A prophecy about being one nation with one king

15 Yahweh gave me another message. He said, 16 “You human, take a piece of wood and write on it, ‘This represents Judah and all the tribes of Judah.’ Then take another piece of wood and write on it, ‘This represents Israel and all the tribes of Israel.’ 17 Then join them together to become as though they were one piece of wood in your hand.

18 When your fellow Israelis ask you, ‘What does ◄this action/what you just did► mean?’, 19 tell them, ‘This is what Yahweh the Lord says: One of the pieces of wood in my hand represents Israel and all the tribes of Israel. I am joining it to the piece of wood that represents Judah, to form one piece of wood in his hand.’ 20 Then, you human, hold up the pieces of wood that you have written on, in order that the people can see them. 21 Say to the people, ‘This is what Yahweh the Lord says: I will take you Israeli people out of the countries to which you have been forced to go. I will gather you from all those nations and bring you back to your own land. 22 And I will cause you to again be one nation in that land, on the mountains in Israel. And there will be one king to rule over all of you. Never again will you be two nations or divided into two kingdoms. 23 No longer will you ◄defile yourselves/make yourselves unacceptable to me► by worshiping idols and disgusting statues of your gods, because I will enable you to quit your sinful behavior and to stop rejecting me. You will be my people, and I will be your God.

24 Someone who will be like [MET] King David who served me well will be the king of your descendants, and it will be as though [MET] he will be their shepherd. They will carefully obey all my laws [DOU]. 25 They will live in the land that I gave to Jacob, who also served me well; they will live in the land where your ancestors lived. They and their children and their grandchildren will live there forever, and the one who will be like [MET] King David will be their king forever. 26 I will make a peace agreement with them; it will be an agreement that will endure forever. I will again give them that land and cause their population to increase. And I will put my temple among them forever. 27 The place where I will live will be among them; I will be their God and they will be my people. 28 Then, when my temple is forever there among them, the people of other nations will know that I, Yahweh, have caused the Israeli people to be set apart to belong to me.’ ”