You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.
Parallel translations
- WEB You shall seek me, and find me, when you shall search for me with all your heart.
- KJV And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
- NKJV And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.
- NASB And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.
- NLT If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.
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 those who seek Him wholeheartedly will find Him. Genuine, undivided pursuit of God is the path to knowing Him.
Overview
The exile was meant to turn Israel's heart back to the LORD, and here He pledges to be found by those who seek with all their heart. This echoes Deuteronomy 4:29 and reflects the consistent biblical principle that God draws near to those who draw near to Him. It points forward to Christ, in whom God has made Himself fully knowable to all who seek Him.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 26
- Deut 4:29–31But 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.
- Ps 119:2Blessed are those who keep His testimonies and seek Him with all their heart.
- Matt 7:7Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.
- Ps 119:10With all my heart I have sought You; do not let me stray from Your commandments.
- Jer 24:7I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the LORD. They will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with all their heart.
- Joel 2:12“Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning.”
- Ps 91:15When he calls out to Me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him.
- Luke 11:9–10So I tell you: Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.
- Isa 55:6–7Seek the LORD while He may be found; call on Him while He is near.
- Ps 119:145I call with all my heart; answer me, O LORD! I will obey Your statutes.
- 2 Chr 31:21He was diligent in every work that he began in the service of the house of God, and in the law and the commandments, in order to seek his God. And so he prospered.
- Ps 119:58I have sought Your face with all my heart; be gracious to me according to Your promise.
- 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,’
- 2 Chr 22:9Then Jehu looked for Ahaziah, and Jehu’s soldiers captured him while he was hiding in Samaria. So Ahaziah was brought to Jehu and put to death. They buried him, for they said, “He is the grandson of Jehoshaphat, who sought the LORD with all his heart.” So no one was left from the house of Ahaziah with the strength to rule the kingdom.
- Amos 5:4–6For this is what the LORD says to the house of Israel: “Seek Me and live!
- 1 Kgs 8:47–50and 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,’
- Zeph 2:1–3Gather yourselves, gather together, O shameful nation,
- Ps 119:69Though the arrogant have smeared me with lies, I keep Your precepts with all my heart.
- 2 Kgs 23:3So the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD to follow the LORD and to keep His commandments, decrees, and statutes with all his heart and all his soul, and to carry out the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people entered into the covenant.
- Deut 30:1–20“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,
- Hos 5:15Then I will return to My place until they admit their guilt and seek My face; in their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.”
- Jer 3:10Yet in spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but only in pretense,” declares the LORD.
- 1 Kgs 2:4and so that the LORD may fulfill His promise to me: ‘If your descendants take heed to walk faithfully before Me with all their heart and soul, you will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’
- Lev 26:40–45But 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—
- Ps 32:6Therefore let all the godly pray to You while You may be found. Surely when great waters rise, they will not come near.
- Acts 8:36As they traveled along the road and came to some water, the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is there to prevent me from being baptized?”
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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 29:13 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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