God Will Restore Israel to Her Land

33“As I live,” declares the Lord God, “surely with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out, I shall be king over you. 34I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you are scattered, with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out; 35and I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will enter into judgment with you face to face. 36As I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you,” declares the Lord God. 37“I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant; 38and I will purge from you the rebels and those who transgress against Me; I will bring them out of the land where they sojourn, but they will not enter the land of Israel. Thus you will know that I am the Lord.

39“As for you, O house of Israel,” thus says the Lord God, “Go, serve everyone his idols; but later you will surely listen to Me, and My holy name you will profane no longer with your gifts and with your idols. 40For on My holy mountain, on the high mountain of Israel,” declares the Lord God, “there the whole house of Israel, all of them, will serve Me in the land; there I will accept them and there I will seek your contributions and the choicest of your gifts, with all your holy things. 41As a soothing aroma I will accept you when I bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you are scattered; and I will prove Myself holy among you in the sight of the nations. 42And you will know that I am the Lord, when I bring you into the land of Israel, into the land which I swore to give to your forefathers. 43There you will remember your ways and all your deeds with which you have defiled yourselves; and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for all the evil things that you have done. 44Then you will know that I am the Lord when I have dealt with you for My name’s sake, not according to your evil ways or according to your corrupt deeds, O house of Israel,” declares the Lord God.’ ”

45Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 46“Son of man, set your face toward Teman, and speak out against the south and prophesy against the forest land of the Negev, 47and say to the forest of the Negev, ‘Hear the word of the Lord: thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I am about to kindle a fire in you, and it will consume every green tree in you, as well as every dry tree; the blazing flame will not be quenched and the whole surface from south to north will be burned by it. 48All flesh will see that I, the Lord, have kindled it; it shall not be quenched.” ’ ” 49Then I said, “Ah Lord God! They are saying of me, ‘Is he not just speaking parables?’ ”

16He *said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” 17The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus *said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; 18for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” 19The woman *said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. 20Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” 21Jesus *said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. 24God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25The woman *said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” 26Jesus *said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”

27At this point His disciples came, and they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why do You speak with her?” 28So the woman left her waterpot, and went into the city and *said to the men, 29“Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?” 30They went out of the city, and were coming to Him.

31Meanwhile the disciples were urging Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33So the disciples were saying to one another, “No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?” 34Jesus *said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work. 35Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. 36Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. 37For in this case the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”

The Samaritans

39From that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all the things that I have done.” 40So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. 41Many more believed because of His word; 42and they were saying to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world.”

43After the two days He went forth from there into Galilee. 44For Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. 45So when He came to Galilee, the Galileans received Him, having seen all the things that He did in Jerusalem at the feast; for they themselves also went to the feast.

1) How does Ezekiel’s vision of יהוה restoring right worship foreshadow Yeshua’s encounter at the well?

2) In what ways does the Samaritan woman’s transformation mirror Israel’s future purification and return to covenant faithfulness?

3) How can your own worship reflect both repentance from impurity and renewed devotion in Spirit and Truth?

Vision of God’s Glory Departing from the Temple

1Then I looked, and behold, in the expanse that was over the heads of the cherubim something like a sapphire stone, in appearance resembling a throne, appeared above them. 2And He spoke to the man clothed in linen and said, “Enter between the whirling wheels under the cherubim and fill your hands with coals of fire from between the cherubim and scatter them over the city.” And he entered in my sight.

3Now the cherubim were standing on the right side of the temple when the man entered, and the cloud filled the inner court. 4Then the glory of the Lord went up from the cherub to the threshold of the temple, and the temple was filled with the cloud and the court was filled with the brightness of the glory of the Lord. 5Moreover, the sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard as far as the outer court, like the voice of God Almighty when He speaks.

6It came about when He commanded the man clothed in linen, saying, “Take fire from between the whirling wheels, from between the cherubim,” he entered and stood beside a wheel. 7Then the cherub stretched out his hand from between the cherubim to the fire which was between the cherubim, took some and put it into the hands of the one clothed in linen, who took it and went out. 8The cherubim appeared to have the form of a man’s hand under their wings.

9Then I looked, and behold, four wheels beside the cherubim, one wheel beside each cherub; and the appearance of the wheels was like the gleam of a Tarshish stone. 10As for their appearance, all four of them had the same likeness, as if one wheel were within another wheel. 11When they moved, they went in any of their four directions without turning as they went; but they followed in the direction which they faced, without turning as they went. 12Their whole body, their backs, their hands, their wings and the wheels were full of eyes all around, the wheels belonging to all four of them. 13The wheels were called in my hearing, the whirling wheels. 14And each one had four faces. The first face was the face of a cherub, the second face was the face of a man, the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle.

15Then the cherubim rose up. They are the living beings that I saw by the river Chebar. 16Now when the cherubim moved, the wheels would go beside them; also when the cherubim lifted up their wings to rise from the ground, the wheels would not turn from beside them. 17When the cherubim stood still, the wheels would stand still; and when they rose up, the wheels would rise with them, for the spirit of the living beings was in them.

18Then the glory of the Lord departed from the threshold of the temple and stood over the cherubim. 19When the cherubim departed, they lifted their wings and rose up from the earth in my sight with the wheels beside them; and they stood still at the entrance of the east gate of the Lord’s house, and the glory of the God of Israel hovered over them.

20These are the living beings that I saw beneath the God of Israel by the river Chebar; so I knew that they were cherubim. 21Each one had four faces and each one four wings, and beneath their wings was the form of human hands. 22As for the likeness of their faces, they were the same faces whose appearance I had seen by the river Chebar. Each one went straight ahead.

Miracle at Cana

1On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; 2and both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding. 3When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus *said to Him, “They have no wine.” 4And Jesus *said to her, “Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come.” 5His mother *said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.” 6Now there were six stone waterpots set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing twenty or thirty gallons each. 7Jesus *said to them, “Fill the waterpots with water.” So they filled them up to the brim. 8And He *said to them, “Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.” So they took it to him. 9When the headwaiter tasted the water which had become wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the headwaiter *called the bridegroom, 10and *said to him, “Every man serves the good wine first, and when the people have drunk freely, then he serves the poorer wine; but you have kept the good wine until now.” 11This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.

12After this He went down to Capernaum, He and His mother and His brothers and His disciples; and they stayed there a few days.

First Passover—Cleansing the Temple

13The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14And He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; 16and to those who were selling the doves He said, “Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a place of business.” 17His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house will consume me.” 18The Jews then said to Him, “What sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?” 19Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20The Jews then said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” 21But He was speaking of the temple of His body. 22So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.

23Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. 24But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, 25and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.