Jeremiah 31 · WEB

The New Covenant

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"At that time," says Yahweh, "I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be my people."

²Yahweh says, "The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest."

³Yahweh appeared of old to me, saying, "Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore I have drawn you with loving kindness.

⁴I will build you again, and you will be built, O virgin of Israel. You will again be adorned with your tambourines, and will go out in the dances of those who make merry.

⁵Again you will plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria. The planters will plant, and will enjoy its fruit.

⁶For there will be a day that the watchmen on the hills of Ephraim cry, 'Arise! Let's go up to Zion, to Yahweh our God.'"

⁷For Yahweh says, "Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout for the chief of the nations. Publish, praise, and say, 'Yahweh, save your people, the remnant of Israel!'

⁸Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth, along with the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her who travails with child together. They will return here in a great company.

⁹They will come with weeping. I will lead them with petitions. I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters, in a straight way in which they won't stumble; for I am a father to Israel. Ephraim is my firstborn.

¹⁰"Hear Yahweh's word, you nations, and declare it in the distant islands. Say, 'He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd keeps his flock.'

¹¹For Yahweh has ransomed Jacob, and redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he.

¹²They will come and sing in the height of Zion, and will flow to the goodness of Yahweh, to the grain, to the new wine, to the oil, and to the young of the flock and of the herd. Their soul will be as a watered garden. They will not sorrow any more at all.

¹³"Then the virgin will rejoice in the dance; the young men and the old together; for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow.

¹⁴I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people will be satisfied with my goodness," says Yahweh.

¹⁵Yahweh says: "A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more."

¹⁶Yahweh says: "Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work will be rewarded," says Yahweh. "They will come again from the land of the enemy.

¹⁷There is hope for your future," says Yahweh. "Your children will come again to their own border.

¹⁸"I have surely heard Ephraim grieving, 'You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as an untrained calf. Turn me, and I will be turned; for you are Yahweh my God.

¹⁹Surely after that I was turned. I repented. After that I was instructed. I struck my thigh. I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I bore the reproach of my youth.'

²⁰"Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I still earnestly remember him. Therefore my heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him," says Yahweh.

²¹"Set up road signs. Make guideposts. Set your heart toward the highway, even the way by which you went. Turn again, virgin of Israel. Turn again to these your cities.

²²How long will you go here and there, you backsliding daughter? For Yahweh has created a new thing in the earth: a woman will encompass a man."

²³Yahweh 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: 'Yahweh 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 Yahweh, "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 Yahweh.

²⁹"In those days they will say no more, 'The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.'

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 Yahweh, "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 Yahweh.

³³"But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days," says Yahweh: "I will put my law in their inward parts, and I will write it in their heart. I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

³⁴They will no longer each teach his neighbor and each teach his brother, saying, 'Know Yahweh;' for they will all know me, from their least to their greatest," says Yahweh, "for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."

³⁵Yahweh, who gives the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar — Yahweh of Armies is his name — says,

³⁶"If these ordinances depart from before me," says Yahweh, "then the offspring of Israel also will cease from being a nation before me forever."

³⁷Yahweh says: "If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done," says Yahweh.

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

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 Yahweh. It will not be plucked up or thrown down any more forever."

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Summary

Jeremiah 31 is the theological summit of the entire book and one of the most important chapters in the Bible. It opens with songs of restoration — tambourines, dancing, vineyards on Samaria's hills, and Ephraim's pilgrimage to Zion. Rachel weeps for her lost children, but God tells her to stop weeping because they are coming home. God's heart yearns for Ephraim like a father who cannot stop loving his wayward son. Then comes the chapter's — and arguably the Old Testament's — climactic revelation: the new covenant. Unlike the Sinai covenant written on stone tablets, this covenant will be written on human hearts. God's law will become internal, every person will know God directly, and sin will be forgiven and forgotten forever. The chapter closes with God staking his promise on the permanence of the sun, moon, and stars — as long as they exist, Israel will exist.

Themes

Everlasting love — God's covenant faithfulness that outlasts Israel's unfaithfulness
The new covenant — internal law, universal knowledge of God, permanent forgiveness
Rachel's weeping and consolation — grief that leads to hope, not despair
God as yearning father — the emotional depth of divine love for wayward children
Cosmic permanence — God's promises are as sure as the laws of nature

Key verses

Jer 31:15 — “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children.”
Jer 31:3 — “I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore I have drawn you with loving kindness.”
Jer 31:31-33 — “I will make a new covenant... I will put my law in their inward parts, and I will write it in their heart.”
Jer 31:34 — “They will all know me, from their least to their greatest, for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Context & background

This chapter addresses both the northern kingdom (Ephraim/Israel, destroyed by Assyria in 722 BC, whose people were scattered across the Assyrian empire — modern northern Iraq/Syria) and the southern kingdom (Judah, facing Babylonian destruction). Ramah (v. 15, modern er-Ram, about 5 miles north of Jerusalem in the West Bank, Palestine) was both the traditional site of Rachel's tomb and a staging area where Babylonian forces gathered captives for deportation. Rachel, the matriarch, represents the mothers of the northern tribes (Ephraim and Manasseh were her grandsons through Joseph). Matthew 2:17-18 applies this verse to Herod's massacre of infants in Bethlehem. The new covenant passage (vv. 31-34) is the longest Old Testament text quoted in the New Testament (Hebrews 8:8-12). The old covenant was the Sinai/Moses covenant — external law on stone tablets that Israel repeatedly broke. The new covenant's revolutionary features are: (1) internalized law, (2) universal direct knowledge of God, and (3) complete forgiveness. The geographic details in verses 38-40 trace Jerusalem's (modern Jerusalem, Israel) expanded boundaries, including the Valley of Hinnom where child sacrifice occurred — even that defiled place will become holy.

Cross-references

Exodus 24:3-8 — The Sinai covenant ratification that the new covenant replaces
Ezekiel 36:26-27 — "A new heart... a new spirit... I will put my Spirit in you" — the parallel new-covenant promise
Hebrews 8:8-12 — The full quotation of the new covenant passage, applied to Christ's work
Luke 22:20 — "This cup is the new covenant in my blood" — Jesus at the Last Supper claiming to inaugurate this covenant
Matthew 2:17-18 — Rachel weeping applied to the massacre of the innocents in Bethlehem

The New Covenant

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