For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you future and a hope.
Jeremiah 29:11
Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: Because you have not obeyed my words, behold, I will send for all the tribes of the north, declares the Lord, and for Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants, and against all these surrounding nations. I will devote them to destruction, and make them a horror, a hissing, and an everlasting desolation. Moreover, I will banish from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the grinding of the millstones and the light of the lamp. This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. Then after seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, declares the Lord, making the land an everlasting waste. I will bring upon that land all the words that I have uttered against it, everything written in this book, which Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations. For many nations and great kings shall make slaves even of them, and I will recompense them according to their deeds and the work of their hands.
Jeremiah 25:8-14
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:31-39
and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Romans 5:5
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
John 3:18
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28
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Timothy, How do you understand the use of the word ‘you’ in the phrase, ‘I know the plans I have for ‘you’? In English the word can have either a singular or plural meaning. As you know in Spanish there are different words for singular and plural. The same is true in Swahili. What about Hebrew? It is obvious that this Jeremiah ‘you’ was plural. The exiles were being addressed as a group. It is a misuse of this Scripture to support the claim that is often preached – that God has plans for you as an individual. It sounds good and may be true but this verse should not be used to support that idea.
Blessings, Ruben
Ruben, I love the way you are thinking. When in doubt go to the original language! The Hebrew “you” is indeed plural. You are correct the idea that God does want the best for us is evident throughout the Scripture but we ought not use Jeremiah’s message to the exiles to “proof text” this idea.
Blessings, Timothy