vv 10-11 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. For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.
This verse 11 is quoted as an encouragement to people who are going through hard times. We easily forget the context of the promise however – the Jews faced 70 years of hard labour in exile in Babylon before the good things were going to appear! Perhaps more significant is the instruction in
v 7. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper. Jeremiah’s letter encouraged people to settle and seek the good of the society they found themselves in – something we should never neglect. We may find ourselves out of harmony with our own political and social events but we do have this similar responsibility to seek the peace and prosperity of our society. No time for Christians to withdraw into pious huddles; we have to get stuck in and work for a better society.
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