5 “Build houses and live in them.r Plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Find wives for yourselves, and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons and give your daughters to men in marriage so that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there; do not decrease.s 7 Pursue the well-beingC of the city I have deported you to. Pray to the Lord on its behalf,t for when it thrives, you will thrive.”

8 For this is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Don’t let your prophets who are among youu and your diviners deceive you,v and don’t listen to the dreams you elicit from them, 9 for they are prophesying falsely to you in my name. I have not sent them.”a This is the Lord’s declaration.