... Paul’s adaptation draws together the concepts of cleansing (from anomia) and election. The defilement in mind in Ezekiel 37:23 and 36:25 is that of exilic and postexilic idolatry, and the application of this to the Cretan context is not hard to see (1:10–16 and the use of the katharos word group in 1:15). The wider textual network that Paul contacts also associates purification from idolatry with the event of “becoming” God’s people and the ongoing act of “being” God’s people by way of the Godward covenant commitments required of his people. Paul sets the identity of the church into the Old Testament context specifically focused on the promise of the new (or renewed) covenant (compare Ezekiel 36:26–28). The textual network, beginning with Ezekiel 37:23, superimposes Christ’s purifying act over God’s act in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament covenantal transaction, by Yahweh’s action of cleansing (Ezekiel 37:23) and electing (Deuteronomy 7:6; 14:2), and upon the condition of the people’s faithfulness (Exodus 19:5), Israel would be known as “a people for his own possession” (for the phrase laos periousios, see also Exodus 23:22 LXX; Deuteronomy 26:18) — that is, the unique possession of Yahweh, bearing the imprint of his holiness ...