What does Jeremiah 29:11 mean?

The setting matters

Jeremiah wrote this as a letter to people who had been forced from their homes to Babylon. False prophets were telling them they would be home in two years. Jeremiah told them the opposite: settle in, build houses, plant gardens, pray for the city you are in, because this will take seventy years (Jeremiah 29:4-10).

So what is the promise?

That God's plans for them were for peace and not disaster, and that the hard years were not the end of the story. Many of those who first heard it would not live to see the return. The hope was bigger than their own lifetimes.

Can Christians apply it to themselves?

Many do, and the character of God it shows is the same today: he does not forget people in hard places. The honest way to hold it is as a promise that God is good and present in a long wait, rather than a promise that things will go our way soon.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future., Jeremiah 29:11

This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place., Jeremiah 29:10