Did you dream last night? Do you remember your dream? Was it about a monster living under your bed? Your teeth falling out? Getting lost in the supermarket? Having a crocodile chase you? Lots of your dreams can be scary! Ezekiel had something like a scary dream. (At least it started out scary.) The Bible calls Ezekiel’s dream a vision, a special time when God shows something about the future.

One day, Ezekiel writes, “the Spirit of the Lord . . . set me down in the middle of the valley,” and that valley was “full of bones” (Ezek. 37:1). It was like going to an old graveyard, except the skeletons were not in their graves! The dry bones of dead people were scattered everywhere. They were so dried by the hot sun that if you stepped on them, they might shatter. God asked him, “Do you think these lifeless, dry bones can come to life?” Ezekiel shrugged his shoulders, “I have no idea. Only you know, God.” Deep down he may have doubted that they could come to life. But he didn’t doubt the power of God’s word. So, next, when God told him to talk to the bones, he obeyed right away. He prophesied, “O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God . . . Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews [or “muscles”] upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord” (37:4–6). And do you know what happened? There was a strange sound. The bones started to rattle and to come together, forming people. And for each and every person the foot bone connected to the leg bone, the leg bone to the knee bone, the thigh bone to the hip bone, the hip bone to the backbone, the backbone to the neck bone. Then, from nowhere, muscles started to grow on the bones, followed by skin. Finally, the breath of life rushed into them. They were alive! An “exceedingly great army” (37:10) stood before Ezekiel. The dead were raised to life!