25. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your uncleanness and your idols.
26. Also, I will teach you to respect me completely. I will put a new way to think inside you. I will take out the stubborn heart like stone from your bodies. And I will give you an obedient heart of flesh.
27. I will put my Spirit inside you. And I will help you live by my rules. You will be careful to obey my laws.
28. Then you will live in the land I gave to your ancestors. So you will be my people, and I will be your God.
29. Also, I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will command the grain to come and grow. I will not allow a time of hunger to hurt you.
30. I will multiply the harvest of the field. You will never again suffer shame among the nations because of hunger.
31. And you will remember your evil ways and the things you did that were not good. Then you will hate yourselves because of your sins and terrible acts that I hate.
32. I want you to know that I am not doing this for your sake, says the Lord God. Be ashamed and embarrassed about your ways, Israel.
33. “‘This is what the Lord God says: This is what will happen on the day I cleanse you from all your sins: I will cause the cities to have people living in them again. And the destroyed places will be rebuilt.
34. The empty land will be plowed. It will no longer be a ruin for everyone who passes by to see.
35. They will say: “This land was ruined. Now it has become like the garden of Eden. The cities were destroyed. They were empty and ruined. But now they are protected and have people living in them.”
36. Then those nations still around you will know. They will know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt what was destroyed. And I have planted what was empty. I, the Lord, have spoken. And I will do it.’
37. “This is what the Lord God says: I will again be asked by the people of Israel to do this thing for them. I will make their people grow to be as many as a flock of sheep.
38. They will be like the flocks brought to Jerusalem during her holy feasts. Her ruined cities will be filled with flocks of people. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”