I ask, then: Did God reject his own people? Certainly not! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.

God has not rejected his people, whom he chose from the beginning. You know what the scripture says in the passage where Elijah pleads with God against Israel:

I ask, then: When the Jews stumbled, did they fall to their ruin? By no means! Because they sinned, salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make the Jews jealous of them.

The sin of the Jews brought rich blessings to the world, and their spiritual poverty brought rich blessings to the Gentiles. Then, how much greater the blessings will be when the complete number of Jews is included!

We were God's enemies, but he made us his friends through the death of his Son. Now that we are God's friends, how much more will we be saved by Christ's life!

"Seven times seventy years is the length of time God has set for freeing your people and your holy city from sin and evil. Sin will be forgiven and eternal justice established, so that the vision and the prophecy will come true, and the holy Temple will be rededicated.

All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends and gave us the task of making others his friends also.

Here we are, then, speaking for Christ, as though God himself were making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ's behalf: let God change you from enemies into his friends!

This plan, which God will complete when the time is right, is to bring all creation together, everything in heaven and on earth, with Christ as head.

Through the Son, then, God decided to bring the whole universe back to himself. God made peace through his Son's blood on the cross and so brought back to himself all things, both on earth and in heaven.

At one time you were far away from God and were his enemies because of the evil things you did and thought.

I felt the powerful presence of the LORD, and his spirit took me and set me down in a valley where the ground was covered with bones.

He said to me, "Mortal man, can these bones come back to life?" I replied, "Sovereign LORD, only you can answer that!"

Tell them that I, the Sovereign LORD, am saying to them: I am going to put breath into you and bring you back to life.

So I prophesied as I had been told. While I was speaking, I heard a rattling noise, and the bones began to join together.

God said to me, "Mortal man, prophesy to the wind. Tell the wind that the Sovereign LORD commands it to come from every direction, to breathe into these dead bodies, and to bring them back to life."

God said to me, "Mortal man, the people of Israel are like these bones. They say that they are dried up, without any hope and with no future.

When I open the graves where my people are buried and bring them out, they will know that I am the LORD.

After three and a half days a life-giving breath came from God and entered them, and they stood up; and all who saw them were terrified.

Then I saw thrones, and those who sat on them were given the power to judge. I also saw the souls of those who had been executed because they had proclaimed the truth that Jesus revealed and the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image, nor had they received the mark of the beast on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and ruled as kings with Christ for a thousand years.

Happy and greatly blessed are those who are included in this first raising of the dead. The second death has no power over them; they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and they will rule with him for a thousand years.