Jehovah gave Ezekiel, in Babylon, a vision in which he likened Israel to dry bones lying in a valley plain. In the vision, as Ezekiel prophesied to the bones, they miraculously came together, and flesh came upon them. Then he prophesied to the wind, and it brought breath into their bodies so that they stood up as a great army. Jehovah explained the vision as applying to Israel who, swallowed up in Babylonian exile, were as people whose hope had perished. (Eze 37:1-11)

God had permitted this because of Israel’s apostasy. But Jehovah was going to remember them and put into them his spirit, which would revive and revitalize them as well as bring them back to be settled in the Promised Land.​—Eze 37:12-14.