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“Like the Days of a Tree”

OVER three thousand years ago, Moses wrote: “The days of our years are seventy years; and if because of special mightiness they are eighty years, yet their insistence is on trouble and hurtful things.”​—Psalm 90:10.

Despite medical advances, man’s life span is still the same as it was in Moses’ day. Nevertheless, humans will not always be condemned to such a fleeting existence. In the Bible book of Isaiah, God said: “Like the days of a tree will the days of my people be; and the work of their own hands my chosen ones will use to the full.”​—Isaiah 65:22.

One of the longest-living trees in Bible lands is the olive tree. The tree pictured here is one of many thousand-year-old olive trees that still thrive in Galilee. When will humans get to live so long? The same prophecy explains that it will be when God creates “new heavens and a new earth.”​—Isaiah 65:17.

The book of Revelation also prophesies the establishment of “a new heaven and a new earth”​—a new heavenly government and a new human society when God “will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore.”​—Revelation 21:1, 4.

This divine promise will soon be fulfilled. Then, even the days of an olive tree will seem like a mere 24-hour day. And we will have ample time to enjoy to the full the work of our hands.