The future and plans

So there is hope for your future, declares the LORD, and your children will return to their own land.

For surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope.

Since no one knows what will happen, who can tell him what is to come?

¹³ Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make a profit.”

¹⁴ You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

¹⁵ Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.”

¹³ Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,

¹⁴ I press on toward the goal to win the prize of God’s heavenly calling in Christ Jesus.

Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Today has enough trouble of its own.

For surely no man knows his time: Like fish caught in a cruel net or birds trapped in a snare, so men are ensnared in an evil time that suddenly falls upon them.

A man’s heart plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.

Know therefore that wisdom is sweet to your soul. If you find it, there is a future for you, and your hope will never be cut off.

My times are in Your hands; deliver me from my enemies and from those who pursue me.

I declare the end from the beginning, and ancient times from what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and all My good pleasure I will accomplish.’

²⁸ But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in the latter days. Your dream and the visions that came into your mind as you lay on your bed were these:

²⁹ As you lay on your bed, O king, your thoughts turned to the future, and the Revealer of Mysteries made known to you what will happen.

Yet the fool multiplies words. No one knows what is coming, and who can tell him what will come after him?

Strength and honor are her clothing, and she can laugh at the days to come.

Consider the blameless and observe the upright, for posterity awaits the man of peace.

But Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “Will there not at least be peace and security in my lifetime?”

But Barzillai replied, “How many years of my life remain, that I should go up to Jerusalem with the king?

If only they were wise, they would understand it; they would comprehend their fate.

For this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Houses, fields, and vineyards will again be bought in this land.”

³⁴ Let Pharaoh take action and appoint commissioners over the land to take a fifth of the harvest of Egypt during the seven years of abundance.

³⁵ Under the authority of Pharaoh, let them collect all the excess food from these good years, that they may come and lay up the grain to be preserved as food in the cities.

³⁶ This food will be a reserve for the land during the seven years of famine to come upon the land of Egypt. Then the country will not perish in the famine.”

Then I will say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take it easy. Eat, drink, and be merry!”’

²⁸ It is just as I said to Pharaoh: God has shown Pharaoh what He is about to do.

²⁹ Behold, seven years of great abundance are coming throughout the land of Egypt,

³⁰ but seven years of famine will follow them. Then all the abundance in the land of Egypt will be forgotten, and the famine will devastate the land.

⁴⁸ During those seven years, Joseph collected all the excess food in the land of Egypt and stored it in the cities. In every city he laid up the food from the fields around it.

⁴⁹ So Joseph stored up grain in such abundance, like the sand of the sea, that he stopped keeping track of it; for it was beyond measure.

One day Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi said to her, “My daughter, should I not seek a resting place for you, that it may be well with you?

⁵³ When the seven years of abundance in the land of Egypt came to an end,

⁵⁴ the seven years of famine began, just as Joseph had said. And although there was famine in every country, there was food throughout the land of Egypt.