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But God will again have mercy on them and bring them back to the land of Israel. They will build the house again, but it will not be like the first until the era when the appointed times will be completed.[a] Afterward all of them will return from their captivity, and they will rebuild Jerusalem with due honor. In it the house of God will also be rebuilt, just as the prophets of Israel said of it.(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 14:5 Until the era…completed: a reference to the coming of the day of the Lord, when a new, more perfect temple was to be expected. Cf. Hb 9:1–14.

Psalm 79[a]

A Prayer for Jerusalem

A psalm of Asaph.

I

O God, the nations have invaded your inheritance;
    they have defiled your holy temple;
    they have laid Jerusalem in ruins.(A)

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Footnotes

  1. Psalm 79 A communal lament complaining that the nations have defiled the Temple and murdered the holy people, leaving their corpses unburied (Ps 79:1–4). The occasion is probably the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian army in 587 B.C. The people ask how long the withdrawal of divine favor will last (Ps 79:5), pray for action now (Ps 79:6–7), and admit that their own sins have brought about the catastrophe (Ps 79:8–9). They seek to persuade God to act for reasons of honor: the nations who do not call upon the Name are running amok (Ps 79:6); the divine honor is compromised (Ps 79:1, 10, 12); God’s own servants suffer (Ps 79:2–4, 11).

18 Why have the wicked invaded your holy place,
    why have our enemies trampled your sanctuary?

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After that—oracle of the Lord—I will hand over Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his ministers and the people in this city who survive pestilence, sword, and famine, to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, to their enemies and those who seek their lives. He shall strike them down with the edge of the sword, without quarter, without mercy or compassion.(A)

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25 I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers, so that you will not become wise [in] your own estimation: a hardening has come upon Israel in part, until the full number of the Gentiles comes in,(A)

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But exclude the outer court[a] of the temple; do not measure it, for it has been handed over to the Gentiles, who will trample the holy city for forty-two months.

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Footnotes

  1. 11:2 The outer court: the Court of the Gentiles. Trample…forty-two months: the duration of the vicious persecution of the Jews by Antiochus IV Epiphanes (Dn 7:25; 12:7); this persecution of three and a half years (half of seven, counted as 1260 days in Rev 11:3; 12:6) became the prototype of periods of trial for God’s people; cf. Lk 4:25; Jas 5:17. The reference here is to the persecution by the Romans; cf. Introduction.