What is the context?
The Lord will gather His people from the countries and bring them to their land, but His promise goes deeper than changing their location. He will cleanse their impurities and idols.
He will give a new heart and a new spirit, taking away the heart of stone and giving a heart of flesh. The Hebrew word לֵב, lev (lehv), includes the inner person, mind and will in Brown–Driver–Briggs. The promise concerns a change within people who have resisted Him.
He will put His Spirit within them and cause them to walk in His ways. The relationship is restored: they will be His people, and He will be their God.
Plentiful food will replace famine and disgrace. Receiving mercy will not make them proud of their past; they will remember their evil ways with shame. The Lord repeats that His action is not something they have earned.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Henry, Wesley and the USCCB notes all understand the cleansing, new heart and Spirit as God renewing His people from within, making them responsive to His will. Henry and Wesley also apply the promise to the new covenant life of believers, with the Spirit bringing the change that human self-confidence cannot supply.
Where does this fit in God's plan?
In John 3:1–12, Jesus tells Nicodemus that entry into God’s kingdom requires birth of water and the Spirit. When Nicodemus struggles to understand, Jesus challenges him as Israel’s teacher. Ezekiel’s promise provides a fitting prophetic background for that need for cleansing and new life.
Titus 3:3–7 makes the saving source explicit: God acts according to mercy, through the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, poured out through Jesus Christ. The shared themes lead toward a life received from God, with grace and the hope of eternal life at its center.
What is our position?
We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.