Jeremiah 33:24
Considerest thou not what this people have spoken, saying, The two families which the LORD hath chosen, he hath even cast them off? thus they have despised my people, that they should be no more a nation before them. Considerest thou not what this people have spoken, saying, The two families which the LORD hath chosen, he hath even cast them off? thus they have despised my people, that they should be no more a nation before them.
Jeremiah 32 to 45 give the history of the two years before Jerusalem fell, and this verse stands within that portion. In chronological order it stands late in Jeremiah's work in Judah, with chapters 32 and 33 coming after chapter 37 and before chapter 38. The two families which the Lord chose are Israel and Judah.
The verse records the saying of those who claimed that the Lord had cast off those chosen families so that they should be no more a nation before them. That saying expresses contempt for God's people and denies that their promised restoration will take place. It belongs to a prophecy about Israel's restoration and gathering, not about permanent rejection.
It is a Messianic prophecy that looks through the restoration from Babylon to the more glorious restoration under Christ, and it is invoked as one of the prophecies of Israel's restoration through Jesus. It points to the same time as Ezekiel's promises of return to the land, renewal, and covenant peace. That time is the gathering and deliverance of God's people before the resurrection of the just.
It describes the desolation of the earth during the millennium. After the second advent of Christ all wicked men are destroyed and the righteous dead are raised and the living righteous are changed to immortality. The immortal subjects of the kingdom then ascend with Christ to the eternal city and reign with Him in the judgment of the wicked for a thousand years. During that thousand years the earth lies desolate.