Ezekiel 36:37

36:37 “This is what the sovereign Lord says: I will allow the house of Israel to ask me to do this for them: ¹  I will multiply their people like sheep. ² 

Matthew 7:7-8

Ask, Seek, Knock

7:7 “Ask ³  and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door ⁴  will be opened for you. 7:8 For everyone who asks ⁵  receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

John 16:23

16:23 At that time ⁶  you will ask me nothing. I tell you the solemn truth, ⁷  whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. ⁸ 

James 5:16-18

5:16 So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great effectiveness. ⁹  5:17 Elijah was a human being ¹⁰  like us, and he prayed earnestly ¹¹  that it would not rain and there was no rain on the land for three years and six months! 5:18 Then ¹²  he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the land sprouted with a harvest.

¹ tn The Niphal verb may have a tolerative function here, “Again (for) this I will allow myself to be sought by the house of Israel to act for them.” Or it may be reflexive: “I will reveal myself to the house of Israel by doing this also.”

² sn Heb “I will multiply them like sheep, human(s).”

³ sn The three present imperatives in this verse (Ask…seek…knock) are probably intended to call for a repeated or continual approach before God.

⁴ tn Grk “it”; the referent (a door) is implied by the context and has been specified in the translation here and in v. 8 for clarity.

⁵ sn The actions of asking, seeking, and knocking are repeated here from v. 7 with the encouragement that God does respond.

⁶ tn Grk “And in that day.”

⁷ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

⁸ sn This statement is also found in John 15:16.

⁹ tn Or “the fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful”; Grk “is very powerful in its working.”

¹⁰ tn Although it is certainly true that Elijah was a “man,” here ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") has been translated as “human being” because the emphasis in context is not on Elijah’s masculine gender, but on the common humanity he shared with the author and the readers.

¹¹ tn Grk “he prayed with prayer” (using a Hebrew idiom to show intensity).

¹² tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events.