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. But what about the rest of that promise​—that he would give them ‘one heart in order to fear him always’? Why did the ancient nation of Israel turn aside from Jehovah after he had brought them back from Babylon, so that their temple was destroyed in 70 C.E., never again to be rebuilt?

16. In whose hearts has Jehovah implanted godly fear?

¹⁶ Yet, Jehovah’s promise to put godly fear in the hearts of his people did not fail. 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. In their hearts he has firmly implanted the fear of him. This has brought rich benefits to them and to the “great crowd,” who have the hope of life as earthly subjects of the Kingdom. (Jeremiah 32:39; Revelation 7:9) The fear of Jehovah has come to be in their hearts too.