So God sent Jeremiah with His message to them—that if they would turn away from their evil ways and come back to Him, He would forgive them and give them every blessing; but if they refused, then Jerusalem should be destroyed, and God would send those who were left after the battles into a far country where they should be Captives for seventy years.
Yet even with all these solemn warnings, the Children of Israel—the Jews—refused to obey God; and very shortly those things came to pass which Jeremiah had told them.
But God has given great promises to the Jews, and He is very patient and longsuffering.
By and by after seventy years, He brought them back in a wonderful way to their own Land, which they again inhabited, and built cities and lived in them.
But it was not very long before they again began to depart from God's laws; they ceased to obey those things which were plainly written in the Old Testament Scriptures; and at last, when Jesus Christ came to earth to be their Messiah and King, they did not remember all God had said in the Bible about Him, and they rose up against Him, and crucified the Lord of Glory!
And so, again the Heavenly Father, who calls Himself the Potter, has had to send the Jews out of their Land, and He is moulding them now by trials and sorrows, so that by and by they may be purified and restored to His favour.
For when Jesus comes back to Earth, as He surely will, "they will look on Him whom they have pierced," and will turn to Him, and be saved.
[XX. JEHOSHEBA, THE GOOD AUNT]
2 KINGS 11.1-21. 2 CHRONICLES 22, 23, AND 24