Eventually, however, Jehovah purposed to restore them from exile. He promised: “I will also collect you from the peoples and gather you from the lands among which you have been scattered, and I will give you the soil of Israel.” (Ezek. 11:17) This promise began to be fulfilled when, in 537 B.C.E., a repentant Jewish remnant returned to their homeland.

Modern historical evidence shows that during the world war of 1914-1918 the dedicated, baptized anointed remnant of Jehovah’s Christian witnesses were brought into Babylonish captivity. In the spring of 1919 C.E., however, they experienced a liberation. Since that time they have seen in their own case the fulfillment of Ezekiel 11:18-20:

“They will certainly come there [to the soil of Israel] and remove all its disgusting things and all its detestable things out of it. And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I shall put inside them; and I shall certainly remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, in order that they may walk in my own statutes and keep my own judicial decisions and actually carry them out; and they may really become my people and I myself may become their God.”

Yes, the anointed spiritual Israelites came back to the symbolic “soil” of spiritual Israel. They left behind the detestable and disgusting things of Christendom and the rest of “Babylon the Great.” Jehovah has given them a “heart of flesh,” not hard like stone but one that moves them to observe his commandments because of love for him. He also put a “new spirit,” that is, his holy spirit, inside them. Hence its fruitage​—love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, kindness, faith, mildness and self-control—​is manifest in their lives. They have indeed become Jehovah’s people and He has become their God.

The spiritual Israelites, however, are not the only ones today who are experiencing God’s blessing. Back in the sixth century B.C.E. natural Israelites were not the only ones who returned from Babylonian exile. Among those returning were such non-Israelites as the Nethinim temple slaves. (Ezra 2:58) Similarly, since the year 1935 C.E. a constantly increasing “great crowd” of sheeplike persons have forsaken “Babylon the Great” and are now enjoying Jehovah’s favor along with the restored remnant on the symbolic “soil” of spiritual Israel. Because of having taken up the pure, undefiled worship of Jehovah, they, along with the anointed remnant, will be spared when greedy Christendom and the rest of “Babylon the Great” are destroyed.