¹ The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones,

² And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry.

³ And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest.

⁴ Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.

⁵ Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live:

⁶ And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

⁷ So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.

⁸ And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.

⁹ Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.

¹⁰ So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.

¹¹ Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.

¹² Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.

¹³ And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves,

¹⁴ And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the LORD have spoken it, and performed it, saith the LORD.

¹⁵ The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,

¹⁶ Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions:

¹⁷ And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand.

¹⁸ And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these?

¹⁹ Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand.

²⁰ And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes.

²¹ And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land:

²² And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all:

²³ Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwellingplaces, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God.

²⁴ And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them.

²⁵ And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children's children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever.

²⁶ Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore.

²⁷ My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

²⁸ And the heathen shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.

¹⁵ And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?

¹ The children of Israel again did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh; and Yahweh delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years.

² There was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren, and didn't bear.

³ The angel of Yahweh appeared to the woman, and said to her, "See now, you are barren, and don't bear; but you shall conceive, and bear a son.

⁴ Now therefore please beware and drink no wine nor strong drink, and don't eat any unclean thing:

⁵ for, behold, you shall conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head; for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb: and he shall begin to save Israel out of the hand of the Philistines."

⁶ Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, "A man of God came to me, and his face was like the face of the angel of God, very awesome; and I didn't ask him where he was from, neither did he tell me his name:

⁷ but he said to me, 'Behold, you shall conceive, and bear a son; and now drink no wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing; for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death.'"

⁸ Then Manoah entreated Yahweh, and said, "Oh, Lord, please let the man of God whom you did send come again to us, and teach us what we shall do to the child who shall be born."

⁹ God listened to the voice of Manoah; and the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field: but Manoah, her husband, wasn't with her.

¹⁰ The woman made haste, and ran, and told her husband, and said to him, "Behold, the man has appeared to me, who came to me the [other] day."

¹¹ Manoah arose, and went after his wife, and came to the man, and said to him, "Are you the man who spoke to the woman?" He said, "I am."

¹² Manoah said, "Now let your words happen. What shall be the ordering of the child, and [how] shall we do to him?"

¹³ The angel of Yahweh said to Manoah, "Of all that I said to the woman let her beware.

¹⁴ She may not eat of anything that comes of the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing; all that I commanded her let her observe."

¹⁵ Manoah said to the angel of Yahweh, "Please, let us detain you, that we may make a young goat ready for you."

¹⁶ The angel of Yahweh said to Manoah, "Though you detain me, I won't eat of your bread; and if you will prepare a burnt offering, you must offer it to Yahweh." For Manoah didn't know that he was the angel of Yahweh.

¹⁷ Manoah said to the angel of Yahweh, "What is your name, that when your words happen, we may honor you?"

¹⁸ The angel of Yahweh said to him, "Why do you ask about my name, since it is wonderful?"

¹⁹ So Manoah took the young goat with the meal offering, and offered it on the rock to Yahweh: and [the angel] did wondrously, and Manoah and his wife looked on.

²⁰ For it happened, when the flame went up toward the sky from off the altar, that the angel of Yahweh ascended in the flame of the altar: and Manoah and his wife looked on; and they fell on their faces to the ground.

²¹ But the angel of Yahweh did no more appear to Manoah or to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was the angel of Yahweh.

²² Manoah said to his wife, "We shall surely die, because we have seen God."

²³ But his wife said to him, "If Yahweh were pleased to kill us, he wouldn't have received a burnt offering and a meal offering at our hand, neither would he have shown us all these things, nor would at this time have told such things as these."

²⁴ The woman bore a son, and named him Samson: and the child grew, and Yahweh blessed him.

²⁵ The Spirit of Yahweh began to move him in Mahaneh Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.