14, 15. (a) When foretelling the restoration of Israel from captivity in Babylon, what did Jehovah promise to give his people? (b) What did Jehovah do with a view to implanting the fear of God in the hearts of his people? (c) Why did Israel turn aside from Jehovah’s ways?

¹⁴ Jehovah promised that he would give such a God-fearing heart to his people. He foretold the restoration of Israel and said, as we read at Jeremiah 32:37-39: “I will bring them back to this place and make them dwell in security. And they will certainly become my people, and I myself shall become their God. And I will give them one heart and one way in order to fear me always, for good to them and to their sons after them.” In Jer 32 verse 40, God’s promise is reinforced: “The fear of me I shall put in their heart in order not to turn aside from me.” In 537 B.C.E., Jehovah did bring them back to Jerusalem as he had promised.

He made a new covenant with spiritual Israel, those Christians before whom he set a heavenly hope. (Jeremiah 31:33; Galatians 6:16) In 1919, God restored them from captivity to Babylon the Great, the world empire of false religion.