¹¹ This whole country will become a desolate wasteland,^(A) and these nations will serve^(B) the king of Babylon seventy years.^(C)

²¹ The land enjoyed its sabbath rests;^(A) all the time of its desolation it rested,^(B) until the seventy years^(C) were completed in fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah.

²² In the first year of Cyrus^(D) king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing:

Cyrus Helps the Exiles to Return^(A)

1 In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah,^(B) the Lord moved the heart^(C) of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing:

² in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy^(A) years.

¹² Then the angel of the Lord said, “Lord Almighty, how long^(A) will you withhold mercy^(B) from Jerusalem and from the towns of Judah,^(C) which you have been angry with these seventy^(D) years?”

⁵ “Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted^(A) and mourned in the fifth and seventh^(B) months for the past seventy years,^(C) was it really for me that you fasted?