36. Just as I judged your ancestors in the desert of the land of Egypt, so will I judge you. This is what the Lord God says.
37. I will make you walk under the rod, and I will bring you into the covenant bond.
38. I will remove from among you those who rebel and transgress against me. I will lead them out from the land where they lived as immigrants, but they won’t enter Israel’s fertile land. Then you will know that I am the Lord.
39. But to you, house of Israel, the Lord God proclaims: Go ahead and serve your idols, all of you! But afterward, if any of you are left to listen to me, you will no longer make my holy name impure with your gifts or your idols!
40. On my holy mountain, on the high mountain in Israel, the whole house of Israel will serve me there—every one of them in the land! This is what the Lord God says. There I will accept them, and there I will ask for their offerings, their finest gifts, and all their holy things.
41. When I bring you out from the nations and gather you from the countries where you are scattered, I will accept you as a pleasing aroma. Through you I will be made holy in the sight of the nations.
42. Then you will know that I am the Lord, when I bring you to Israel’s fertile land, to the land that I swore to give to your ancestors.
43. There you will remember how your ways and all your wicked deeds defiled you, and you will loathe yourselves for all the wicked things that you’ve done.
44. Then, house of Israel, you will know that I am the Lord, when I deal with you for the sake of my name and not according to your wicked ways and ruinous deeds. This is what the Lord God says.
45. The Lord’s word came to me:
46. Human one, face Teman, preach against the south, and prophesy against the thicket in the arid southern plain.
47. Say to the thicket in the arid southern plain: Hear the Lord God’s word. This is what the Lord God says: I’m about to set a fire in you, and it will consume every green and every dry tree in you. Its blazing flame won’t be put out, and everything from south to north will be scorched.
48. Everyone will see that I, the Lord, have set it on fire. It won’t be quenched.
49. Then I said, "Oh, Lord God! They say about me, ‘Isn’t he one for making metaphors?’"