11:16 “Therefore say: ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Although I have removed them far away among the nations and have dispersed them among the countries, I have been a little 1 sanctuary for them among the lands where they have gone.’
11:17 “Therefore say: ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: When I regather you from the peoples and assemble you from the lands where you have been dispersed, I will give you back the country of Israel.’
11:18 “When they return to it, they will remove from it all its detestable things and all its abominations. 11:19 I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within them; 2 I will remove the hearts of stone from their bodies 3 and I will give them tender hearts, 4 11:20 so that they may follow my statutes and observe my regulations and carry them out. Then they will be my people, and I will be their God. 5 11:21 But those whose hearts are devoted to detestable things and abominations, I hereby repay them for what they have done, 6 says the sovereign Lord.”
11:22 Then the cherubim spread 7 their wings with their wheels alongside them while the glory of the God of Israel hovered above them. 11:23 The glory of the Lord rose up from within the city and stopped 8 over the mountain east of it. 11:24 Then a wind 9 lifted me up and carried me to the exiles in Babylonia, 10 in the vision given to me by the Spirit of God.
Then the vision I had seen went up from me. 11:25 So I told the exiles everything 11 the Lord had shown me.
1 tn Or “have been partially a sanctuary”; others take this as temporal (cf. NASB, NIV, NRSV “a little while”).
2 tc The MT reads “you”; many Hebrew
3 tn Heb “their flesh.”
4 tn Heb “heart of flesh.”
5 sn The expression They will be my people, and I will be their God occurs as a promise to Abraham (Gen 17:8), Moses (Exod 6:7), and the nation (Exod 29:45).
6 tn Heb “their way on their head I have placed.”
7 tn Heb “lifted.”
8 tn Heb “stood.”
9 tn Or “spirit.” See note on “wind” in 2:2.
10 tn Heb “to Chaldea.”
11 tn Heb “all the words of.”