Ezekiel was a priest carried to Babylon with King Jehoiachin and thousands of other captives (Ezekiel 1:1–3; 2 Kings 24:14–16). Far from the temple, by the river Chebar, he saw the glory of God, which told the exiles something huge: the Lord had not stayed behind in Jerusalem. He called Ezekiel a watchman (3:17; 33:7). A watchman on the wall sees danger before the city does, and if he sees it and stays quiet, the Lord holds him responsible (33:6). Your priests-age young men and older Young Women are close to being watchmen in a very real sense: ministering companions, class and quorum leaders, and soon missionaries, roommates and co-workers who will be the only Latter-day Saint some people know.
Ezekiel 33:10–20 answers a question teenagers ask out loud: is repentance fair? The exiles said, “The way of the Lord is not equal” (33:17). The Lord’s answer is that direction matters more than history: past righteousness is not a bank account you can coast on, and a person who truly turns from sin will not have those sins “mentioned unto him” (33:16). Ezekiel 34 then condemns shepherds who fed themselves instead of the flock and lists what a real shepherd does: seek the lost, bring back the driven away, bind up the broken and strengthen the sick (34:4, 16). Jesus called Himself the good shepherd (John 10:11) and told Peter, “Feed my sheep” (John 21:17).
Ezekiel 36:26 promises a new heart and a new spirit. The Savior doesn’t only forgive; He changes us. Ezekiel 37 pictures that power. Dry bones come together and grow sinews, flesh and skin, but there is still “no breath in them” until the Lord sends breath from the four winds (37:8–10). The Lord explained that the bones are the house of Israel saying “our hope is lost” (37:11), and President Joseph F. Smith saw that the vision also points to the literal Resurrection (Doctrine and Covenants 138:43). Then Ezekiel joins two sticks, one for Judah and one for Joseph, into one (37:16–17). Latter-day Saints understand these as the Bible and the Book of Mormon, records the Lord said would “grow together” (2 Nephi 3:12). Future missionaries will spend their days putting those two sticks in people’s hands.
Ezekiel 47 describes water flowing from under the temple that gets deeper with every thousand cubits until it is a river to swim in, healing even the salty sea, with trees whose leaves are “for medicine” (47:12; compare Revelation 22:1–2). Youth who are preparing for the endowment, or who already take family names to the temple, are wading into that river. Keep the tone honest: some of your youth feel like dry bones right now. The message of this week is that nobody is too far gone for the Lord to breathe into.
