Jeremiah Chapter 31 — The Promise of a New Covenant

¹“At that time,” says the LORD, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be my people.”

²The LORD says, “The people who survive the sword found favor in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest.”

³The LORD appeared of old to me, saying,

⁴I will build you again,

⁵Again you will plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria.

⁶For there will be a day that the watchmen on the hills of Ephraim cry,

⁷For the LORD says,

⁸Behold, I will bring them from the north country,

⁹They will come with weeping.

¹⁰“Hear the LORD’s word, you nations,

¹¹For the LORD has ransomed Jacob,

¹²They will come and sing in the height of Zion,

¹³Then the virgin will rejoice in the dance,

¹⁴I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness,

¹⁵The LORD says:

¹⁶The LORD says:

¹⁷There is hope for your latter end,” says the LORD.

¹⁸“I have surely heard Ephraim grieving thus,

¹⁹Surely after that I was turned.

²⁰Is Ephraim my dear son?

²¹“Set up road signs.

²²How long will you go here and there,

²³The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Yet again they will use this speech in the land of Judah and in its cities, when I reverse their captivity: ‘The LORD bless you, habitation of righteousness, mountain of holiness.’

²⁴Judah and all its cities will dwell therein together, the farmers, and those who go about with flocks.

²⁵For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.”

²⁶On this I awakened, and saw; and my sleep was sweet to me.

²⁷“Behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of animal.

²⁸It will happen that, like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down and to overthrow and to destroy and to afflict, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” says the LORD.

²⁹“In those days they will say no more,

³⁰But everyone will die for his own iniquity. Every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge.

³¹“Behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah,

³²not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which covenant of mine they broke, although I was a husband to them,” says the LORD.

³³“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says the LORD:

³⁴They will no longer each teach his neighbor,

³⁵The LORD, who gives the sun for a light by day,

³⁶“If these ordinances depart from before me,” says the LORD,

³⁷The LORD says: “If heaven above can be measured,

³⁸“Behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that the city will be built to the LORD from the tower of Hananel to the gate of the corner.

³⁹The measuring line will go out further straight onward to the hill Gareb, and will turn toward Goah.

⁴⁰The whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes, and all the fields to the brook Kidron, to the corner of the horse gate toward the east, will be holy to the LORD. It will not be plucked up or thrown down any more forever.”