and if My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.
Parallel translations
- WEB if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
- KJV If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
- NKJV if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
- NASB and My people who are called by My name humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
- NLT Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God promises that if His people humble themselves, pray, seek Him, and repent, He will hear, forgive, and heal their land. It is a foundational promise of restoration through repentance.
Overview
This much-loved verse spells out the path back from judgment: humility, prayer, seeking God's face, and turning from sin, met by His hearing, forgiveness, and healing. Its primary reference is national Israel under the old covenant, so faithful interpreters caution against applying its land-healing promise indiscriminately to modern nations. Yet it reveals God's unchanging character of mercy toward the penitent, fully realized in the forgiveness secured through Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 22
- Lam 3:40–41Let us examine and test our ways, and turn back to the LORD.
- Isa 55:6–7Seek the LORD while He may be found; call on Him while He is near.
- Jas 4:9–10Grieve, mourn, and weep. Turn your laughter to mourning, and your joy to gloom.
- Prov 28:13He who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.
- 2 Chr 6:37–39and when they come to their senses in the land to which they were taken, and they repent and plead with You in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have sinned and done wrong; we have acted wickedly,’
- Deut 4:29–30But if from there you will seek the LORD your God, you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.
- Jer 33:6Nevertheless, I will bring to it health and healing, and I will heal its people and reveal to them the abundance of peace and truth.
- 2 Chr 33:12–13And in his distress, Manasseh sought the favor of the LORD his God and earnestly humbled himself before the God of his fathers.
- Ezek 33:11Say to them: ‘As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked should turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’
- 2 Chr 6:27then may You hear from heaven and forgive the sin of Your servants, Your people Israel, so that You may teach them the good way in which they should walk. May You send rain on the land that You gave Your people as an inheritance.
- Lev 26:40–41But if they will confess their iniquity and that of their fathers in the unfaithfulness that they practiced against Me, by which they have also walked in hostility toward Me—
- Ezek 18:27–30But if a wicked man turns from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he will save his life.
- Jer 8:22Is there no balm in Gilead? Is no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?
- Isa 63:19We have become like those You never ruled, like those not called by Your name.
- Deut 30:1–6“When all these things come upon you—the blessings and curses I have set before you—and you call them to mind in all the nations to which the LORD your God has banished you,
- Isa 59:20“The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression,” declares the LORD.
- 2 Chr 6:30be heard by You from heaven, Your dwelling place. And may You forgive and repay each man according to all his ways, since You know his heart—for You alone know the hearts of men—
- Isa 45:19I have not spoken in secret, from a place in a land of darkness. I did not say to the descendants of Jacob, ‘Seek Me in a wasteland.’ I, the LORD, speak the truth; I say what is right.
- Acts 9:11“Get up!” the Lord told him. “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying.
- Jer 51:9“We tried to heal Babylon, but she could not be healed. Abandon her! Let each of us go to his own land, for her judgment extends to the sky and reaches to the clouds.”
- 2 Chr 33:18–19As for the rest of the acts of Manasseh, along with his prayer to his God and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of the LORD, the God of Israel, they are indeed written in the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.
- Ps 60:2You have shaken the land and torn it open. Heal its fractures, for it is quaking.
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Christ at the center
Temple, priesthood, and the repeated need for a faithful king who seeks the LORD all point past every imperfect reign to the King and Temple who finally and fully dwell with God's people.
How 2 Chronicles 7:14 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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