⁵ “Say to all your people and your priests, ‘During these seventy years of exile, when you fasted and mourned in the summer and in early autumn,^[a] was it really for me that you were fasting?

² During the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, learned from reading the word of the Lord, as revealed to Jeremiah the prophet, that Jerusalem must lie desolate for seventy years.^[a]

²² ‘They will all be carried away to Babylon and will stay there until I send for them,’ says the Lord. ‘Then I will bring them back to Jerusalem again.’”

¹² “Then, after the seventy years of captivity are over, I will punish the king of Babylon and his people for their sins,” says the Lord. “I will make the country of the Babylonians^[a] a wasteland forever.

⁴² “This is what the Lord says: Just as I have brought all these calamities on them, so I will do all the good I have promised them. ⁴³ Fields will again be bought and sold in this land about which you now say, ‘It has been ravaged by the Babylonians, a desolate land where people and animals have all disappeared.’ ⁴⁴ Yes, fields will once again be bought and sold—deeds signed and sealed and witnessed—in the land of Benjamin and here in Jerusalem, in the towns of Judah and in the hill country, in the foothills of Judah^[a] and in the Negev, too. For someday I will restore prosperity to them. I, the Lord, have spoken!”

⁶ I will watch over and care for them, and I will bring them back here again. I will build them up and not tear them down. I will plant them and not uproot them. ⁷ I will give them hearts that recognize me as the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me wholeheartedly.

²¹ So the message of the Lord spoken through Jeremiah was fulfilled. The land finally enjoyed its Sabbath rest, lying desolate until the seventy years were fulfilled, just as the prophet had said.

Cyrus Allows the Exiles to Return

²² In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia,^[a] the Lord fulfilled the prophecy he had given through Jeremiah.^[b] He stirred the heart of Cyrus to put this proclamation in writing and to send it throughout his kingdom:

Cyrus Allows the Exiles to Return

1 In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia,^[c] the Lord fulfilled the prophecy he had given through Jeremiah.^[d] He stirred the heart of Cyrus to put this proclamation in writing and to send it throughout his kingdom:

⁷ All the nations will serve him, his son, and his grandson until his time is up. Then many nations and great kings will conquer and rule over Babylon.