Thought from today’s Bible reading from Ezekiel 42-43.
God punished the people of Israel because of their sin. But God was willing to forgive them and restore them to their place if they met His conditions of pardon.
“Now let them put away their harlotry and the corpses of their kings far from Me; and I will dwell among them forever” (Ezekiel 43:9).
Before God would forgive them, the people had to do two things:
- Put away their harlotry – Harlotry is a metaphor for idolatry. In order for the Lord to forgive them, they had to put away all of their false gods so they could serve the Lord exclusively.
- Put away the corpses of their kings – The word corpses in this context describes a monument or graven image dedicated to their kings, the ones who helped to lead them astray. Therefore, they were to remove every physical reminder of them, lest they sentimentally hold onto such things and then later be turned back to their harlotries by them.
God was willing to forgive them and “dwell among them forever,” but they needed to meet these conditions. We must do the same today – serve the Lord exclusively (Matthew 6:24) and remove any of those things from our lives that might cause us to drift back into sin (Hebrews 12:1).
Tomorrow’s reading: Ezekiel 44-45
[I’m using the Chronological reading plan on the Bible Gateway website if you’d like to follow along, too.]
Daily Notes & Observations contains all 365 articles from this series and is available in paperback from Gospel Armory.
