A Promise of Restoration

The LORD answers the objection raised by the city's fall by promising to gather His people from every land to which He has driven them and bring them back to dwell securely. He will renew the covenant bond, give them one heart and one way, establish an everlasting covenant that keeps them from turning away, rejoice to plant them in the land, and make the purchase of fields once again an ordinary reality throughout Judah and its surrounding regions.

N³⁶ow therefore, about this city of which you say, ‘It will be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon by sword and famine and plague,’ this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ³⁷I will surely gather My people from all the lands to which I have banished them in My furious anger and great wrath, and I will return them to this place and make them dwell in safety. ³⁸They will be My people, and I will be their God. ³⁹I will give them one heart and one way, so that they will always fear Me for their own good and for the good of their children after them. ⁴⁰I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never turn away from doing good to them, and I will put My fear in their hearts, so that they will never turn away from Me. ⁴¹Yes, I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will faithfully plant them in this land with all My heart and with all My soul. ⁴²For 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. ⁴³And fields will be bought in this land about which you are saying, ‘It is a desolation, without man or beast; it has been delivered into the hands of the Chaldeans.’ ⁴⁴Fields will be purchased with silver, and deeds will be signed, sealed, and witnessed in the land of Benjamin, in the areas surrounding Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah— the cities of the hill country, the foothills, and the Negev— because I will restore them from captivity, declares the LORD.”