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.
24 “ ‘My servant David will be their king, and they will all have one shepherd. They will live by my rules and obey my laws.
25 They will live on the land I gave to my servant Jacob, the land in which your ancestors lived. They will all live on the land forever: they, their children, and their grandchildren. David my servant will be their king forever.
26 I will make an agreement of peace with them, an agreement that continues forever. I will put them in their land and make them grow in number. Then I will put my Temple among them forever.