The LORD says, ‘When Babylonia's seventy years are over, I will show my concern for you and keep my promise to bring you back home. ... Then you will call to me. You will come and pray to me, and I will answer you. You will seek me, and you will find me because you will seek me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29.10,12,13 GNB)

Did I just read that right? By implication, during the seventy years of exile, God would not listen to their prayers, nor be found, nor do good things that he promised?

So now what? Everything is futile and there is no hope. Seventy years might be a short blink for God, but not for mankind. Might they just as well abandon him?

No.

God knew the people were so bad that it would take seventy years of penitence for them to clean up their act and right their hearts. And they should indeed repent and turn to God during that seventy years, so that at the end of it they can "find" God again.

Have we gone astray? Let us repent and right our hearts and our living.

I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to bring you prosperity and not disaster, plans to bring about the future you hope for. (Jeremiah 29.11 GNB)