17 Then join them together into one stick so they will be one in your hand.
18 “When your people say to you, ‘Explain to us what you mean by this,’
19 say to them, ‘This is what the Lord God says: I will take the stick for Joseph and the tribes of Israel with him, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and I will put it with the stick of Judah. I will make them into one stick, and they will be one in my hand.’
20 Hold the sticks on which you wrote these names in your hand so the people can see them.
21 Say to the people, ‘This is what the Lord God says: I am going to take the people of Israel from among the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them into their own land.
22 I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. One king will rule all of them. They will never again be two nations; they will not be divided into two kingdoms anymore.
23 They will not continue to make themselves unclean by their idols, their statues of gods which I hate, or by their sins. I will save them from all the ways they sin and turn against me, and I will make them clean. Then they will be my people, and I will be their God.