First light on the small walled garden of a Judean exile’s house beside a canal in the Babylonian plain: neat rows of young cucumbers and onions, a young pomegranate tree, a clay water jar, a mud-brick house with a wooden door, date palms.

Shepherds and prophets

Jeremiah 29

What if God wants you to plant a garden where you never wanted to live?

32 verses≈ 7 minBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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Where we are

1The callJosiah’s thirteenth year (about 627 BC): a prophet to the nations
2–6Return to MeBroken cisterns, faithless Judah, disaster from the north
7–10The temple gateThe temple sermon, a weeping prophet, the living God
11–20Covenant and complaintThe broken covenant, the potter, Jeremiah’s confessions
21–29Shepherds and prophetsKings judged, the Branch, seventy years, the yoke, the letterChapter 29
30–33The Book of ComfortRestoration, the new covenant, a field bought in a siege
34–39The last days of JudahThe scroll burned, the cistern, Jerusalem falls (586 BC)
40–45After the fallGedaliah at Mizpah, the flight to Egypt, a word for Baruch
46–51The nationsEgypt to Babylon: the LORD is Judge of all the earth
52Jerusalem fallsThe record of 586 BC, and a king released

Jeremiah’s Letter to the Exiles

This is the text of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets, and all the others Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

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(This was after King Jeconiah, the queen mother, the court officials, the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the metalsmiths had been exiled from Jerusalem.)

The letter was entrusted to Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. It stated:

Stylised map · locations approximate

On the map

A letter to Babylon

The letter went by the road north and then down the Euphrates, some 900 miles. Ezra’s company took about four months for the journey the other way.

God

This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says to all the exiles who were carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon:

God

For this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Do not be deceived by the prophets and diviners among you, and do not listen to the dreams you elicit from them. For they are falsely prophesying to you in My name; I have not sent them, declares the LORD.”

Question

Quick question

The false prophets said the exile would soon be over. Look at what the LORD told the exiles to do in 29:5–7.

What did the LORD tell the exiles to do in Babylon?

God

Dawn on a canal bank under date palms: an old Judean exile and a small boy sit side by side, seen from behind, looking west across the flat plain toward the first light.

For this is what the LORD says: “When Babylon’s seventy years are complete, I will attend to you and confirm My promise to restore you to this place.

God

Early morning on a long road climbing west into the hills of Judah: returning families with laden donkeys and children, small with distance, the hills ahead catching first light.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope.

0:07

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

God

Evening inside a small mud-brick house in Babylonia: a Judean woman, fully and modestly dressed, kneels by an open window facing west, a clay saucer lamp lit on the sill.

Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.

God

You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.

Jeremiah 29:13

God

I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore you from captivity and gather you from all the nations and places to which I have banished you, declares the LORD. I will restore you to the place from which I sent you into exile.”

Pray

Lord, You know the plans You have for Your people. In the place I didn’t choose, teach me to build, to plant, and to pray for my city. Let me seek You with all my heart, and find You. Amen.

God

God

Because you may say, “The LORD has raised up for us prophets in Babylon,” this is what the LORD says about the king who sits on David’s throne and all the people who remain in this city, your brothers who did not go with you into exile— this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “I will send against them sword and famine and plague, and I will make them like rotten figs, so bad they cannot be eaten.

God

I will pursue them with sword and famine and plague. I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth—a curse, a desolation, and an object of scorn and reproach among all the nations to which I banish them. I will do this because they have not listened to My words, declares the LORD, which I sent to them again and again through My servants the prophets. And neither have you exiles listened, declares the LORD.”

God

So hear the word of the LORD, all you exiles I have sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon.

God

This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says about Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying to you lies in My name: “I will deliver them to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will kill them before your very eyes. Because of them, all the exiles of Judah who are in Babylon will use this curse: ‘May the LORD make you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire!’

God

For they have committed an outrage in Israel by committing adultery with the wives of their neighbors and speaking lies in My name, which I did not command them to do. I am He who knows, and I am a witness, declares the LORD.”

The Message to Shemaiah

God

You are to tell Shemaiah the Nehelamite that this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “In your own name you have sent out letters to all the people of Jerusalem, to the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah, and to all the priests. You said to Zephaniah:

God

‘The LORD has appointed you priest in place of Jehoiada, to be the chief officer in the house of the LORD, responsible for any madman who acts like a prophet—you must put him in stocks and neck irons. So now, why have you not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth, who poses as a prophet among you? For he has sent to us in Babylon, claiming: Since the exile will be lengthy, build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat their produce.’”

(Zephaniah the priest, however, had read this letter to Jeremiah the prophet.)

Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah:

God

“Send a message telling all the exiles what the LORD says concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite. Because Shemaiah has prophesied to you—though I did not send him—and has made you trust in a lie, this is what the LORD says: ‘I will surely punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his descendants. He will have no one left among this people, nor will he see the good that I will bring to My people, declares the LORD, for he has preached rebellion against the LORD.’”

The letter

Whiteboard

The exiles were told to stay, not to escape. In the long wait God promised a future, and Himself.

You’ve experienced

Jeremiah 29

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A verse to carry with you

You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.

Jeremiah 29:13

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