⁸ Therefore the Lord Almighty says this: “Because you have not listened to my words, ⁹ I will summon^(A) all the peoples of the north^(B) and my servant^(C) Nebuchadnezzar^(D) king of Babylon,” declares the Lord, “and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy^[a](E) them and make them an object of horror and scorn,^(F) and an everlasting ruin.^{(G) 10} I will banish from them the sounds^(H) of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom,^(I) the sound of millstones^(J) and the light of the lamp.^{(K) 11} This whole country will become a desolate wasteland,^(L) and these nations will serve^(M) the king of Babylon seventy years.^(N)

¹² “But when the seventy years^(O) are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon^(P) and his nation, the land of the Babylonians,^[b] for their guilt,” declares the Lord, “and will make it desolate^(Q) forever. ¹³ I will bring on that land all the things I have spoken against it, all that are written^(R) in this book and prophesied by Jeremiah against all the nations.

² in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy^(A) years. ³ So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting,^(B) and in sackcloth and ashes.^(C)

Cyrus Helps the Exiles to Return^(A)

1 In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah,^(B) the Lord moved the heart^(C) of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing: