Seventy Years of Desolation

25 The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah, ^(A)in the fourth year of ^(B)Jehoiakim 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, ^(D)but you have not listened. ⁴ And the Lord has sent to you all His servants the prophets, ^(E)rising 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 ^(G)provoke 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 ^(H)all the families of the north,’ says the Lord, ‘and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, ^(I)My servant, and will bring them against this land, against its inhabitants, and against these nations all around, and will utterly destroy them, and ^(J)make them an astonishment, a hissing, and perpetual desolations. ¹⁰ Moreover I will ^[a]take from them the ^(K)voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, ^(L)the 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 ^(M)years.

¹² ‘Then it will come to pass, ^(N)when ^[b]seventy 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.