Seventy Years of Desolation

25 The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah, ain the fourth year of bJehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah (which was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon), 2 which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying: 3 c“From the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, even to this day, this is the twenty-third year in which the word of the Lord has come to me; and I have spoken to you, rising early and speaking, dbut you have not listened. 4 And the Lord has sent to you all His servants the prophets, erising early and sending them, but you have not listened nor inclined your ear to hear. 5 They said, f‘Repent now everyone of his evil way and his evil doings, and dwell in the land that the Lord has given to you and your fathers forever and ever. 6 Do not go after other gods to serve them and worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands; and I will not harm you.’ 7 Yet you have not listened to Me,” says the Lord, “that you might gprovoke Me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt.

8 “Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Because you have not heard My words, 9 behold, I will send and take hall the families of the north,’ says the Lord, ‘and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, iMy servant, and will bring them against this land, against its inhabitants, and against these nations all around, and will utterly destroy them, and jmake them an astonishment, a hissing, and perpetual desolations. 10 Moreover I will 1take from them the kvoice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, lthe sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp. 11 And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy myears.

12 ‘Then it will come to pass, nwhen 2seventy years are completed, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity,’ says the Lord; o‘and I will make it a perpetual desolation. 13 So I will bring on that land all My words which I have pronounced against it, all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah has prophesied concerning all the nations. 14 p(For many nations qand great kings shall rbe served by them also; sand I will repay them according to their deeds and according to the works of their own hands.)’ ”