Jeremiah 33:12
Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Again in this place, which is desolate without man and without beast, and in all the cities thereof, shall be an habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down. Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Again in this place, which is desolate without man and without beast, and in all the cities thereof, shall be an habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down.
The word came to Jeremiah a second time while he was still shut up in the court of the prison, held under close guard by men who despised his messages because he urged surrender. It came in the closing years of Judah's apostasy, when the Chaldean armies had come for the third and final siege of Jerusalem, when hope had fled from every heart and total ruin had been foretold. The place then desolate without man and without beast, with all its cities, would again become a dwelling place where shepherds cause their flocks to lie down.
In the cities of the mountains and in the cities of the valley and in the cities of the south, in the land of Benjamin and in the places about Jerusalem and in the cities of Judah, the flocks would again pass under the hands of him who counts them. This counting of the flocks belongs to the promise to cause the captivity of the land to return as at the first and to perform the good thing promised to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. It was given as a fresh revelation of heaven's willingness to forgive and to save, so that the faithful remnant still in the city would not be left in hopeless despair. From that day to the present it remains an unfailing source of comfort to the church.