166 This apparently ‘ethical’ challenge is again to be understood ‘covenantally’ and eschatologically. It was part of Jesus’ summons to his hearers to become true Israelites by following him. As we saw earlier,

“The spirit () [ruach] lifted me up and brought me to the gate of the house of Yahweh 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.” (Ezekiel 11:1)

Elijah—He stands first as a new breed of prophet, confronting Israel’s political and religious establishment with pronouncements that begin with the jolting phrase, “thus says the Lord.”

God is directing His people in the way He wants them to go. Often it is not the way we want to go, but as we yield ourselves to God, He opens doors and leads us forward.

On that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that is left of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Ethiopia,[36] from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea. 12 He will raise a signal for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather the