Jeremiah 29:6
Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; that ye may be increased there, and not diminished. Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; that ye may be increased there, and not diminished.
The verse belongs to Jeremiah's letter to the Hebrew captives in Babylon, written soon after the captivity began to guide the exiles during their time there. It instructs the exiles to settle quietly in Babylon, build peaceful homes and lives, marry and raise families, and increase in number rather than diminish. This settling was to continue through the seventy years of captivity, instead of expecting an immediate return to Jerusalem.
This quiet settling under temporary foreign rule was meant to make life there as pleasant as possible, rather than expecting speedy deliverance or rebelling. Living quietly in this way was also meant to avoid acting in ways that could provoke harsher restrictions from their captors.
The same counsel called Zedekiah and Judah to an honorable course toward the Babylonians and quiet submission to their rule. Heeding it would have kept Zedekiah in the respect of those in high authority in Babylon, given opportunity to make the true God known to them, placed the exiles already in Babylon on vantage ground with many liberties, caused God's name to be honored far and wide, and spared those remaining in Judah the terrible calamities that finally came upon them.