Say to 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 that are associated with him, and I will put them together with the stick of Juda, and will make them one stick: and they shall be one in his hand.
Ezekiel 37:17 And join them one to the other into one stick, and they shall become one in thy hand.
Ezekiel 37:18 And when the children of thy people shall speak to thee, saying: Wilt thou not tell us what thou meanest by this?
Ezekiel 37:19 Say to 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 that are associated with him, and I will put them together with the stick of Juda, and will make them one stick: and they shall be one in his hand.
Ezekiel 37:20 And the sticks whereon thou hast written, shall be in thy hand, before their eyes.
Ezekiel 37:21 And thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will take of the children of Israel from the midst of the nations whither they are gone: and I will gather them on every side, and will bring them to their own land.
The verse centers on "thus", "saith", "lord", "behold", "take", "stick", "joseph", and "hand". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "thus" and "saith", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.
The nearby context moves from verse 18's "And when the children of thy people..." into verse 20's "And the sticks whereon thou hast written...", so "thus" and "saith" belong inside that flow. In Ezekiel context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.
A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "thus" and "saith" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.