For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.
I know - I alone, not the false prophets, who know nothing of my purposes, though they pretend to know.
The thoughts that I think - (Isaiah 55:9). Glancing at the Jews, who had no "thoughts of peace," but only of "evil" (misfortune), because they could not conceive how deliverance could come to them. The moral malady of man is two-fold, at one time vain confidence, then, when that is disappointed, despair. So the Jews first laughed at God's threats, confident that they should speedily return; then, when cast down from that confidence, they sank in inconsolable despondency.
Expected end - literally, an end and an expectation; i:e., an end, and that such an end as you wish for. Two nouns joined by and standing for a noun and adjective. So Jeremiah 36:27, "the roll and the words," - i:e., the roll of words; Genesis 3:16, "sorrow and conception," - i:e., sorrow in conception. Compare Proverbs 23:18, where, as here, end means a happy issue.