Jeremiah 29-32

“Build houses and live in them; plant gardens ...seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the LORD on its behalf ...” (29:5- 7). The false prophets rejected life in Babylon (29:24-32), but Jeremiah urged the Israelites to be obedient to God there. As they were faithful in a hard place, they were preparing for a better day, when God promised to gather his outcasts and exiles and bring them home (ch 31).

In that day, the “new covenant” would far outshine the old one. “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (31:34).