Ezekiel 37:15–23

The Two Sticks

¹⁵The word of the Lord came to me: ¹⁶Mortal, take a stick and write on it, “For Judah and the Israelites associated with it”; then take another stick and write on it, “For Joseph (the stick of Ephraim) and all the house of Israel associated with it”;^{* 17}and join them together into one stick, so that they may become one in your hand. ¹⁸And when your people say to you, “Will you not show us what you mean by these?” ¹⁹say to them, “Thus says the Lord God: I am about to take the stick of Joseph (which is in the hand of Ephraim) and the tribes of Israel associated with it, and I will put the stick of Judah upon it^t and make them one stick, in order that they may be one in my hand.”^{* 20}When the sticks on which you write are in your hand before their eyes, ²¹then say to them, “Thus says the Lord God: I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone and will gather them from every quarter and bring them to their own land.^{* 22}I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king over them all. Never again shall they be two nations, and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms.^{* 23}They shall never again defile themselves with their idols and their detestable things or with any of their transgressions. I will save them from all the apostasies into which they have fallen^u and will cleanse them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God.^*