For God's name's sake

“Therefore say to the house of Israel, This is what the Sovereign Lord says: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations wehre you have gone.” Ezekiel 36:22
In Ezekiel 36 we see God’s promise to restore the nation Israel from their captivity, removing their heart of stone and replacing it with a ‘heart of flesh’ (Ezek. 36:26). Israel has been restored from the Babylonian captivity (which they were in at the time Ezekiel wrote this), but a number of verses in this chapter imply that the fulfilment really applies to the present day regathering of Israel, from “all nations” (Ezek. 36: 24).
Although Israel may have fallen from grace in terms of being God’s witness to the world as the path to salvation (that task now falling upon the church), they are still His chosen people. But God didn’t choose them because they were special or deserve anything – it was because of His commitment to keep the covenant He made with their forefather, Abraham (Deut. 7:7-8). Through the nation Israel, God wants to show that He keeps His promise in choosing them (even though many of them today still profane the name of God by saying He doesn’t exist).
Similarly for us: we can be sure that if we profane God’s name by our actions, God will uphold His name at any cost. We are not to take His name lightly, but instead to place as much value on it as God Himself does.