16. The Lord spoke to me.
17. “Mortal man,” he said, “when the Israelites were living in their land, they defiled it by the way they lived and acted. I regarded their behaviour as being as ritually unclean as a woman is during her monthly period.
18. I let them feel the force of my anger because of the murders they had committed in the land and because of the idols by which they had defiled it.
19. I condemned them for the way they lived and acted, and I scattered them through foreign countries.
20. Wherever they went, they brought disgrace on my holy name, because people would say, ‘These are the people of the Lord, but they had to leave his land.’
21. That made me concerned for my holy name, since the Israelites brought disgrace on it everywhere they went.
22. “Now then, give the Israelites the message that I, the Sovereign Lord, have for them: what I am going to do is not for the sake of you Israelites, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have disgraced in every country where you have gone.
23. When I demonstrate to the nations the holiness of my great name — the name you disgraced among them — then they will know that I am the Lord. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken. I will use you to show the nations that I am holy.
24. I will take you from every nation and country and bring you back to your own land.
25. I will sprinkle clean water on you and make you clean from all your idols and everything else that has defiled you.
26. I will give you a new heart and a new mind. I will take away your stubborn heart of stone and give you an obedient heart.
27. I will put my spirit in you and I will see to it that you follow my laws and keep all the commands I have given you.