I will gather you from the peoples, and I will return the land of Israel to you. When you have entered and taken away all the idols that caused offences to God, I will give you one heart, to fear and serve the Lord, so that you stop serving any kind of idols, even if they are different from the ones you had; and I will put a new spirit in your innermost being.

Quite obviously all this teaches us that the first good stirring of the will in us comes under the Lord’s inspiration. He brings us along the road to salvation, either himself or by way of the exhortation of some person or through necessity. And our virtues are perfected also as a gift from him. Our task is, whether laxly or zealously, to play a role that corresponds to his grace, and our reward or our punishment will depend on whether we strove or neglected to be at one, attentive and obedient, with the kindly dispensation of his providence toward us.

In all these Scriptures there is a declaration of the grace of God and the freedom of our will, because even if by our own volition we can be led to the quest of virtue, we always stand in need of the help of the Lord.

[God] says in another prophet, I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh (that is, from those whom the spirit of the law foresaw) … because Christ himself was going to be manifested in the flesh and dwell among us.

For by the heart of flesh and the fleshy tables is not meant a carnal understanding: but as flesh feels, whereas a stone cannot, the insensibility of stone signifies an unintelligent heart, and the sensibility of flesh signifies an intelligent heart.

If God is not able to remove from the human heart even its obstinacy and hardness, he would not say, through the prophet, I will take from them their heart of stone and will give them a heart of flesh.… Now can we possibly, without extreme absurdity, maintain that there previously existed in any person the good merit of a good will, to entitle him to the removal of his stony heart, when all the while this very heart of stone signifies nothing else than a will of the hardest kind and such as is absolutely inflexible against God?

Those and other divine testimonies, which it would take too long to enumerate, show that God by his grace takes away the stony heart from unbelievers and forestalls merit in people of good will in such a way that their will is prepared by prevenient grace, but not that grace is given through prevenient merit of the will. This is shown both by thanksgiving and by prayer: prayer for unbelievers; thanksgiving for believers. Prayer is to be made to him that he may do what we ask; thanksgiving is to be offered when he has done it.

Flesh is not mentioned in this passage in order to signify carnal desire but rather in the way in which the prophet says that a heart of stone is taken away from the people and a heart of flesh is given them.

This grace, which from divine generosity is bestowed secretly in human hearts, is rejected by no one, no matter how hard-hearted he may be. For it is given so that hardness of the heart may first be taken away. Therefore, when the Father is heard within and teaches, so that one may come to the Son, he takes away the heart of stone and bestows a heart of flesh, as he promised by the word of the prophet. For it is thus that he makes them children of the promise and vessels of mercy that he has prepared for glory.^[1]

Truly great and mighty is the power of God’s word. For the word of God has changed the offspring of vipers^[1] into children of God. So let us constantly sow it within the hard soil of our heart,^[2] waiting for [the word] to soften [our heart] so that the wheat ear of life may sprout up in it. For the word of God is at the same time the seed and the water; and even though we have a heart like stone, it will be softened and split up by the water of the Spirit, so that it can bring forth holy fruit that is pleasing to God.

Therefore let no one neglect meditation on the divine words or the labor of reading the appointed measure. As our honored teacher said, from such meditation the soul acquires great benefit and finds salvation.

This might lead one to suppose that it was God who gave the power to walk in his commandments and to keep his judgments, if it was he who removed the stony heart, which hindered them from keeping the commandments, and who implanted in them the better and more sensitive one, which is here called a heart of flesh.

Now this is what is said by those who wish to prove by the authority of Scripture that nothing lies within our own power. We shall reply to them that these words must not be understood in that sense but as follows. It is as if an uneducated and uninstructed person becoming conscious of the disgrace of his condition, whether by being stirred at the exhortation of another or by a desire to rival those who are wise, should entrust himself to one by whom he is confident that he can be carefully trained and competently instructed. If then he, who had formerly hardened himself in ignorance, entrusts himself, as we have said, with full purpose of mind to a master and promises to obey him in everything, the master, on seeing clearly his purpose and determination, will on his part undertake to take away from him his lack of education and to implant in him education, not promising, however, to do this if the disciple withholds his assent and cooperation but only if he offers and pledges himself to entire obedience.

He calls it a new heart, as a force in the soul for honorable things. When they are disposed to contrary things, they refer to a change toward better things as a new spirit. Just as he spoke of another heart and did not mean a change in nature, but a disposition towards better things, so this is shared through a new spirit.

It is possible for us to see this literally fulfilled in another way even today, since believers in Christ all congregate from all parts of the world, not as of old time because of the glory of Jerusalem or that they may worship in the ancient temple at Jerusalem; but they rest there that they may learn both about the city being taken and devastated as the prophets foretold and that they may worship at the Mount of Olives opposite to the city, whither the glory of the Lord migrated when it left the former city.

There is no doubt that the mount is the Mount of Olives, from which the Savior ascended to the Father, and the glory of the Lord, which had departed from the city of Jerusalem, stood on the Mount of Olives as a sign of resurrection and light.

It is wonderful that down to the present day the glory of the Lord, which had deserted the temple, stands on the Mount of Olives. Moving in the sign of a cross, it gazes at what was once the Jewish temple, destroyed in dust and ashes.

Everything took place so that the captives should receive consolation, because they had to return to the land of Israel, in order to walk in the precepts of the Lord, and for them to be people for him and he to be a God for them.