Ezekiel 35 - 39

Ezekiel, like many of the prophets, prophecied of the gathering of Israel. The Lord said to him -

"And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, saith the Lord GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.
24 For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land." (Old Testament | Ezekiel 36:23 - 24)

And he explains why -

"...I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake..." (Old Testament | Ezekiel 36:22)

And as his people repent, the Lord declares -

"Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.
26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
28 And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God."
(Old Testament | Ezekiel 36:25 - 28)

And of that same day, Ezekiel tells us -

"The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
16 Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions:
17 And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand."
(Old Testament | Ezekiel 37:15 - 17)

There will be those who don't quite understand these verses. Ezekiel is told -

"And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these?
19 Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand.
20 ¶ And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes."
(Old Testament | Ezekiel 37:18 - 20)

The Lord reveals in modern day -

"Behold, this is wisdom in me; wherefore, marvel not, for the hour cometh that I will drink of the fruit of the vine with you on the earth, and with Moroni, whom I have sent unto you to reveal the Book of Mormon, containing the fulness of my everlasting gospel, to whom I have committed the keys of the record of the stick of Ephraim..."
(Doctrine and Covenants | Section 27:5)

Writing and reading "sticks" become clear by the following -
“Recent exciting discoveries now confirm the correctness of Joseph Smith’s interpretation in a way impossible in 1830. But before discussing these new discoveries, let’s take a quick look at some linguistic points. Both stick, in the English King James Version, and rod, in the Greek Septuagint Version, are very unusual translations of the Hebrew word etz . . . whose basic meaning is wood. . . .

“The modern nation of Iraq includes almost all of Mesopotamia, the homeland of the ancient kingdoms of Assyria and Babylonia. In 593 B.C., when Ezekiel was called to be a prophet, he was living in exile in Babylonia. . . . As he walked its streets, he would have seen the typical scribe pressing a wedge-shaped stylus into moist clay tablets to make the complex writings familiar to us as cuneiform (wedge-shaped). But scholars today know that other kinds of records were being made in Mesopotamia: papyrus, parchment, and wooden tablets. Though only the clay tablets have survived the millennia, writers referred to the other writing materials on their clay tablets. [One such writing style was called “wood tablets.”]

“Modern archaeologists knew what papyrus and parchment were, but what were these wood tablets? How could cuneiform be written on wood? . . .

“. . . Some years ago . . . San Nicolo [an archaeologist] remembered that Romans and Greeks both made wooden wax tablets for record-keeping purposes out of boards whose surfaces had been cut below the edges in order to hold a thin coating of wax. Scribes wrote on the wax. The raised edges protected the inscribed surfaces when two tablets were put together.

“Could the Babylonians have done the same thing? . . . Five years later, . . . a discovery made in the territory that had been ancient Assyria confirmed his theory to the letter.

“The discovery, directed by archaeologist Max Mallowan, was made in a layer of sludge deep in a well in Nimrod, a city known as Calah in the Bible. . . . By the end of the day workmen had found . . . fragments of two complete sets of tablets, one of ivory and the other of walnut, each composed of sixteen boards. . . .

“All of the surfaces of the boards were cut down a tenth of an inch, leaving a half-inch-wide raised edge all around. The lowered surfaces provided a bed for wax filling, of which some thin biscuit-like fragments were found either still adhering to the boards or mixed in the sludge nearby. . . .

“The cover boards . . . had hinge marks on both sides, making it evident that all sixteen in each set had once been joined together like a Japanese folding screen. The whole work made such an extensive record that Mallowan could announce his discovery as the oldest known example of a book. . . .

“With these things in mind, we can see how we might translate Ezekiel 37:15–17 in this way:

“‘These were the words of the Lord to me: Man, take one leaf of a wooden tablet and write on it, “Judah and his associates of Israel.” Then take another leaf and write on it, “Joseph, the leaf [wooden tablet] of Ephraim and all his associates of Israel.”

“‘Now bring the two together to form one tablet; then they will be a folding tablet in your hand.’

“This translation is faithful to what we now know of Ezekiel’s language and culture.” (“Ezekiel’s ‘Sticks,’” Ensign, Sept. 1977, pp. 24–26.)