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The Daily Office · For fear

Plans for your welfare

Jeremiah 29:11–13

11For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

12Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.

13You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

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What's happening here

These are the most quoted words in the book of Jeremiah, and they have been torn from their setting so often that it is worth putting them back. Jeremiah is writing a letter to Israelites who have been deported to Babylon — not the survivors still home, the exiles. Before verse eleven he tells them to build houses in the place they hate, to plant gardens, to pray for the city that destroyed their temple. Only then comes the promise, and it is a promise for a people who are not going home any time soon.

The word that matters

שָׁלוֹםshalom

Hebrew · peace, but peace as wholeness, not quiet

Shalom is not the absence of noise. The shalom of a city is its whole functioning — the streets safe, the markets fair, the tables full, the courts honest. When God tells the exiles his plans are for their shalom, he is not promising a feeling. He is promising that the entire arrangement will one day be made right, and in the meantime they are to work for the shalom of Babylon itself.

Where else this shows up

Across the whole Bible · fear

Passages found by what they mean, not by keyword. Open any of them on the canvas.

  1. Psalm 46:1–3

    God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth give way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the…

  2. Hebrews 13:6

    So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?”

  3. Psalm 14:5–6

    There they are in great terror, for God is with the generation of the righteous. You would shame the plans of the poor, but the LORD is his refuge.

  4. Psalm 56:1–4

    Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me; all day long an attacker oppresses me; my enemies trample on me all day long, for many attack me proudly. When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I…

  5. Job 3:25–26

    For the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest, but trouble comes.”

  6. Psalm 56:8–11

    You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call. This I know, that God is for me. In God, whose word I praise, in the…

  7. Lamentations 3:55–57

    “I called on your name, O LORD, from the depths of the pit; you heard my plea, ‘Do not close your ear to my cry for help!’ You came near when I called on you; you said, ‘Do not fear!’

  8. Psalm 71:7–11

    I have been as a portent to many, but you are my strong refuge. My mouth is filled with your praise, and with your glory all the day. Do not cast me off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength is spent.…

  9. Psalm 27:1

    The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

  10. Psalm 144:1–2

    Blessed be the LORD, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle; he is my steadfast love and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield and he in whom I take refuge, who subdues peoples…

  11. Isaiah 12:2

    “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.”

  12. Psalm 23:4

    Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

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