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Ezekiel 36:26
New Heart, New Spirit
Ezekiel 36:26
I will also give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.
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Why it is worth knowing
- This transformation is entirely God’s initiative: “I will give,” “I will put,” “I will take away”
- The old heart is “stony”: hard, unresponsive, incapable of love
- The new heart is “flesh”: alive, responsive, capable of relationship
- This is the new covenant promise: inner transformation, not just external law
Where it sits: Ezekiel 36:25-28
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will also give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes. You will keep my ordinances and do them. You will dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers. You will be my people, and I will be your God.
Hear the passage it sits in, sung word for word, on BibleDo's Ezekiel page.
Background
Ezekiel 36 is one of the great new covenant passages of the Old Testament, paralleling Jeremiah 31. God promises to do what Israel could never do for itself: cleanse from sin, replace the hardened heart, and put his own Spirit within them. The heart of stone is not merely stubborn but inert: incapable of genuine response to God. The heart of flesh is not weak but alive. This prophecy finds its fulfillment in the new birth described by Jesus in John 3 and in the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost.