38 The word of the Lord came to me. He said, ²“Son of man,* look toward Gog in the land of Magog. He is the most important leader of the nations of Meshech and Tubal. Speak for me against Gog. ³Tell him that the Lord and Master says these things, ‘Gog, you are the most important leader of the nations of Meshech and Tubal! But I am against you. ⁴I will capture you and bring you back. I will bring back all the men in your army. I will bring back all the horses and horse soldiers. I will put hooks in your mouths, and I will bring all of you back. All of the soldiers will be wearing their uniforms with all their shields and swords. ⁵Soldiers from Persia, Ethiopia, and Put will be with them. They will all be wearing their shields and helmets. ⁶There will also be Gomer with all his groups of soldiers. And there will be the nation of Togarmah* from the far north with all its groups of soldiers. There will be many, many people in that parade of prisoners. ⁷“‘Be prepared. Yes, prepare yourself and the armies that have joined with you. You must watch and be ready. ⁸After a long time you will be called for duty. In the later years you will come into the land that has been healed from war. The people in that land were gathered from many nations and brought back to the mountains of Israel. In the past, the mountains of Israel had been destroyed again and again. But these people will have come back from those other nations. They all will have lived in safety. ⁹But you will come to attack them. You will come like a storm. You will come like a thundercloud covering the land. You and all your groups of soldiers from many nations will come to attack these people.’” ¹⁰The Lord my Master says these things: “At that time, an idea will come into your mind. You will begin to make an evil plan. ¹¹You will say, ‘I will go attack that country that has towns without walls (Israel). Those people live in peace. They think they are safe. There are not any walls around the cities to protect them. They don’t have any locks on their gates—they don’t even have gates! ¹²I will defeat those people and take all their valuable things away from them. I will fight against the places that were destroyed but now have people living in them. I will fight against those people (Israel) that were gathered from the nations. Now those people have cattle and property. They live at the crossroads of the world—{The powerful countries must travel through that place to get to all the other powerful countries}.’ ¹³“Sheba, Dedan, and the businessmen of Tarshish, and all the cities they trade with will ask you, ‘Did you come to capture valuable things? Did you bring your groups of soldiers together to grab those good things and to carry away silver, gold, cattle, and property. Did you come to take all those valuable things?’” ¹⁴{God said,} “Son of man,* speak to Gog for me. Tell him that the Lord and Master says these things: ‘You will come to attack my people while they are living in peace and safety. ¹⁵You will come from your place out of the far north. And you will bring many people with you. All of them will ride on horses. You will be a large and a powerful army. ¹⁶You will come to fight against my people Israel. You will be like a thundercloud covering the land. When that time comes, I will bring you to fight against my land. Then, Gog, the nations will learn how powerful I am! They will learn to respect me and know that I am holy. They will see what I will do to you!’” ¹⁷The Lord my Master says these things, “{At that time, people will remember} that I spoke about you in the past. They will remember that I used my servants the prophets of Israel. They will remember that the prophets of Israel spoke for me in the past and said that I would bring you to fight against them.” ¹⁸The Lord my Master said, “At that time, Gog will come to fight against the land of Israel. I will show my anger. ¹⁹In my anger and strong emotions I make this promise: I promise that there will be a strong earthquake in the land of Israel. ²⁰At that time, all living things will quake (shake) with fear. The fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the wild animals in the fields, and all the little creatures crawling on the ground will shake with fear. The mountains will fall down and the cliffs will collapse. Every wall will fall to the ground!” ²¹The Lord my Master says, “And on the mountains of Israel, I will call for every kind of terror against* Gog. His soldiers will be so scared that they will attack each other and kill each other with their swords. ²²I will punish Gog with diseases and death. I will cause hailstones, fire, and sulfur to rain down on Gog and his groups of soldiers from many nations. ²³Then I will show how great I am. I will prove that I am holy. Many nations will see me do these things and they will learn who I am. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

Son of man This was usually just a way of saying “a person,” or “a human being. But here this is a title for the man, Ezekiel. nation of Togarmah Or, “Beth Togarmah.” every kind of terror against This is from the ancient Greek translation. The Hebrew has, “a sword against.”

The Death of Gog and His Army

39 “Son of man,* speak against Gog for me. Tell him that the Lord and Master says these things, ‘Gog, you are the most important leader of the countries Meshech and Tubal! But I am against you. ²I will capture you and bring you back. I will bring you from the far north. I will bring you to fight against the mountains of Israel. ³But I will knock your bow from your left hand. I will knock your arrows from your right hand. ⁴You will be killed on the mountains of Israel. You, your groups of soldiers, and all the other nations with you will be killed in the battle. I will give you as food to every kind of bird that eats meat and to all the wild animals. ⁵{You will not enter the city.} You will be killed out in the open fields. I have spoken!’” The Lord my Master said those things. ⁶{God said,} “I will send fire against Magog and those people living along the coast. They think they are safe, but they will know that I am the Lord. ⁷And I will make my holy name known among my people Israel. I will not let people ruin my holy name any more. The nations will know that I am the Lord. They will know that I am the Holy One in Israel. ⁸That time is coming! It will happen!” The Lord said these things. “That is the day I am talking about. ⁹“At that time, the people living in the cities of Israel will go out to the fields. They will collect the enemy’s weapons and burn them. They will burn all the shields, bows and arrows, clubs and spears. They will use those weapons as firewood for seven years. ¹⁰They won’t have to gather wood from the fields or chop firewood from the forests because they will use the weapons as firewood. They will take the valuable things from the soldiers that wanted to steal from them. They will take the good things from the soldiers that took good things from them.” The Lord my Master said these things. ¹¹{God said,} “At that time, I will choose a place in Israel to bury Gog. He will be buried in the Valley of the Travelers,* east of the Dead Sea. It will block the road for travelers. Why? Because Gog and all his army will be buried in that place. People will call it ‘The Valley of Gog’s Army.’ ¹²It will take seven months for the family of Israel to bury them. They must do this to make the land pure. ¹³The common people will bury those enemy soldiers. And those people will become famous on the day that I bring honor to myself.” The Lord my Master said those things. ¹⁴{God said,} “Workers will be given a fulltime job burying those dead soldiers to make the land pure. Those workers will work for seven months. They will go around looking for dead bodies. ¹⁵Those workers will go around looking. If one of them sees a bone, then he will put up a marker by it. The sign will stay there until the grave diggers come and bury the bone in the Valley of Gog’s Army. ¹⁶That city of dead people (graveyard) will be named Hamonah.* In this way, they will make the country pure.” ¹⁷The Lord my Master said these things, “Son of man,* speak to all the birds and wild animals for me. Tell them, ‘Come here! Come here! Gather around. Come eat this sacrifice I am preparing for you. There will be a very big sacrifice on the mountains of Israel. Come, eat the meat and drink the blood. ¹⁸You will eat the meat from the bodies of powerful soldiers. You will drink the blood from world leaders. They will be like rams, lambs, goats and fat bulls from Bashan. ¹⁹You can eat all the fat you want. You can drink blood until you are full. You will eat and drink from my sacrifice which I will kill for you. ²⁰You will have plenty of meat to eat at my table. There will be horses and chariot {drivers}, powerful soldiers, and all the other fighting men.’” The Lord my Master said those things. ²¹{God said,} “I will let the other nations see what I have done. And those nations will begin to respect me! They will see my power that I used against that enemy. ²²Then from that day on, the family of Israel will know that I am the Lord their God. ²³And the nations will know why the family of Israel was carried away as prisoners to other countries. They will learn that my people turned against me. So I turned away from them. I let their enemies defeat them. So my people were killed in battle. ²⁴They sinned and made themselves filthy. So I punished them for the things they did. I turned away from them {and refused to help them}.” ²⁵So the Lord my Master says these things: “Now I will bring the family of Jacob back from captivity. I will have mercy on the whole family of Israel. I will show my strong feelings for my holy name. ²⁶The people will forget their shame and all the times they turned against me. They will live in safety on their own land. No one will make them afraid. ²⁷I will bring my people back from other countries. I will gather them from the lands of their enemies. Then many nations will see how holy I am. ²⁸They will know that I am the Lord their God. Why? Because I made them to leave their homes and go as prisoners to other countries. And then I gathered them together and brought them back to their own land. ²⁹I will pour my Spirit onto the family of Israel. And after that time, I will never turn away from my people again.” The Lord my Master said those things.

Son of man This was usually just a way of saying “a person,” or “a human being.” But here this is a title for the man, Ezekiel. Valley of the Travelers This is a word play on the name Arabah Valley. Hamonah This Hebrew word means “crowd.”