For this is what the LORD says: “When Babylon’s seventy years are complete, I will attend to you and confirm My promise to restore you to this place.
Parallel translations
- WEB For Yahweh says, “After seventy years are accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.
- KJV For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.
- NKJV For thus says the Lord: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place.
- NASB “For this is what the Lord says: ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place.
- NLT This is what the Lord says: “You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again.
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 after seventy years He will visit His people and bring them home. The exile has a fixed end and a sure restoration.
Overview
God sets a definite term to the captivity and pledges to fulfill His 'good word' of return, accomplished when the exiles came back under Cyrus (Ezra 1; 2 Chronicles 36:21-22). Daniel later prayed over this very promise (Daniel 9:2). The seventy years balanced discipline with certain hope. God's faithfulness to keep His word here assures believers that all His promises, climaxing in Christ, will surely be performed.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Dan 9:2in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the sacred books, according to the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years.
- Zech 7:5“Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for these seventy years, was it really for Me that you fasted?
- Jer 24:6–7I will keep My eyes on them for good and will return them to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them.
- Jer 27:22‘They will be carried to Babylon and will remain there until the day I attend to them again,’ declares the LORD. ‘Then I will bring them back and restore them to this place.’”
- Jer 25:12But when seventy years are complete, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their guilt, declares the LORD, and I will make it an everlasting desolation.
- Jer 32:42–44For this is what the LORD says: Just as I have brought all this great disaster on this people, so I will bring on them all the good I have promised them.
- Zeph 2:7The coast will belong to the remnant of the house of Judah; there they will find pasture. They will lie down in the evening among the houses of Ashkelon, for the LORD their God will attend to them and restore their captives.
- 2 Chr 36:21So the land enjoyed its Sabbath rest all the days of the desolation, until seventy years were completed, in fulfillment of the word of the LORD through Jeremiah.
- Jer 27:7All nations will serve him and his son and grandson, until the time of his own land comes; then many nations and great kings will enslave him.
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Christ at the center
Against the failure of false shepherds Jeremiah promises the Righteous Branch, 'The LORD our righteousness,' and the new covenant written on the heart and sealed in the blood of Christ.
How Jeremiah 29:10 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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